The National Post
By Rory Leishman
It seems to be open season on Pope Benedict XVI in the secular media. Last week, newspapers around the world mocked him for suggesting during a discussion of AIDS with reporters: "You can't resolve it with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, it increases the problem."
Then, on Saturday, Agence France-Presse sensationally reported: "Pope Benedict used a nationally televised speech in Angola yesterday to reiterate the Roman Catholic Church's ban on abortion, even to save a mother's life."
According to the official Vatican text of the Pope's address, he made only one reference to abortion, stating: "How bitter the irony of those who promote abortion as a form of 'maternal' health care! How disconcerting the claim that the termination of life is a matter of reproductive health (cf. Maputo Protocol, art. 14)!"
On Sunday, Agence France-Presse reported that Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi "has clarified" the Pope's remarks on abortion, stating that the Church has always taught that "indirect" abortion is permissible if necessary to save the life of the mother. Lombardi added: "What the Pope said is that the concept of maternal health cannot be used to justify abortions as a means of limiting births."
Quite so. It is generally agreed among pro-lifers -- Catholic, Protestant and secular -- that induced abortion is a grievous wrong that can never be justified except if necessary to save the life of the mother.
Meanwhile, the controversy over the Pope's remark about condoms and AIDS continues. In an editorial, "The Pope on Condoms and Aids" (March 17), The New York Times contended: "Pope Benedict XVI has every right to express his opposition to the use of condoms on moral grounds, in accordance with the official stance of the Roman Catholic Church. But he deserves no credence when he distorts scientific findings about the value of condoms in slowing the spread of the AIDS virus."
In support of this argument, the Times editorial stated: "From an individual’s point of view, condoms work very well in preventing transmission of the AIDS virus from infected to uninfected people. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cites 'comprehensive and conclusive' evidence that latex condoms, when used consistently and correctly, are 'highly effective' in preventing heterosexual transmission of the virus that causes AIDS."
This statement is essentially misleading. Despite several decades of "safer-sex" propaganda, the great majority of sexually active persons do not use condoms "consistently and correctly." In an article published in The British Medical Journal (26 January 2008), Dr. Stephen Genuis, Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Alberta, observed: "In theory, condoms offer some protection against sexually transmitted infection; practically, however, epidemiological research repeatedly shows that condom familiarity and risk awareness do not result in sustained safer sex choices in real life. Only a minority of people engaging in risky sexual behaviour use condoms consistently. A recent study found that ... [e]ven among stable, adult couples who were HIV discordant and received extensive ongoing counseling about HIV risk and condom use, only 48.4% used condoms consistently."
What about Africa, in particular? Have the millions of free condoms that Western countries have distributed on this continent over the past several decades not at least served to reduce the scourge of AIDS among Africans?
Alas, no. Edward C. Green, director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at Harvard University, is one of the leading authorities on AIDS. In an illuminating article "Aids and the Churches: Getting the Story Right," First Things (April 2008), he wrote: "Consider this fact: In every African country in which HIV infections have declined, this decline has been associated with a decrease in the proportion of men and women reporting more than one sex partner over the course of a year -— which is exactly what fidelity programs promote. The same association with HIV decline cannot be said for condom use, coverage of HIV testing, treatment for curable sexually transmitted infections, provision of antiretroviral drugs, or any other intervention or behavior."
Even The New York Times has grasped that condoms are not a cure-all for the AIDS epidemic. In its editorial chiding the Pope, the paper conceded: "The best way to avoid transmission of the virus is to abstain from sexual intercourse or have a long-term mutually monogamous relationship with an uninfected person."
Pope Benedict could not have said it any better.
NB: Rory Leishman is a freelance columnist and member of St. George's Anglican Church in London, Ontario.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Speaking out against Islamist terrorists
The London Free Press
By Rory Leishman
For the past week, events marking Israel Apartheid Week (IAW) have taken place at virtually every major university in Canada. Among the noteworthy exceptions are the University of Calgary and the University of Western Ontario. Students and faculty on these campuses have distinguished themselves, by unanimously refusing to take part in this festival of Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism.
Israel Apartheid Week was initiated five years ago by the Arab Students' Collective at the University of Toronto. Since then, the annual hate fest has spread to universities in more than 40 cities around the world.
According to the IAW website, this year's events focus on "Israel's barbaric assault on the people of Gaza. Lectures, films, and actions will make the point that these latest massacres further confirm the true nature of Israeli Apartheid. IAW 2009 will continue to build and strengthen the growing Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement (against Israel) at a global level."
At the Muslim Al Quds University near Jerusalem, Israel Apartheid Week has been extended for a full month, during which the university's students' council is urging a boycott of Israeli goods on campus and seeking international support for the alleged right of Palestinian refugees to return in overwhelming numbers to Israel.
How ironical. Here we have students living in Israeli-occupied Palestine openly advocating a policy that would spell the end of Israel as an independent state. Imagine the fate of any Jew in Gaza who dared to speak out against Islamist terrorist attacks on innocent Israeli civilians.
