The Interim
By Rory Leishman
In a 19th century classic, the eminent philosopher John Stuart Mill admonished parents not to hand over the education of their children to the state. He warned: “A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another: and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, a priesthood, an aristocracy, or the majority of the existing generation, in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by natural tendency to one over the body.”
Consider, in this respect, the ominous decision of the British Columbia Education Ministry to introduce a radical new course on “social justice” for Grade 12 students in the public schools. Among the legally prescribed “learning outcomes” for the course is the requirement that all students must “describe social injustice based on characteristics including … marital and family status, religion and faith, sex [and] sexual orientation.”
In particular, the ministry’s guidelines suggest that teachers require their students to “analyse specific historical and contemporary examples of injustice in Canada” in relation to such matters as “reproduction rights” for women as well as “marriage, adoption [and] spousal rights” for “people who are LGBT” – that is to say, lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered. There is even the suggestion that teachers assign their students to “describe limitations on the scope of human rights legislation” in relation to “gender” and “sex-trade workers.”
Imagine that: Perhaps some Grade 12 student in British Columbia will get an “A” this year for a homework paper urging the Supreme Court of Canada to write equality rights for prostitutes and cross-dressing homosexuals into section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Parents all across Canada should beware: Given the steadily deteriorating moral standards throughout our country, a course of twisted propaganda that begins as an option for Grade 12 students in British Columbia could soon end up as compulsory in all public schools.
Not even the publicly funded Catholic schools of Ontario are immune to the moral degradation prevalent in the secular public schools. How otherwise can one explain the decision of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association to have Michelle Landsberg, the former columnist for The Toronto Star and shameless advocate of abortion on demand and same-sex marriage, serve as the keynote speaker at the union’s annual meeting in August?
In every province of Canada, all teachers and principals employed in the public schools, both secular and Catholic, must belong to an authorized teachers’ union. It’s the leaders of these unions together with like-minded ideologues in the provincial education ministries who set the moral tone for the public schools.
To an ever increasing extent, the state is also imposing its prescribed curricula on independent schools. For example, last year, the Quebec Ministry of Education warned independent Christian schools that they must provide their students with a government-approved course in sex education. Meanwhile, during the current election campaign in Ontario, Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory is promising to extend funding to independent faith-based schools if they agree to “teach the Ontario curriculum.”
The whole point of an independent school is to teach the curriculum preferred by the parents for their children. The state should not interfere in this process unless there is reason to believe that the school is depriving its students of basic skills in reading, writing and arithmetic or serving as a breeding ground for terrorists.
As it is, we Canadians have ignored Mill’s warning about the perils of a general state education. We have allowed most of our schools to come under the control of government bureaucrats and union bosses who exercise a despotism of the mind over the children in their care.
And as Mill predicted, that despotism of the mind is naturally leading to a despotism of the body. Sooner or later, some stalwart Christian in Canada who insists that sexual intercourse should be confined within marriage between a man and a woman will be convicted and fined by a human rights tribunal and, ultimately, jailed by the appellate courts for steadfastly defying the orthodoxy of gay rights as inculcated in our state-run schools.
Monday, October 01, 2007
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Medical drama with a message
Mercatornet
By Rory Leishman
Amid the vast wasteland of contemporary television, one of the few features that bears watching is House, a weekly medical drama originating with the Fox Television Network. The series stands out for the intelligence of the scripts, the brilliance of the actors, and, most remarkable of all, occasional flashes of genuine moral insight.
Until House became a popular hit, the star of the show, Hugh Laurie, was best known for his portrayal of Bertie Wooster in television adaptations of P.G. Wodehouse’s hilarious Jeeves and Wooster novels. In House, Laurie plays Dr Gregory House, a brilliant and cynical medical diagnostician modelled on Sherlock Holmes, who presides over a team of young medical residents at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey. In each episode, House and his colleagues are presented with a patient whose symptoms have baffled other medical experts. The plots are intricate and intriguing. And the scripts have been commended by medical experts for their accurate portrayal of diagnostic dilemmas.
Correspondingly, the sordid private lives and moral outlooks of the physicians depicted in the series are all too plausible. In one episode, we learn that two of House’s young residents, Dr Allison Cameron and Dr Robert Chase, have taken part in some recreational sex. There is, of course, nothing unusual about such occurrences on television. What’s different about House is that in this instance, as so often in life, the indulgence in casual sex has painful consequences. Chase falls in unrequited love with Cameron. For weeks thereafter, he is a miserable and forlorn lover, while she is annoyed by his discrete but persistent invitations for another date.
The most arresting episode in the House series, entitled "Fetal Position", was first broadcast on April 3. In this case, the patient, Emma Sloan, is a pregnant woman and a famous celebrity photographer. While on a photo shoot, she suffers a stroke. After extensive investigation and several false leads, House and his team conclude that Emma is suffering from a rare condition, Maternal Mirror Syndrome, which designates an illness in the mother that is caused by an abnormality in the foetus. After having established that some undiagnosed problem with the foetus is causing Emma’s liver to fail, House advises her that the only way to save her life is to terminate the pregnancy.
Emma rejects this advice. She is single, 42 years old and childless. Having had several miscarriages and gone through the rigours of in vitro fertilisation, she fears that she might never again have another chance to give birth. Now in the 21st week of pregnancy, she urges House to find some way to keep her and the baby alive for at least another two weeks so the baby can reach the point of viability outside the womb. In exasperation, House warns Emma that she has only two days to live. Still, Emma resolutely refuses to consider an abortion.