Students, faculty and administrators at Al Quds are also clamoring for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions. But, of course, they do not speak for all Arabs. Consider the contrasting views of Mohammad Al-Hadid, the distinguished president of the Jordanian Red Crescent Society and Chairman of the international Standing Commission of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
Al-Hadid is a champion of peace in the Middle East and a leading proponent of humanitarian co-operation between Israelis and Arabs. He is justifiably proud of the key role he played as an Arab Muslim in persuading The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies to admit both the Palestine Red Crescent Society and the equivalent Israeli national society, Magen David Adom, in 2006.
On Monday, Al-Hadid participated in a panel discussion at a national conference of the Canadian Academic Friends of Israel that took place at the University of Toronto. In his address, he lauded Magen David Adom for coordinating with the Jordan Red Crescent Society in coping with local natural and man-made disasters. And he commended his friend and fellow panelist, Dr. Jimmy Weinblatt, Rector, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, for helping to foster a number of ongoing student and academic exchanges between Ben-Gurion University and the University of Jordan.
Incidentally, out of 15,000 students at Ben-Gurion, 1,000 are Arabs, including many low-income Bedouin on full scholarships. Is that the generosity one would expect of a government-funded institution in a real apartheid state?
Al-Hadid is outspoken in his denunciation of Islamist terrorists who deliberately target and kill innocent women and children. "These murderers do not belong to the human race and, above all, are the antithesis of Islam," he contends. "Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance. And it is a sad fact of life today that in many people's minds Islam equates to terrorism, and Arabs and Muslims are stereotyped as potential terrorists."
Part of the problem is that so few other Muslims have excoriated Islamist terrorists in public. Prof. Salim Mansur of the University of Western Ontario and Tarek Fatah, a secular founder of the moderate Muslim Canadian Congress, are two courageous exceptions.
Widespread fear of Muslims is a serious problem in Canada. And it is bound to get worse, unless a lot more ordinary Canadian Muslims join with Mansur and Fatah in boldly speaking out in personal conversations, through letters to the editor and by all other available means against Islamist terrorists and their shameless apologists within the Canadian Muslim community.
By Rory Leishman
For the past week, events marking Israel Apartheid Week (IAW) have taken place at virtually every major university in Canada. Among the noteworthy exceptions are the University of Calgary and the University of Western Ontario. Students and faculty on these campuses have distinguished themselves, by unanimously refusing to take part in this festival of Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism.
Israel Apartheid Week was initiated five years ago by the Arab Students' Collective at the University of Toronto. Since then, the annual hate fest has spread to universities in more than 40 cities around the world.
According to the IAW website, this year's events focus on "Israel's barbaric assault on the people of Gaza. Lectures, films, and actions will make the point that these latest massacres further confirm the true nature of Israeli Apartheid. IAW 2009 will continue to build and strengthen the growing Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement (against Israel) at a global level."
At the Muslim Al Quds University near Jerusalem, Israel Apartheid Week has been extended for a full month, during which the university's students' council is urging a boycott of Israeli goods on campus and seeking international support for the alleged right of Palestinian refugees to return in overwhelming numbers to Israel.
How ironical. Here we have students living in Israeli-occupied Palestine openly advocating a policy that would spell the end of Israel as an independent state. Imagine the fate of any Jew in Gaza who dared to speak out against Islamist terrorist attacks on innocent Israeli civilians.
Students, faculty and administrators at Al Quds are also clamoring for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions. But, of course, they do not speak for all Arabs. Consider the contrasting views of Mohammad Al-Hadid, the distinguished president of the Jordanian Red Crescent Society and Chairman of the international Standing Commission of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
Al-Hadid is a champion of peace in the Middle East and a leading proponent of humanitarian co-operation between Israelis and Arabs. He is justifiably proud of the key role he played as an Arab Muslim in persuading The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies to admit both the Palestine Red Crescent Society and the equivalent Israeli national society, Magen David Adom, in 2006.
On Monday, Al-Hadid participated in a panel discussion at a national conference of the Canadian Academic Friends of Israel that took place at the University of Toronto. In his address, he lauded Magen David Adom for coordinating with the Jordan Red Crescent Society in coping with local natural and man-made disasters. And he commended his friend and fellow panelist, Dr. Jimmy Weinblatt, Rector, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, for helping to foster a number of ongoing student and academic exchanges between Ben-Gurion University and the University of Jordan.
Incidentally, out of 15,000 students at Ben-Gurion, 1,000 are Arabs, including many low-income Bedouin on full scholarships. Is that the generosity one would expect of a government-funded institution in a real apartheid state?
Al-Hadid is outspoken in his denunciation of Islamist terrorists who deliberately target and kill innocent women and children. "These murderers do not belong to the human race and, above all, are the antithesis of Islam," he contends. "Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance. And it is a sad fact of life today that in many people's minds Islam equates to terrorism, and Arabs and Muslims are stereotyped as potential terrorists."