In the face of this impasse, Dr Lisa Cuddy, House’s boss, takes over the case. As a single woman who has also been trying to conceive a child, Cuddy empathises with Emma. After further investigation, Cuddy recommends exploratory surgery on the baby in the womb despite the risk that Emma, in her fragile medical condition, might not survive the operation. Nonetheless, Emma readily agrees to the surgery and Cuddy persuades House to perform the dangerous operation. In the middle of the procedure, Emma suffers a serious heart attack. With House poised to cut the umbilical cord with surgical scissors, a measure that is sure to kill the baby and might save the mother, Cuddy quickly intervenes, grabs a defibrillator, warns House to step aside or be electrocuted, and tries to shock Emma’s heart back into a normal rhythm. Emma’s heart responds to the treatment and House continues with the operation.
Then, in one of the most dramatic scenes in contemporary television, the baby reaches a tiny hand up through the open womb and grasps House by the finger. House is momentarily stunned. He continues the operation, finds lesions in the baby’s lungs and removes them. The result is a happy ending: Emma and her baby live. And in the final scene, House, the arch-cynic and proponent of abortion, is depicted later that evening sitting at home in the privacy of his den, staring meditatively at his finger.
This episode in House is based on an actual incident that occurred in 1999 at the Vanderbilt Medical Centre in Nashville, Tennessee -- one of the leading teaching hospitals and medical research centres in the United States. The patient in this case was Samuel Armas, a 21-week-old baby undergoing corrective surgery for spinal bifida. In a famous photograph taken for USA Today, the tiny hand of Baby Samuel is seen reaching out of the womb and grasping a finger of one of the surgeons.
In mimicking this event, as in so many other ways, House reflects contemporary reality. With a content rating in the United States of TV-14 (suitable for older children), the series is one of the most popular television dramas in North America. While hardened cynics and amoral liberals find a soul-mate in House, others cherish the show as a rare example of intelligent television that occasionally dares to explore the continuing relevance of the universal moral truths revealed in Sacred Scripture and affirmed by reason.
Rory Leishman is a freelance journalist in Canada. He is the author of Against Judicial Activism: The Decline of Freedom and Democracy in Canada (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006).
By Rory Leishman
Amid the vast wasteland of contemporary television, one of the few features that bears watching is House, a weekly medical drama originating with the Fox Television Network. The series stands out for the intelligence of the scripts, the brilliance of the actors, and, most remarkable of all, occasional flashes of genuine moral insight.
Until House became a popular hit, the star of the show, Hugh Laurie, was best known for his portrayal of Bertie Wooster in television adaptations of P.G. Wodehouse’s hilarious Jeeves and Wooster novels. In House, Laurie plays Dr Gregory House, a brilliant and cynical medical diagnostician modelled on Sherlock Holmes, who presides over a team of young medical residents at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey. In each episode, House and his colleagues are presented with a patient whose symptoms have baffled other medical experts. The plots are intricate and intriguing. And the scripts have been commended by medical experts for their accurate portrayal of diagnostic dilemmas.
Correspondingly, the sordid private lives and moral outlooks of the physicians depicted in the series are all too plausible. In one episode, we learn that two of House’s young residents, Dr Allison Cameron and Dr Robert Chase, have taken part in some recreational sex. There is, of course, nothing unusual about such occurrences on television. What’s different about House is that in this instance, as so often in life, the indulgence in casual sex has painful consequences. Chase falls in unrequited love with Cameron. For weeks thereafter, he is a miserable and forlorn lover, while she is annoyed by his discrete but persistent invitations for another date.
The most arresting episode in the House series, entitled "Fetal Position", was first broadcast on April 3. In this case, the patient, Emma Sloan, is a pregnant woman and a famous celebrity photographer. While on a photo shoot, she suffers a stroke. After extensive investigation and several false leads, House and his team conclude that Emma is suffering from a rare condition, Maternal Mirror Syndrome, which designates an illness in the mother that is caused by an abnormality in the foetus. After having established that some undiagnosed problem with the foetus is causing Emma’s liver to fail, House advises her that the only way to save her life is to terminate the pregnancy.
Emma rejects this advice. She is single, 42 years old and childless. Having had several miscarriages and gone through the rigours of in vitro fertilisation, she fears that she might never again have another chance to give birth. Now in the 21st week of pregnancy, she urges House to find some way to keep her and the baby alive for at least another two weeks so the baby can reach the point of viability outside the womb. In exasperation, House warns Emma that she has only two days to live. Still, Emma resolutely refuses to consider an abortion.
In the face of this impasse, Dr Lisa Cuddy, House’s boss, takes over the case. As a single woman who has also been trying to conceive a child, Cuddy empathises with Emma. After further investigation, Cuddy recommends exploratory surgery on the baby in the womb despite the risk that Emma, in her fragile medical condition, might not survive the operation. Nonetheless, Emma readily agrees to the surgery and Cuddy persuades House to perform the dangerous operation. In the middle of the procedure, Emma suffers a serious heart attack. With House poised to cut the umbilical cord with surgical scissors, a measure that is sure to kill the baby and might save the mother, Cuddy quickly intervenes, grabs a defibrillator, warns House to step aside or be electrocuted, and tries to shock Emma’s heart back into a normal rhythm. Emma’s heart responds to the treatment and House continues with the operation.
Then, in one of the most dramatic scenes in contemporary television, the baby reaches a tiny hand up through the open womb and grasps House by the finger. House is momentarily stunned. He continues the operation, finds lesions in the baby’s lungs and removes them. The result is a happy ending: Emma and her baby live. And in the final scene, House, the arch-cynic and proponent of abortion, is depicted later that evening sitting at home in the privacy of his den, staring meditatively at his finger.
This episode in House is based on an actual incident that occurred in 1999 at the Vanderbilt Medical Centre in Nashville, Tennessee -- one of the leading teaching hospitals and medical research centres in the United States. The patient in this case was Samuel Armas, a 21-week-old baby undergoing corrective surgery for spinal bifida. In a famous photograph taken for USA Today, the tiny hand of Baby Samuel is seen reaching out of the womb and grasping a finger of one of the surgeons.
In mimicking this event, as in so many other ways, House reflects contemporary reality. With a content rating in the United States of TV-14 (suitable for older children), the series is one of the most popular television dramas in North America. While hardened cynics and amoral liberals find a soul-mate in House, others cherish the show as a rare example of intelligent television that occasionally dares to explore the continuing relevance of the universal moral truths revealed in Sacred Scripture and affirmed by reason.
Rory Leishman is a freelance journalist in Canada. He is the author of Against Judicial Activism: The Decline of Freedom and Democracy in Canada (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006).
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Ontario's mediocre public schools
The London Free Press
By Rory Leishman
The Ontario Liberal Party proclaims in its official policy platform for 2007 that: “Education is our top priority.” More specifically, the Liberals pledge: “We will complete our drive to have 75 per cent of kids meet the provincial standard in reading, writing and math.”
Voters are entitled to regard this Liberal commitment with considerable scepticism. During the 2003 provincial election campaign, the Ontario Liberal Party likewise promised: “Our Excellence for All plan guarantees that within our first mandate, 75 per cent of our students meet or exceed the provincial standard on province-wide tests.”
What, though, do we find? At the end of the Liberals’ first mandate, the province’s Education Quality and Accountability Office reports that only 64 per cent of Grade 6 students passed the provincial standard for reading during the past two years, while in mathematics, only 59 per cent passed this year, down from 61 per cent last year.
However, rather than apologize for this lamentable failure to achieve the Liberals’ supposedly guaranteed 75-per-cent pass rate, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty emphasizes that the province’s elementary students are now achieving higher test scores in reading, writing and math than under the previous Progressive Conservative government. In response, Ontario Progressive Conservative leader John Tory points out: “The McGuinty government has been quietly lowering education standards to make the standardized test scores look better.”
Nonetheless, on one point in the educational debate, Tory and McGuinty are agreed: In Tory’s words: “Ontario’s public school system is one of the best in the world.”
This contention is altogether wrong. Ontario public schools are not even the best in Canada. Over the past 25 years, students in Ontario schools have almost always done less well on standard tests of academic achievement than students in Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec.
Why is that? Lack of funding is not the problem. Ontario spends approximately the same amount per student as Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec.
Likewise, Ontario parents cannot be faulted. They rank among the best educated in the entire country.
In one respect, the Ontario education system stands out from its counterparts in Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec: namely, in lack of competition. This difference is crucial. In a study of school choice in Canada, the Society for Quality Education notes: “The high-performing provinces – Alberta, BC, and Quebec – have the most school choice … Unless defenders of the status quo in Ontario can refute decades of test results or prove that the children in some other provinces are intrinsically more intelligent than Ontario students, we must conclude that Ontario’s public schools are not teaching students as effectively as the schools in the provinces with more school choice.”
Regardless, the McGuinty Liberals are committed to maintaining the educational status quo. They adamantly oppose any increase in school choice for Ontario parents.
In contrast, the Progressive Conservatives promise to extend public funding to faith-based independent schools. Such a half-measure is insufficient. The government should offer all parents educational vouchers equivalent to the average cost per student in the publicly funded schools.
Some critics oppose educational vouchers on the ground that they could be used to finance schools run by apologists for Islamist radicals, Tamil terrorists and other extremists. But to deal with this threat, it is not necessary to deprive all parents of the right to school choice. Rather, the government should specifically shut down all subversive, hate-mongering schools and associated houses of worship, whether publicly or privately funded.
McGuinty defames the great majority of independent schools in Ontario, by charging them with undermining the province’s “social cohesion.” And in taking this stance, he boasts: “Teachers’ organizations support us.”
That’s hardly surprising. Thanks to the existing funding formula, the province’s strike-prone teachers’ unions have such a stranglehold over the publicly funded schools that they were able to extort a hugely expensive, four-year contract out of the McGuinty Liberal government that includes wage hikes of almost 10 per cent.
Ontario parents have no reason to share the unions’ enthusiasm. As the Society for Quality Education contends, the determination of the Liberals and New Democrats to oppose any initiative to increase school choice and school competition is bound to assure the continuing inferiority of the quality of education in Ontario schools.
By Rory Leishman
The Ontario Liberal Party proclaims in its official policy platform for 2007 that: “Education is our top priority.” More specifically, the Liberals pledge: “We will complete our drive to have 75 per cent of kids meet the provincial standard in reading, writing and math.”
Voters are entitled to regard this Liberal commitment with considerable scepticism. During the 2003 provincial election campaign, the Ontario Liberal Party likewise promised: “Our Excellence for All plan guarantees that within our first mandate, 75 per cent of our students meet or exceed the provincial standard on province-wide tests.”
What, though, do we find? At the end of the Liberals’ first mandate, the province’s Education Quality and Accountability Office reports that only 64 per cent of Grade 6 students passed the provincial standard for reading during the past two years, while in mathematics, only 59 per cent passed this year, down from 61 per cent last year.
However, rather than apologize for this lamentable failure to achieve the Liberals’ supposedly guaranteed 75-per-cent pass rate, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty emphasizes that the province’s elementary students are now achieving higher test scores in reading, writing and math than under the previous Progressive Conservative government. In response, Ontario Progressive Conservative leader John Tory points out: “The McGuinty government has been quietly lowering education standards to make the standardized test scores look better.”
Nonetheless, on one point in the educational debate, Tory and McGuinty are agreed: In Tory’s words: “Ontario’s public school system is one of the best in the world.”
This contention is altogether wrong. Ontario public schools are not even the best in Canada. Over the past 25 years, students in Ontario schools have almost always done less well on standard tests of academic achievement than students in Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec.
Why is that? Lack of funding is not the problem. Ontario spends approximately the same amount per student as Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec.