Part of the problem is that so few other Muslims have excoriated Islamist terrorists in public. Prof. Salim Mansur of the University of Western Ontario and Tarek Fatah, a secular founder of the moderate Muslim Canadian Congress, are two courageous exceptions.
Widespread fear of Muslims is a serious problem in Canada. And it is bound to get worse, unless a lot more ordinary Canadian Muslims join with Mansur and Fatah in boldly speaking out in personal conversations, through letters to the editor and by all other available means against Islamist terrorists and their shameless apologists within the Canadian Muslim community.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Freedom of choice in education
The London Free Press
By Rory Leishman
In preparation for an impending national election, British Conservative Party leader David Cameron has promised in a key policy paper that his government would extend full funding to secular and faith-based independent schools. Is this a sure formula for political suicide?
Many Canadian conservatives might think so. They recall how Ontario Progressive Conservative leader John Tory led his party to crushing defeat in the 2007 provincial election, by promising that his government would restore just partial funding to independent, faith-based schools.
The idea made eminently good sense. After all, Ontario is the only province in the country that provides full funding for Catholic separate schools, but no funding at all for any other independent schools, faith-based or secular.
Nonetheless, Ontario Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty succeeded in scaring most voters into believing that the Conservatives’ plan for extending funding for faith-based schools would lead to “strife in the streets.” He said: "If you want the kind of Ontario where we invite children of different faiths to leave the publicly funded system and become sequestered and segregated in their own private schools, then they should vote for Mr. Tory."
Coming from McGuinty, the argument was hypocritical, inasmuch as he and his wife “sequestered and segregated” all four of their children in Catholic separate schools. Moreover, McGuinty did not – and could not – cite any evidence that children educated in a faith-based school are any more likely to engage in violence and ethnic strife than children consigned to the secular public system.
What, though, about Britain? Is Labour Party Prime Minister Gordon Brown railing against the Conservatives’ promise to expand full funding for faith-based schools? Is he insisting that these schools will foster religious strife?
Not at all, and for good reason: It was the previous Labour Party government under the leadership of former prime minister Tony Blair that initiated full funding for independent secondary schools in 2000. To qualify for funding, the schools, known as academies, must be run by non-profit organizations that charge no tuition fees and abide by national curriculum guidelines.
The Labour Party continues to support and expand this program. Already, the fully funded independent schools have proven strikingly successful in raising scores on standardized tests of academic achievement, especially among deprived, inner-city students.
What, though, about Muslim students? Are they now segregated and sequestered in hate-filled madrassahs run by fanatical imams and financed by the taxpayers?
Definitely not. Of the 6,850 publicly funded, faith-based schools in England, the large majority are Church of England or Roman Catholic. Only seven are Muslim.
The Labour government is intent on expanding the number of Muslim and non-Muslim faith-based schools, confident that under strict regulation by the government’s Office for Standards in Education, none has, or ever can, come under the control of hate-mongering, religious fanatics.
As for Cameron, he is simply proposing to put “rocket boosters” under Labour’s program for independent schools and “bust up” the state monopoly on education. And he vows, if need be, to fight “big battles with the forces of resistance” within the “education establishment.”
What ranks among the biggest of those forces of resistance? The teachers’ unions, of course. Currently, in Plymouth, the National Union of Teachers is crying havoc over a proposal by the local education authority to transform two failing state schools into independent, non-unionized academies, one run by the University of Plymouth and the other by the Exeter Diocese of the Church of England.
Meanwhile, in Ontario, both the McGuinty Liberals and the Tory Conservatives are now content with a publicly funded education system that offers parents no choice but to send their children to a school operated by their local public- or separate-school monopoly. As for the New Democrats, they would abolish even the separate-school alternative.
Thus, in England, all of the major parties favour the expansion of parental choice in education. In Ontario, none do. When oh when will Ontario’s hidebound political leaders finally recognize that increased competition is the key to improving the quality of education for all children?
By Rory Leishman
In preparation for an impending national election, British Conservative Party leader David Cameron has promised in a key policy paper that his government would extend full funding to secular and faith-based independent schools. Is this a sure formula for political suicide?
Many Canadian conservatives might think so. They recall how Ontario Progressive Conservative leader John Tory led his party to crushing defeat in the 2007 provincial election, by promising that his government would restore just partial funding to independent, faith-based schools.
The idea made eminently good sense. After all, Ontario is the only province in the country that provides full funding for Catholic separate schools, but no funding at all for any other independent schools, faith-based or secular.
Nonetheless, Ontario Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty succeeded in scaring most voters into believing that the Conservatives’ plan for extending funding for faith-based schools would lead to “strife in the streets.” He said: "If you want the kind of Ontario where we invite children of different faiths to leave the publicly funded system and become sequestered and segregated in their own private schools, then they should vote for Mr. Tory."
Coming from McGuinty, the argument was hypocritical, inasmuch as he and his wife “sequestered and segregated” all four of their children in Catholic separate schools. Moreover, McGuinty did not – and could not – cite any evidence that children educated in a faith-based school are any more likely to engage in violence and ethnic strife than children consigned to the secular public system.
What, though, about Britain? Is Labour Party Prime Minister Gordon Brown railing against the Conservatives’ promise to expand full funding for faith-based schools? Is he insisting that these schools will foster religious strife?
Not at all, and for good reason: It was the previous Labour Party government under the leadership of former prime minister Tony Blair that initiated full funding for independent secondary schools in 2000. To qualify for funding, the schools, known as academies, must be run by non-profit organizations that charge no tuition fees and abide by national curriculum guidelines.
The Labour Party continues to support and expand this program. Already, the fully funded independent schools have proven strikingly successful in raising scores on standardized tests of academic achievement, especially among deprived, inner-city students.
What, though, about Muslim students? Are they now segregated and sequestered in hate-filled madrassahs run by fanatical imams and financed by the taxpayers?
Definitely not. Of the 6,850 publicly funded, faith-based schools in England, the large majority are Church of England or Roman Catholic. Only seven are Muslim.
The Labour government is intent on expanding the number of Muslim and non-Muslim faith-based schools, confident that under strict regulation by the government’s Office for Standards in Education, none has, or ever can, come under the control of hate-mongering, religious fanatics.
As for Cameron, he is simply proposing to put “rocket boosters” under Labour’s program for independent schools and “bust up” the state monopoly on education. And he vows, if need be, to fight “big battles with the forces of resistance” within the “education establishment.”
What ranks among the biggest of those forces of resistance? The teachers’ unions, of course. Currently, in Plymouth, the National Union of Teachers is crying havoc over a proposal by the local education authority to transform two failing state schools into independent, non-unionized academies, one run by the University of Plymouth and the other by the Exeter Diocese of the Church of England.
Meanwhile, in Ontario, both the McGuinty Liberals and the Tory Conservatives are now content with a publicly funded education system that offers parents no choice but to send their children to a school operated by their local public- or separate-school monopoly. As for the New Democrats, they would abolish even the separate-school alternative.
Thus, in England, all of the major parties favour the expansion of parental choice in education. In Ontario, none do. When oh when will Ontario’s hidebound political leaders finally recognize that increased competition is the key to improving the quality of education for all children?
Saturday, January 31, 2009
A liberal Conservative budget
The London Free Press
By Rory Leishman
With Tuesday’s budget, the Harper Conservatives have set quite a standard for fiscal extravagance by a supposedly conservative government.
As recently as 2006, the preceding Liberal government of former prime minister Paul Martin achieved a budget surplus of almost $14 billion. Who would have thought that within three years, a Conservative government would propose a budget deficit of almost $34 billion?
Granted, Conservative Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is not entirely to blame for this fiscal calamity. As he noted in the budget, the collapse in revenues and hike in expenditures caused by the recession would produce a $15.7-billion budget deficit next year, even if the Harper government were to retain all existing fiscal policies.
As it is, Flaherty has made matters much worse. By his own reckoning, the tax cuts and spending increases in his budget will produce an additional $18 billion in deficit spending next year and a cumulative $85 billion in total budget deficits over the next four years.
Like the Liberals, New Democrats and Bloc Quebecois, the Harper Conservatives now maintain that a vast increase in deficit spending is necessary to revive job-creating economic growth. There is no evidence for this pretence.
Indeed, there is better reason to believe that most of the additional spending proposed by Flaherty will only prolong the recession and retard future economic growth. Consider, for example, the $4 billion in “repayable loans” for Canada’s troubled auto sector. Anyone who thinks that money is likely to be repaid is dreaming in technicolour.
While in opposition, Harper and Flaherty decried the billions upon billions of taxpayers’ dollars wasted on failed corporate handouts by the Liberals. Yet now that the Conservatives are in power, they are doing the same. Among the bizarre items in the budget is a proposal to lavish $1 billion on a so-called Southern Ontario development agency.
The international record on government handouts to failing corporations is clear: More often than not, the state-directed payments serve only to postpone bankruptcy and joblessness, while diverting scarce investment capital away from more efficient, job-creating production.
Of course, there are some special cases: No responsible government would allow a major financial institution to go bankrupt in a way that would undermine the financial stability of the entire economy.
That said, the general rule remains: Prudent governments leave investing in private companies up to private investors subject to competitive market forces.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper used to advocate both sound fiscal policies and a stricter separation of federal and provincial powers. Now, his government proposes to spend billions of taxpayers’ dollars on a host of provincial and local projects such as a Highway 39 truck bypass in Estevan, Saskatchewan, and the revitalization of the municipally owned Union Station in downtown Toronto.
On Jan. 22, the Bank of Canada projected that the Canadian economy will resume growth by the second half of this year, and continue to expand at a brisk annual rate of 3.8 per cent during 2010. Under these circumstances, there can be no economic rhyme or reason to the $85 billion in deficit spending planned by the Harper government.
What, then, is the real purpose of such fiscal improvidence? The answer is evident: By this means, the Harper Conservatives aim to bribe voters and win support for their minority government from the opposition Liberals.