Likewise, Ontario parents cannot be faulted. They rank among the best educated in the entire country.
In one respect, the Ontario education system stands out from its counterparts in Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec: namely, in lack of competition. This difference is crucial. In a study of school choice in Canada, the Society for Quality Education notes: “The high-performing provinces – Alberta, BC, and Quebec – have the most school choice … Unless defenders of the status quo in Ontario can refute decades of test results or prove that the children in some other provinces are intrinsically more intelligent than Ontario students, we must conclude that Ontario’s public schools are not teaching students as effectively as the schools in the provinces with more school choice.”
Regardless, the McGuinty Liberals are committed to maintaining the educational status quo. They adamantly oppose any increase in school choice for Ontario parents.
In contrast, the Progressive Conservatives promise to extend public funding to faith-based independent schools. Such a half-measure is insufficient. The government should offer all parents educational vouchers equivalent to the average cost per student in the publicly funded schools.
Some critics oppose educational vouchers on the ground that they could be used to finance schools run by apologists for Islamist radicals, Tamil terrorists and other extremists. But to deal with this threat, it is not necessary to deprive all parents of the right to school choice. Rather, the government should specifically shut down all subversive, hate-mongering schools and associated houses of worship, whether publicly or privately funded.
McGuinty defames the great majority of independent schools in Ontario, by charging them with undermining the province’s “social cohesion.” And in taking this stance, he boasts: “Teachers’ organizations support us.”
That’s hardly surprising. Thanks to the existing funding formula, the province’s strike-prone teachers’ unions have such a stranglehold over the publicly funded schools that they were able to extort a hugely expensive, four-year contract out of the McGuinty Liberal government that includes wage hikes of almost 10 per cent.
Ontario parents have no reason to share the unions’ enthusiasm. As the Society for Quality Education contends, the determination of the Liberals and New Democrats to oppose any initiative to increase school choice and school competition is bound to assure the continuing inferiority of the quality of education in Ontario schools.
Saturday, September 01, 2007
From same-sex marriage to polygamy
The Interim
By Rory Leishman
Time and again, the proponents of traditional marriage and the natural family warned that changing the legal definition of marriage to accommodate same-sex couples could also lead to the legalization of polygamy. Former Liberal Justice Minister Irwin Cotler disagreed. He insisted that “the practice of polygamy, bigamy and incest are criminal offences in Canada and will continue to be.”
Alas, Cotler’s assurance was worthless, and he knew it. As a former law professor, he understands full well that over the past 20 years, Parliament has abjectly surrendered supreme legislative authority over controversial moral issues such as the legalization of polygamy to the courts.
Neither Cotler nor anyone else can foresee with certainty how the Supreme Court of Canada will deal with polygamy, because most of the judges on that Court have become a law onto themselves: They have no regard either for valid legal enactments or the court’s own precedents.
Richard Peck, a special prosecutor in British Columbia, has underlined the severity of the problem. In a report based on his investigation of allegations of misconduct against members of a Mormon sect in the community of Bountiful in southeastern British Columbia who practise polygamy as an article of religious belief, he has recommended that the provincial government should ask the courts for an advisory opinion on the current law on polygamy in Canada.
Peck wrote: "The legality of polygamy in Canada has for too long been characterized by uncertainty. The integrity of the legal system suffers from such an impasse.”
Peck is surely right. And the fault lies not with any ambiguity in statute law: Section 293 of the Criminal Code plainly states: “Every one who practises … any form of polygamy … is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years.”
In an earlier study funded by federal taxpayers and submitted to Cotler, three trendy law professors at Queen’s University took the view that the Supreme Court of Canada would, and should, strike down the legal ban on consensual polygamy as an unjustifiable infringement of the guarantee of freedom of conscience and religion in section 2 of the Charter. In contrast, Peck argues: “There is a substantial body of scholarship supporting the position that polygamy is socially harmful. With great respect to those who have given opinions to the contrary, I believe that s. 293 may well be upheld by the courts as consistent with the Charter’s commitment to religious freedom.”
As for B.C. Attorney-General Wally Oppal, he opposes the legalization of polygamy. "My disagreement is based on the fact that I don't think Canadians would condone polygamy,” he said. “I think Canadians would find it abhorrent."
Perhaps so, but the judicial activists on the Supreme Court of Canada have no more regard for public opinion than for established law. Regardless of what the great majority of Canadians might prefer, these arrogant judges are all too likely to strike down the ban on polygamy in Canadian law.
In that event, would Oppal call upon Parliament to invoke the notwithstanding clause of the Constitution as a means of reinstating the legal ban on polygamy over the objections of the Court? Not likely. And the same goes for Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the leaders of every other major federal and provincial party in Canada.
After the Supreme Court of Canada arbitrarily decided in M. v. H., 1999 SCC, to strike down the denial of spousal benefits to same-sex couples under the Ontario Family Law Act, the Ontario Legislature promptly capitulated. Instead of standing up to the Court, Conservatives, Liberals and New Democrats all colluded in rushing an omnibus bill through the Legislature that conferred spousal benefits upon same-sex couples under not only the Ontario Family Law Act, but some sixty-six other Ontario statutes.
In recent years, judicial activists have imposed everything from abortion on demand to the legalization of the vilest pornography. Voters who oppose these and other immoral judicial enactments, and who wish to revive genuine democracy and the rule of law in Canada, should resolve that from now on, they will only support a candidate, federal or provincial, who can be counted upon to oppose the judicial usurpation of legislative powers.
By Rory Leishman
Time and again, the proponents of traditional marriage and the natural family warned that changing the legal definition of marriage to accommodate same-sex couples could also lead to the legalization of polygamy. Former Liberal Justice Minister Irwin Cotler disagreed. He insisted that “the practice of polygamy, bigamy and incest are criminal offences in Canada and will continue to be.”