And sure enough, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff has indicated that his party will back the Conservatives on the budget -- a deficit-spending plan so extravagant that it could have been designed by the Liberals.
Meanwhile, Harper’s conservative base has good reason to be increasingly fed up. So far, his government has done little to curb the judicial usurpation of legislative power; has opposed every initiative to safeguard the lives of babies in the womb; and now has introduced the most reckless budget since the Progressive Conservative government of former prime minister Brian Mulroney presided over a record deficit of $39 billion in 1992-3.
Mulroney’s liberal Conservatives subsequently went down to a crushing electoral defeat. Harper should beware: History can be repeated.
By Rory Leishman
With Tuesday’s budget, the Harper Conservatives have set quite a standard for fiscal extravagance by a supposedly conservative government.
As recently as 2006, the preceding Liberal government of former prime minister Paul Martin achieved a budget surplus of almost $14 billion. Who would have thought that within three years, a Conservative government would propose a budget deficit of almost $34 billion?
Granted, Conservative Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is not entirely to blame for this fiscal calamity. As he noted in the budget, the collapse in revenues and hike in expenditures caused by the recession would produce a $15.7-billion budget deficit next year, even if the Harper government were to retain all existing fiscal policies.
As it is, Flaherty has made matters much worse. By his own reckoning, the tax cuts and spending increases in his budget will produce an additional $18 billion in deficit spending next year and a cumulative $85 billion in total budget deficits over the next four years.
Like the Liberals, New Democrats and Bloc Quebecois, the Harper Conservatives now maintain that a vast increase in deficit spending is necessary to revive job-creating economic growth. There is no evidence for this pretence.
Indeed, there is better reason to believe that most of the additional spending proposed by Flaherty will only prolong the recession and retard future economic growth. Consider, for example, the $4 billion in “repayable loans” for Canada’s troubled auto sector. Anyone who thinks that money is likely to be repaid is dreaming in technicolour.
While in opposition, Harper and Flaherty decried the billions upon billions of taxpayers’ dollars wasted on failed corporate handouts by the Liberals. Yet now that the Conservatives are in power, they are doing the same. Among the bizarre items in the budget is a proposal to lavish $1 billion on a so-called Southern Ontario development agency.
The international record on government handouts to failing corporations is clear: More often than not, the state-directed payments serve only to postpone bankruptcy and joblessness, while diverting scarce investment capital away from more efficient, job-creating production.
Of course, there are some special cases: No responsible government would allow a major financial institution to go bankrupt in a way that would undermine the financial stability of the entire economy.
That said, the general rule remains: Prudent governments leave investing in private companies up to private investors subject to competitive market forces.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper used to advocate both sound fiscal policies and a stricter separation of federal and provincial powers. Now, his government proposes to spend billions of taxpayers’ dollars on a host of provincial and local projects such as a Highway 39 truck bypass in Estevan, Saskatchewan, and the revitalization of the municipally owned Union Station in downtown Toronto.
On Jan. 22, the Bank of Canada projected that the Canadian economy will resume growth by the second half of this year, and continue to expand at a brisk annual rate of 3.8 per cent during 2010. Under these circumstances, there can be no economic rhyme or reason to the $85 billion in deficit spending planned by the Harper government.
What, then, is the real purpose of such fiscal improvidence? The answer is evident: By this means, the Harper Conservatives aim to bribe voters and win support for their minority government from the opposition Liberals.
And sure enough, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff has indicated that his party will back the Conservatives on the budget -- a deficit-spending plan so extravagant that it could have been designed by the Liberals.
Meanwhile, Harper’s conservative base has good reason to be increasingly fed up. So far, his government has done little to curb the judicial usurpation of legislative power; has opposed every initiative to safeguard the lives of babies in the womb; and now has introduced the most reckless budget since the Progressive Conservative government of former prime minister Brian Mulroney presided over a record deficit of $39 billion in 1992-3.
Mulroney’s liberal Conservatives subsequently went down to a crushing electoral defeat. Harper should beware: History can be repeated.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Hamas responsible for Gaza casualties
The London Free Press
By Rory Leishman
On Tuesday, an Israeli missile reportedly killed more than 40 people, including children, who had sought shelter in a United Nations school in northern Gaza. Who bears primary responsibility for this tragedy?
The answer is clear: It’s Hamas. With reference to the tragic deaths at the school, Canada's junior foreign minister, Peter Kent perceptively noted: “We know that Hamas has made a habit of using civilians and civilian infrastructure as shields for their terrorist activities, and that would seem to be the case again today."
It’s also clear that Hamas has brought on the entire conflict in Gaza by unilaterally renouncing a ceasefire with Israel on December 29 and unleashing hundreds of rockets on the tens of thousands of civilians residing in southern Israel. While few Israelis have been killed, who can blame the government of Israel for taking all necessary measures to stop this terrorism by rocket fire?
During a visit last July to Sderot, an Israeli town that has come under frequent rocket attack, president-elect Barack Obama observed: “If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that. I would expect Israelis to do the same thing."
Indeed, the Israeli Defence Forces are now battling Hamas forces in Gaza for the express purpose of quelling the rocket attacks. And in doing so, Israeli troops strive to avoid the kind of civilian casualties that occurred at the United Nations school. Otherwise, the civilian death toll in Gaza would certainly be vastly higher.
In contrast, Hamas forces have long boasted of their deliberate targeting and killing of Israeli civilians with rocket attacks and suicide bombings. And the Islamist militants in Hamas have likewise made no secret of their ultimate aim to wipe the state of Israel off the map.
As a result, Canada has joined the United States, the European Union and other countries in listing Hamas as “a radical Sunni terrorist organization.” Canadians who take to the streets in explicit support of Hamas during the current conflict would do well to note that it is an offence under Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Act for anyone “to knowingly participate in or contribute to, directly or indirectly, any activity of a terrorist group.”
To justify rocket attacks on Israeli civilians, Hamas argues that it has no other means of opposing the economic blockade which Israel imposed on Gaza in June 2007, after Hamas forces crushed the secular Palestinian Security Force in Gaza which served the government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Like the Nazis, the Islamist extremists in Gaza had no sooner contrived to win power in a democratic election than they undertook to destroy all legitimate opposition to their dictatorial rule.
Regardless, it’s not just Israel that has placed an economic blockade on Gaza. Egypt has done the same, and for good reason: Like other secular Arab leaders, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak recognizes that the Islamist extremists who have seized power in Gaza are a menace to peace and stability throughout the Middle East.
What, then, can be done? Writing in the Washington Post on Monday, John R. Bolton, former United States ambassador to the United Nations, suggested that Israel abandon the idea of a two-state solution to the Palestinian dilemma and return control over the West Bank and Gaza to Jordan and Egypt. While there is much to be said for this proposal, there is little chance that it can succeed even with solid backing from the United States and the Arab League. The hard-pressed leaders of both Jordan and Egypt have made plain that they are no more eager than the Israelis to resume responsibility for governing the faction-ridden and violence-prone Palestinians.
The best conceivable outcome to the conflict is that Israel will drive Hamas from power and clear the way for restoration of the secular Palestine Authority in Gaza. Only in this way can the long suffering people of Gaza have any realistic hope of finally living in peace and freedom.
By Rory Leishman
On Tuesday, an Israeli missile reportedly killed more than 40 people, including children, who had sought shelter in a United Nations school in northern Gaza. Who bears primary responsibility for this tragedy?
The answer is clear: It’s Hamas. With reference to the tragic deaths at the school, Canada's junior foreign minister, Peter Kent perceptively noted: “We know that Hamas has made a habit of using civilians and civilian infrastructure as shields for their terrorist activities, and that would seem to be the case again today."
It’s also clear that Hamas has brought on the entire conflict in Gaza by unilaterally renouncing a ceasefire with Israel on December 29 and unleashing hundreds of rockets on the tens of thousands of civilians residing in southern Israel. While few Israelis have been killed, who can blame the government of Israel for taking all necessary measures to stop this terrorism by rocket fire?
During a visit last July to Sderot, an Israeli town that has come under frequent rocket attack, president-elect Barack Obama observed: “If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that. I would expect Israelis to do the same thing."
Indeed, the Israeli Defence Forces are now battling Hamas forces in Gaza for the express purpose of quelling the rocket attacks. And in doing so, Israeli troops strive to avoid the kind of civilian casualties that occurred at the United Nations school. Otherwise, the civilian death toll in Gaza would certainly be vastly higher.
In contrast, Hamas forces have long boasted of their deliberate targeting and killing of Israeli civilians with rocket attacks and suicide bombings. And the Islamist militants in Hamas have likewise made no secret of their ultimate aim to wipe the state of Israel off the map.
As a result, Canada has joined the United States, the European Union and other countries in listing Hamas as “a radical Sunni terrorist organization.” Canadians who take to the streets in explicit support of Hamas during the current conflict would do well to note that it is an offence under Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Act for anyone “to knowingly participate in or contribute to, directly or indirectly, any activity of a terrorist group.”
To justify rocket attacks on Israeli civilians, Hamas argues that it has no other means of opposing the economic blockade which Israel imposed on Gaza in June 2007, after Hamas forces crushed the secular Palestinian Security Force in Gaza which served the government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Like the Nazis, the Islamist extremists in Gaza had no sooner contrived to win power in a democratic election than they undertook to destroy all legitimate opposition to their dictatorial rule.
Regardless, it’s not just Israel that has placed an economic blockade on Gaza. Egypt has done the same, and for good reason: Like other secular Arab leaders, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak recognizes that the Islamist extremists who have seized power in Gaza are a menace to peace and stability throughout the Middle East.
What, then, can be done? Writing in the Washington Post on Monday, John R. Bolton, former United States ambassador to the United Nations, suggested that Israel abandon the idea of a two-state solution to the Palestinian dilemma and return control over the West Bank and Gaza to Jordan and Egypt. While there is much to be said for this proposal, there is little chance that it can succeed even with solid backing from the United States and the Arab League. The hard-pressed leaders of both Jordan and Egypt have made plain that they are no more eager than the Israelis to resume responsibility for governing the faction-ridden and violence-prone Palestinians.