Alas, Cotler’s assurance was worthless, and he knew it. As a former law professor, he understands full well that over the past 20 years, Parliament has abjectly surrendered supreme legislative authority over controversial moral issues such as the legalization of polygamy to the courts.
Neither Cotler nor anyone else can foresee with certainty how the Supreme Court of Canada will deal with polygamy, because most of the judges on that Court have become a law onto themselves: They have no regard either for valid legal enactments or the court’s own precedents.
Richard Peck, a special prosecutor in British Columbia, has underlined the severity of the problem. In a report based on his investigation of allegations of misconduct against members of a Mormon sect in the community of Bountiful in southeastern British Columbia who practise polygamy as an article of religious belief, he has recommended that the provincial government should ask the courts for an advisory opinion on the current law on polygamy in Canada.
Peck wrote: "The legality of polygamy in Canada has for too long been characterized by uncertainty. The integrity of the legal system suffers from such an impasse.”
Peck is surely right. And the fault lies not with any ambiguity in statute law: Section 293 of the Criminal Code plainly states: “Every one who practises … any form of polygamy … is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years.”
In an earlier study funded by federal taxpayers and submitted to Cotler, three trendy law professors at Queen’s University took the view that the Supreme Court of Canada would, and should, strike down the legal ban on consensual polygamy as an unjustifiable infringement of the guarantee of freedom of conscience and religion in section 2 of the Charter. In contrast, Peck argues: “There is a substantial body of scholarship supporting the position that polygamy is socially harmful. With great respect to those who have given opinions to the contrary, I believe that s. 293 may well be upheld by the courts as consistent with the Charter’s commitment to religious freedom.”
As for B.C. Attorney-General Wally Oppal, he opposes the legalization of polygamy. "My disagreement is based on the fact that I don't think Canadians would condone polygamy,” he said. “I think Canadians would find it abhorrent."
Perhaps so, but the judicial activists on the Supreme Court of Canada have no more regard for public opinion than for established law. Regardless of what the great majority of Canadians might prefer, these arrogant judges are all too likely to strike down the ban on polygamy in Canadian law.
In that event, would Oppal call upon Parliament to invoke the notwithstanding clause of the Constitution as a means of reinstating the legal ban on polygamy over the objections of the Court? Not likely. And the same goes for Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the leaders of every other major federal and provincial party in Canada.
After the Supreme Court of Canada arbitrarily decided in M. v. H., 1999 SCC, to strike down the denial of spousal benefits to same-sex couples under the Ontario Family Law Act, the Ontario Legislature promptly capitulated. Instead of standing up to the Court, Conservatives, Liberals and New Democrats all colluded in rushing an omnibus bill through the Legislature that conferred spousal benefits upon same-sex couples under not only the Ontario Family Law Act, but some sixty-six other Ontario statutes.
In recent years, judicial activists have imposed everything from abortion on demand to the legalization of the vilest pornography. Voters who oppose these and other immoral judicial enactments, and who wish to revive genuine democracy and the rule of law in Canada, should resolve that from now on, they will only support a candidate, federal or provincial, who can be counted upon to oppose the judicial usurpation of legislative powers.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Customs union the solution for border delays
The London Free Press
By Rory Leishman
The Pont de l’Europe linking Strasbourg, France, and Kehl, Germany, used to straddle one of the most heavily fortified borders in the world. Today, cars and trucks whiz across the bridge without stopping: There are no border guards, no customs officials and no immigration officers to impede the free flow of goods and people between France and Germany.
Consider, in contrast, the supposedly longest undefended, border in the world between Canada and the United States. Thanks to tight border security, cars and trucks attempting to cross any of the major border points between these two countries routinely experience delays of an hour or more.
In reaction to the September 11 terrorist attack, the United States immediately closed the border altogether. No traffic was allowed to enter the United States by land, sea or air. And for days after the border was reopened, intensified inspections by United States customs officials caused trucking delays of 12-to-18 hours.
The result was a severe economic blow to employers and workers on both sides of the border. On average, some $1.4 billion worth of goods, services and investment income daily crosses the Canada/United States border. More than 100 million people cross that same border every year.
In the aftermath of the September 11 attack, all cross-border traffic was severely curtailed. Some plants such as those in the automobile sector that depend on just-in-time deliveries across the border had to shut down.
At this week’s summit in Montebello, Quebec, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and President George Bush discussed plans for keeping the border open during future emergencies. Meanwhile, on the provincial level in Ontario, Transportation Minister Donna Cansfield has disclosed that by the end of this year, her department will begin issuing new, more secure driver’s licences with imbedded citizenship information. She hopes that these licences will meet the requirements of a law enacted by the United States Congress that could require everyone seeking entry into the United States to present a passport or some other secure identification document as soon as next summer.
The introduction of easier documentation, more customs inspectors and other similar measures is all to the good, but cannot eliminate the underlying problem of chronic border costs. It has been estimated that brokerage fees, duties, customs administration and waiting times for shipments across the Canada/United States border routinely cost companies at least $10 billion a year.
Allan Gotlieb, Canadian Ambassador to the United States from 1981 to 1988, has long argued that there is only one sufficient remedy: namely, the elimination of all controls on the border between Canada and the United States. In his view, cars and trucks and goods and passengers should be able to sale across the Bluewater Bridge between Canada and the United States in the same way that traffic freely moves across the Pont de L’Europe between France and Germany.
Gotlieb is not alone in taking this view. In recent studies of cross-border trade, Danielle Goldfarb and William B. P. Robson of the C. D. Howe Institute and Alexander Moens of the Fraser Institute have come to the same conclusion.
Of course, eliminating border controls would be no simple matter. Among other measures, Canada and the United States would first have to harmonize their external tariffs, establish mutually acceptable procedures for preventing terrorists from infiltrating their countries, and reach agreement on common food and safety standards.