The best conceivable outcome to the conflict is that Israel will drive Hamas from power and clear the way for restoration of the secular Palestine Authority in Gaza. Only in this way can the long suffering people of Gaza have any realistic hope of finally living in peace and freedom.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Socialist analysis of aboriginal dysfunctions
The London Free Press
By Rory Leishman
Frances Widdowson and Albert Howard are a pair of tough-minded socialist intellectuals. In a powerful new book, Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry: The Deception Behind Indigenous Cultural Preservation, they dare to point that Canada’s hugely expensive aboriginal programs have served to enrich an aboriginal elite and their white advisers, while doing little to assist the needy.
Widdowson and Howard trace the failure of aboriginal policy to the 1967 Hawthorn Report, a federally commissioned survey of Canadian Indians by Harry Hawthorn. In conformity with the trendy, but absurd, doctrine that all cultures are of equal value, Hawthorn urged the government to hand over more funding to aboriginal political organizations and stop trying to compel an aboriginal person to “acquire those values of the majority society he does not hold or wish to acquire.”
Former prime minister Pierre Trudeau rejected this advice. In a White Paper on Indian Policy in 1969, he recommended elimination of the Indian Act and the transfer of responsibility for aboriginal social policies to the provinces so that all natives would be entitled to the same rights and benefits as all other Canadians.
That was a sound idea, but alas, Trudeau backed down. Under pressure from aboriginal political leaders, his government retained the Indian Act, increased funding for aboriginal lobbyists and initiated what has proven to be a monumentally expensive and perpetual land-claims process.
Widdowson and Howard observe the sorry results: “Privileged leaders live in luxury and are paid huge salaries, while most aboriginal people rely on social assistance. And yet, despite the obvious policy failure, the aboriginal leadership, governments, and the general public continue to accept the argument that land claims and self-government are the answer to aboriginal problems.”
Currently, the federal government alone expends more than $8 billion a year on aboriginal programming. That’s close to $30,000 for an aboriginal family of four. Yet most aboriginals still live in communities beset with the oppressive levels of crime, poverty and addictions.
What can be done? Widdowson and Howard persuasively argue that the first requirement is to eliminate the primary cause of aboriginal deprivation, which they identify as the widespread persistence among aboriginals of the dysfunctional features of a stone-age culture.
All too many aboriginals lack the skills and discipline required for productive employment, because they are still wedded to the superstitions, undisciplined work habits and closure to new ideas typical of pre-literate cultures. The authors write: “It is the persistence of these obsolete cultural features that has maintained the development gap, preventing the integration of many aboriginal peoples into the Canadian social dynamic.”
And it’s this cultural deprivation, not any lack of intelligence, which accounts for the calamity that fewer than 40 per cent of adult Inuit and Indians living on reserves have completed secondary school. That’s 50 percentage points below the national average.
To make matters worse, many schools run by aboriginal elites focus on “traditional knowledge.” Widdowson and Howard insist that instead of clinging to the shibboleth of aboriginal self-government, competent governmental authorities should intervene wherever necessary to assure that aboriginal children have the same access as all other children to quality schooling that upholds universal educational standards for reading, writing and arithmetic.
Of course, Widdowson and Howard are not alone in recognizing that ever more massive government handouts to aboriginal governments have manifestly failed to improve the lot of most aboriginals. Tom Flanagan, the conservative former chief of staff to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, made the same point eight years ago in his fine book First Nations, Second Thoughts only to have his ideas dismissed by progressive Canadians as “racist” and “right wing.”
Let us hope for the sake of Canada’s long-suffering aboriginal peoples that Widdowson and Howard get a more serious hearing. No open-minded reader of their treatise can fail to agree with their conclusion: “A real left-wing analysis of aboriginal policy requires a critical eye rather than a bleeding heart. Addressing the aboriginal question entails understanding its root causes, not glorifying the educational deficiencies, dependency, and dysfunction that currently plague the native population.”
By Rory Leishman
Frances Widdowson and Albert Howard are a pair of tough-minded socialist intellectuals. In a powerful new book, Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry: The Deception Behind Indigenous Cultural Preservation, they dare to point that Canada’s hugely expensive aboriginal programs have served to enrich an aboriginal elite and their white advisers, while doing little to assist the needy.
Widdowson and Howard trace the failure of aboriginal policy to the 1967 Hawthorn Report, a federally commissioned survey of Canadian Indians by Harry Hawthorn. In conformity with the trendy, but absurd, doctrine that all cultures are of equal value, Hawthorn urged the government to hand over more funding to aboriginal political organizations and stop trying to compel an aboriginal person to “acquire those values of the majority society he does not hold or wish to acquire.”