To the dismay of our more strident Canadian nationalists, some of these issues were discussed at the Montebello summit. Prime Minister Stephen Harper was justifiably dismissive of the alleged threat to Canadian independence. He asked reporters: “Is the sovereignty of Canada going to fall apart if we standardize jelly beans?”
Instead of relying on half measures, Harper should propose an outright customs union and the eventual elimination of all border controls between Canada and the United States. With solid Canadian support, the idea should meet with a favourable reception in the White House and Congress. It stands to reason that the free and unimpeded flow of people and goods across the border between Canada and the United States would enhance the North American Free Trade Agreement which has proven hugely beneficial in boosting living standards for millions of people in both countries.
By Rory Leishman
The Pont de l’Europe linking Strasbourg, France, and Kehl, Germany, used to straddle one of the most heavily fortified borders in the world. Today, cars and trucks whiz across the bridge without stopping: There are no border guards, no customs officials and no immigration officers to impede the free flow of goods and people between France and Germany.
Consider, in contrast, the supposedly longest undefended, border in the world between Canada and the United States. Thanks to tight border security, cars and trucks attempting to cross any of the major border points between these two countries routinely experience delays of an hour or more.
In reaction to the September 11 terrorist attack, the United States immediately closed the border altogether. No traffic was allowed to enter the United States by land, sea or air. And for days after the border was reopened, intensified inspections by United States customs officials caused trucking delays of 12-to-18 hours.
The result was a severe economic blow to employers and workers on both sides of the border. On average, some $1.4 billion worth of goods, services and investment income daily crosses the Canada/United States border. More than 100 million people cross that same border every year.
In the aftermath of the September 11 attack, all cross-border traffic was severely curtailed. Some plants such as those in the automobile sector that depend on just-in-time deliveries across the border had to shut down.
At this week’s summit in Montebello, Quebec, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and President George Bush discussed plans for keeping the border open during future emergencies. Meanwhile, on the provincial level in Ontario, Transportation Minister Donna Cansfield has disclosed that by the end of this year, her department will begin issuing new, more secure driver’s licences with imbedded citizenship information. She hopes that these licences will meet the requirements of a law enacted by the United States Congress that could require everyone seeking entry into the United States to present a passport or some other secure identification document as soon as next summer.
The introduction of easier documentation, more customs inspectors and other similar measures is all to the good, but cannot eliminate the underlying problem of chronic border costs. It has been estimated that brokerage fees, duties, customs administration and waiting times for shipments across the Canada/United States border routinely cost companies at least $10 billion a year.
Allan Gotlieb, Canadian Ambassador to the United States from 1981 to 1988, has long argued that there is only one sufficient remedy: namely, the elimination of all controls on the border between Canada and the United States. In his view, cars and trucks and goods and passengers should be able to sale across the Bluewater Bridge between Canada and the United States in the same way that traffic freely moves across the Pont de L’Europe between France and Germany.
Gotlieb is not alone in taking this view. In recent studies of cross-border trade, Danielle Goldfarb and William B. P. Robson of the C. D. Howe Institute and Alexander Moens of the Fraser Institute have come to the same conclusion.
Of course, eliminating border controls would be no simple matter. Among other measures, Canada and the United States would first have to harmonize their external tariffs, establish mutually acceptable procedures for preventing terrorists from infiltrating their countries, and reach agreement on common food and safety standards.
To the dismay of our more strident Canadian nationalists, some of these issues were discussed at the Montebello summit. Prime Minister Stephen Harper was justifiably dismissive of the alleged threat to Canadian independence. He asked reporters: “Is the sovereignty of Canada going to fall apart if we standardize jelly beans?”
Instead of relying on half measures, Harper should propose an outright customs union and the eventual elimination of all border controls between Canada and the United States. With solid Canadian support, the idea should meet with a favourable reception in the White House and Congress. It stands to reason that the free and unimpeded flow of people and goods across the border between Canada and the United States would enhance the North American Free Trade Agreement which has proven hugely beneficial in boosting living standards for millions of people in both countries.
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Our philanthropic neighbours
The London Free Press
By Rory Leishman
Compared to the people of the United States, we Canadians are far more generous in supporting the poor, the sick, the needy and other worthy causes, right?
Actually, that assumption is completely false. In a recent study of generosity in Canada and the United States, the Fraser Institute found that charitable donations amount to 1.67 per cent of aggregate income in the United States as compared to just 0.72 per cent in Canada.
This is not to suggest that Canadians are unusually stingy. In Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism, Arthur C. Brooks, a professor in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, reports that the people of the United States also give more than twice as much of their income to charity as the British and Dutch, almost three times as much as the French, more than five times as much as the Germans, and more than 10 times as much as the Italians.
As in Canada, so in every country of Western Europe, the percentage of personal income donated to charity is less than half the level in the United States. Why is that? Why are the peoples of Canada and Western Europe so much less generous than the people of the United States?
One prime factor is the extraordinarily high percentage of committed Christians in the United States. In a recent survey of attitudes in the countries of Europe and North America, the Pew Research Centre found that the proportion of the population for whom religion is “very important” amounts to 59 per cent in the United States as compared to just 30 per cent in Canada, 33 per cent in Britain, 27 per cent in Italy and a mere 11 per cent in France.
Brooks has found that there is a strong and specific correlation between religious faith and support for charity. He relates that: “All across Europe, we find that religious citizens are more than twice as likely to volunteer for charities and causes as secularists.”
In the United States, religious people who say they devote “a great deal of effort” to their spiritual lives are 42 percentage points more likely to contribute to charity than secularists who have little or no religious faith. Moreover, religious Americans do not just give to their churches: They are also significantly more likely than secular Americans to donate money and time to non-religious charities such as the United Way.