Former prime minister Pierre Trudeau rejected this advice. In a White Paper on Indian Policy in 1969, he recommended elimination of the Indian Act and the transfer of responsibility for aboriginal social policies to the provinces so that all natives would be entitled to the same rights and benefits as all other Canadians.
That was a sound idea, but alas, Trudeau backed down. Under pressure from aboriginal political leaders, his government retained the Indian Act, increased funding for aboriginal lobbyists and initiated what has proven to be a monumentally expensive and perpetual land-claims process.
Widdowson and Howard observe the sorry results: “Privileged leaders live in luxury and are paid huge salaries, while most aboriginal people rely on social assistance. And yet, despite the obvious policy failure, the aboriginal leadership, governments, and the general public continue to accept the argument that land claims and self-government are the answer to aboriginal problems.”
Currently, the federal government alone expends more than $8 billion a year on aboriginal programming. That’s close to $30,000 for an aboriginal family of four. Yet most aboriginals still live in communities beset with the oppressive levels of crime, poverty and addictions.
What can be done? Widdowson and Howard persuasively argue that the first requirement is to eliminate the primary cause of aboriginal deprivation, which they identify as the widespread persistence among aboriginals of the dysfunctional features of a stone-age culture.
All too many aboriginals lack the skills and discipline required for productive employment, because they are still wedded to the superstitions, undisciplined work habits and closure to new ideas typical of pre-literate cultures. The authors write: “It is the persistence of these obsolete cultural features that has maintained the development gap, preventing the integration of many aboriginal peoples into the Canadian social dynamic.”
And it’s this cultural deprivation, not any lack of intelligence, which accounts for the calamity that fewer than 40 per cent of adult Inuit and Indians living on reserves have completed secondary school. That’s 50 percentage points below the national average.
To make matters worse, many schools run by aboriginal elites focus on “traditional knowledge.” Widdowson and Howard insist that instead of clinging to the shibboleth of aboriginal self-government, competent governmental authorities should intervene wherever necessary to assure that aboriginal children have the same access as all other children to quality schooling that upholds universal educational standards for reading, writing and arithmetic.
Of course, Widdowson and Howard are not alone in recognizing that ever more massive government handouts to aboriginal governments have manifestly failed to improve the lot of most aboriginals. Tom Flanagan, the conservative former chief of staff to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, made the same point eight years ago in his fine book First Nations, Second Thoughts only to have his ideas dismissed by progressive Canadians as “racist” and “right wing.”
Let us hope for the sake of Canada’s long-suffering aboriginal peoples that Widdowson and Howard get a more serious hearing. No open-minded reader of their treatise can fail to agree with their conclusion: “A real left-wing analysis of aboriginal policy requires a critical eye rather than a bleeding heart. Addressing the aboriginal question entails understanding its root causes, not glorifying the educational deficiencies, dependency, and dysfunction that currently plague the native population.”
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Stout defiance of human rights oppressors
The London Free Press
By Rory Leishman
Over the past 15 years, there has been scant public concern over the disposition of
Much of the credit for this awakening goes to Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn. While most journalists have either condoned censorship or cowered in silence,
Steyn’s ordeal began last December, when the Canadian Human Rights Commission, the Ontario Human Rights Commission and the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal placed him under investigation for “The Future Belongs to Islam,” an excerpt from his best-selling book, America Alone, that was published in Maclean’s Magazine. The complainants in the case – all associates of the Canadian Islamic Congress -- insisted that Steyn and Maclean’s had no right in Canadian law to offend Muslims by publishing his honestly held convictions on the dangers posed by radical Islam.
The result was a national scandal. Many Canadians were shocked that such a flagrant attack on freedom of the press could happen in
In the face of this controversy, the Ontario Human Rights Commission was the first to back down. In a statement issued in April, the Commission denounced Steyn and Maclean’s for publishing an “explicit expression of Islamophobia,” but declined to proceed against them on the grounds that the Commission has no specific authority under the Ontario Human Rights Code to censor journalists and magazines.
Such a fine regard for the plain words and original understanding of the law is new to the Ontario Human Rights Commission. No such consideration inhibited the agency from prosecuting former London Mayor Dianne Haskett for refusing on principle to issue gay-pride proclamations.
In June, the Canadian Human Rights Commission followed the
These rulings must have bemused Chris Kempling, a
Last year, the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal likewise censured Stephen Boissoin, a part-time Baptist youth pastor, for publishing a letter to the editor of the Red Deer Advocate in which he denounced a new program of teaching on homosexuality in the Alberta public schools. For this offence to the sensitivities of homosexuals, the Tribunal ordered Boissoin to apologize, pay $7,000 in damages, and refrain from any more “disparaging” remarks about gays and homosexuals “in newspapers, by email, on the radio, in public speeches or on the Internet.”
In protest against this flagrant attack on freedom of expression,
Meanwhile, delegates to the recent Conservative policy convention in
One key question remains: When oh when will our supposedly conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper finally summon up the political courage to authorize the introduction of a government bill to strip the Canadian Human Rights Commission of its power to suppress the fundamental rights of Canadians to freedom of expression?
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