Brooks has also found a strong and specific correlation between political ideology and charity. In both the United States and Europe, conservatives who believe in limited government are far more likely to make charitable contributions than are liberals who think government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality.
Note the irony: Liberals who support the governmental redistribution of income are apt to deride conservatives as selfish, yet these liberals are far less likely than conservatives to donate their own time and money to help the poor and needy. Of course, there are subsets within both groups: For example, religious liberals are a lot more generous than secular conservatives.
Many of the liberals who give little or nothing to charity attempt to justify their selfishness on the ground that government is more effective than private charity at redistributing income. Perhaps so, but at what cost? When Bob Rae’s New Democratic Party government of Ontario increased welfare benefits in the middle of a recession at the beginning of the 1990s, the predictable result was a crisis of soaring welfare dependency that demoralized thousands of workers and disrupted their families.
Brooks persuasively argues that the combination of relatively small government and high rates of charitable givings has contributed to the extraordinary economic prosperity and relatively high living standards for all income classes in the United States. And he also contends that it’s no coincidence that unlike Canada and Europe, the United States, the world’s most Christian and conservative democracy, has avoided a calamitous drop in birth rates.
Canadians might well meditate upon Brooks’s findings: Perhaps, with more religious conviction and less reliance on big government, we, too, might also become more generous, more prosperous and less reliant on massive levels of immigration to sustain the population.
By Rory Leishman
Compared to the people of the United States, we Canadians are far more generous in supporting the poor, the sick, the needy and other worthy causes, right?
Actually, that assumption is completely false. In a recent study of generosity in Canada and the United States, the Fraser Institute found that charitable donations amount to 1.67 per cent of aggregate income in the United States as compared to just 0.72 per cent in Canada.
This is not to suggest that Canadians are unusually stingy. In Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism, Arthur C. Brooks, a professor in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, reports that the people of the United States also give more than twice as much of their income to charity as the British and Dutch, almost three times as much as the French, more than five times as much as the Germans, and more than 10 times as much as the Italians.
As in Canada, so in every country of Western Europe, the percentage of personal income donated to charity is less than half the level in the United States. Why is that? Why are the peoples of Canada and Western Europe so much less generous than the people of the United States?
One prime factor is the extraordinarily high percentage of committed Christians in the United States. In a recent survey of attitudes in the countries of Europe and North America, the Pew Research Centre found that the proportion of the population for whom religion is “very important” amounts to 59 per cent in the United States as compared to just 30 per cent in Canada, 33 per cent in Britain, 27 per cent in Italy and a mere 11 per cent in France.
Brooks has found that there is a strong and specific correlation between religious faith and support for charity. He relates that: “All across Europe, we find that religious citizens are more than twice as likely to volunteer for charities and causes as secularists.”
In the United States, religious people who say they devote “a great deal of effort” to their spiritual lives are 42 percentage points more likely to contribute to charity than secularists who have little or no religious faith. Moreover, religious Americans do not just give to their churches: They are also significantly more likely than secular Americans to donate money and time to non-religious charities such as the United Way.
Brooks has also found a strong and specific correlation between political ideology and charity. In both the United States and Europe, conservatives who believe in limited government are far more likely to make charitable contributions than are liberals who think government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality.
Note the irony: Liberals who support the governmental redistribution of income are apt to deride conservatives as selfish, yet these liberals are far less likely than conservatives to donate their own time and money to help the poor and needy. Of course, there are subsets within both groups: For example, religious liberals are a lot more generous than secular conservatives.
Many of the liberals who give little or nothing to charity attempt to justify their selfishness on the ground that government is more effective than private charity at redistributing income. Perhaps so, but at what cost? When Bob Rae’s New Democratic Party government of Ontario increased welfare benefits in the middle of a recession at the beginning of the 1990s, the predictable result was a crisis of soaring welfare dependency that demoralized thousands of workers and disrupted their families.
Brooks persuasively argues that the combination of relatively small government and high rates of charitable givings has contributed to the extraordinary economic prosperity and relatively high living standards for all income classes in the United States. And he also contends that it’s no coincidence that unlike Canada and Europe, the United States, the world’s most Christian and conservative democracy, has avoided a calamitous drop in birth rates.
Canadians might well meditate upon Brooks’s findings: Perhaps, with more religious conviction and less reliance on big government, we, too, might also become more generous, more prosperous and less reliant on massive levels of immigration to sustain the population.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Recipients disgrace the Order of Canada
The Interim
By Rory Leishman
Governor General Michaelle Jean outraged many Canadians on June 29, by announcing the appointment of the Rev. Dr. Brent Hawkes to the Order of Canada. Hawkes is not only the longstanding pastor of Toronto’s Metropolitan Community Church but also one of the foremost gay activists in Canada and a leading proponent of same-sex marriage.
Several critics of the appointment directed their ire at Prime Minister Stephen Harper. That was a mistake. In making appointments to the Order of Canada, the Governor General must act upon the recommendations of an independent advisory council headed by the Chief Justice of Canada.
In addition to the Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin of the Supreme Court of Canada, the advisory council includes five other ex officio members as well as five temporary members who are nominated by the ex officio members of the Council and appointed by the Governor General for a three-year term. Of the 11 persons currently serving on the Advisory Council, the great majority were chosen directly or indirectly by previous Liberal governments.
The appointment of Hawkes is not the only recent controversy engendered by the Order of Canada. In February, Jean conferred the honour on Michele Landsberg, a radical feminist, left-wing journalist and one of the most notorious proponents of abortion on demand in Canada.
Moreover, Jean and the Advisory Committee considered Landsberg worthy to serve not just as an ordinary Member, but as an Officer of the Order of Canada. Four years earlier, Landsberg’s husband, Stephen Lewis, the former leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party, was appointed to the highest rank of Companion of the Order of Canada.
In the latest notice of appointments, both former Liberal prime minister Jean Chretien and former Reform Party leader Preston Manning have also been designated as Companions of the Order of Canada. In Manning’s case, the distinction is well deserved and most exceptional. Over the past 40 years, few of the social activists among the more than 5,000 Canadians who have been appointed to the Order of Canada have been social conservatives. The overwhelming majority have been liberals and left-wingers.
Notably missing from the ranks of the Order of Canada are such distinguished Canadians as Jim Hughes, leader of the Campaign Life Coalition; Gwen Landolt, National Vice-President of RealWomen of Canada; William Gairdner, author, professor, philanthropist and champion of the natural family; and Dr. L. L. (Barrie) deVeber, who, among a long list of distinctions, is President of The Euthanasia Coalition of Ontario, and Founding President of The deVeber Institute for Bioethics and Social Research.
It’s appropriate that many recipients of the Order of Canada are ordinary Canadians who have been recognized for “a lifetime of distinguished service in or to a particular community, group or field of activity.” Who, though, could better qualify for such a distinction than Joanne Dieleman, former director of Aid to Women, a crisis-pregnancy centre located next to an abortuary in downtown Toronto?
Despite having eight children of her own and caring for innumerable foster children, Dieleman found the time and energy over the past 25 years to provide counseling, emotional and financial assistance to women troubled by a crisis pregnancy. During 19 of these years, Dieleman served as the unpaid director of Aid to Women. Altogether, she is credited with helping to save the lives of 1,500 babies.
That Dieleman and others like her have not been named to the Order of Canada is scandalous. At the least, the House of Commons Government Operations Committee should bring McLachlin and her colleagues on the Advisory Council to account before an open hearing and grill them on their biased recommendations for Order of Canada appointments. Most especially, members of the Committee should admonish the Advisory Council to stop discriminating against distinguished Canadians who uphold the natural family and the sanctity of human life.
Given the dominance of transgressive liberals and leftists in Parliament, no such hearing is likely any time soon. Regardless, the failure of the Governor General to appoint principled Canadians like Dieleman to the Order of Canada in recognition of their outstanding service will in no way impair their heroic determination to go on fulfilling their duty to do the right as God gives them to see the right.
By Rory Leishman
Governor General Michaelle Jean outraged many Canadians on June 29, by announcing the appointment of the Rev. Dr. Brent Hawkes to the Order of Canada. Hawkes is not only the longstanding pastor of Toronto’s Metropolitan Community Church but also one of the foremost gay activists in Canada and a leading proponent of same-sex marriage.
Several critics of the appointment directed their ire at Prime Minister Stephen Harper. That was a mistake. In making appointments to the Order of Canada, the Governor General must act upon the recommendations of an independent advisory council headed by the Chief Justice of Canada.
In addition to the Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin of the Supreme Court of Canada, the advisory council includes five other ex officio members as well as five temporary members who are nominated by the ex officio members of the Council and appointed by the Governor General for a three-year term. Of the 11 persons currently serving on the Advisory Council, the great majority were chosen directly or indirectly by previous Liberal governments.
The appointment of Hawkes is not the only recent controversy engendered by the Order of Canada. In February, Jean conferred the honour on Michele Landsberg, a radical feminist, left-wing journalist and one of the most notorious proponents of abortion on demand in Canada.
Moreover, Jean and the Advisory Committee considered Landsberg worthy to serve not just as an ordinary Member, but as an Officer of the Order of Canada. Four years earlier, Landsberg’s husband, Stephen Lewis, the former leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party, was appointed to the highest rank of Companion of the Order of Canada.
In the latest notice of appointments, both former Liberal prime minister Jean Chretien and former Reform Party leader Preston Manning have also been designated as Companions of the Order of Canada. In Manning’s case, the distinction is well deserved and most exceptional. Over the past 40 years, few of the social activists among the more than 5,000 Canadians who have been appointed to the Order of Canada have been social conservatives. The overwhelming majority have been liberals and left-wingers.
Notably missing from the ranks of the Order of Canada are such distinguished Canadians as Jim Hughes, leader of the Campaign Life Coalition; Gwen Landolt, National Vice-President of RealWomen of Canada; William Gairdner, author, professor, philanthropist and champion of the natural family; and Dr. L. L. (Barrie) deVeber, who, among a long list of distinctions, is President of The Euthanasia Coalition of Ontario, and Founding President of The deVeber Institute for Bioethics and Social Research.
It’s appropriate that many recipients of the Order of Canada are ordinary Canadians who have been recognized for “a lifetime of distinguished service in or to a particular community, group or field of activity.” Who, though, could better qualify for such a distinction than Joanne Dieleman, former director of Aid to Women, a crisis-pregnancy centre located next to an abortuary in downtown Toronto?
Despite having eight children of her own and caring for innumerable foster children, Dieleman found the time and energy over the past 25 years to provide counseling, emotional and financial assistance to women troubled by a crisis pregnancy. During 19 of these years, Dieleman served as the unpaid director of Aid to Women. Altogether, she is credited with helping to save the lives of 1,500 babies.
That Dieleman and others like her have not been named to the Order of Canada is scandalous. At the least, the House of Commons Government Operations Committee should bring McLachlin and her colleagues on the Advisory Council to account before an open hearing and grill them on their biased recommendations for Order of Canada appointments. Most especially, members of the Committee should admonish the Advisory Council to stop discriminating against distinguished Canadians who uphold the natural family and the sanctity of human life.
Given the dominance of transgressive liberals and leftists in Parliament, no such hearing is likely any time soon. Regardless, the failure of the Governor General to appoint principled Canadians like Dieleman to the Order of Canada in recognition of their outstanding service will in no way impair their heroic determination to go on fulfilling their duty to do the right as God gives them to see the right.
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