Wednesday, March 29, 2006, 10:31 AM - Electoral Reform
GOVERNMENT OF ONTARIO ANNOUNCES CITIZENS’ ASSEMBLY ON ELECTORAL REFORM – REFERENDUM EXPECTED IN OCTOBER 2007
It’s now official – the citizens of Canada’s largest province will soon have an historic and unprecedented opportunity to overhaul their province’s political system by changing the way elections are run.
On Monday, March 27, the Government of Ontario made the long-awaited announcement confirming the formation of an Ontario Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform (OCA). The OCA will recommend whether Ontario should adopt a new voting system. If they recommend a new system, the Government will hold a referendum on that option within the current mandate. Given the cost of a stand-alone referendum and timing, it is expected the referendum will be held with the October 2007 provincial election.
Minister Announces Details
Marie Bountrogianni, Minister Responsible for Democratic Renewal, announced a randomly chosen assembly of 103 citizens – 52 women and 51 men – will begin meeting in Fall 2006. The assembly will report no later than May 15, 2007 on whether they recommend a new voting system for Ontario, with any recommendation for change going to a referendum. The Assembly will be chaired by George Thomson, a former provincial court judge, deputy minister and director of education for the Law Society of Upper Canada.
Fair Vote Ontario – Campaign Activities
Fair Vote Canada launched the Fair Vote Ontario (FVO) campaign in 2002 to press for a citizens’ assembly and referendum process, and to promote adoption of a fair and proportional voting system. Since that time, FVO has organized 100 prominent Ontarians to support those goals, presented detailed proposals to the Ontario government, met with the relevant ministers, launched a 40 Days for Democracy grassroots MPP contact campaign, made a special presentation to the Select Committee of the provincial legislature, and recently co-sponsored a forum with the University of Toronto Faculty of Law on alternative voting system models.
Important Victories in Round One
Thanks to the energetic efforts of Fair Vote Canada volunteers and chapters, the campaign has had a very positive effect. Among the important achievements:
· The Government of Ontario is honouring its pledge to convene a citizens’ assembly and hold a referendum.
· The Government will ask the OCA to consider core values that reflect Fair Vote Canada’s objectives for a new electoral system, including fair representation, voter choice, stable and effective government, and accountability. The wording on fair representation is: “The Legislative Assembly should reflect the population of Ontario in accordance with demographic representation, proportionality and representation by population, among other factors.”
· The Minister also stated the OCA will also have the ability to recommend an increase of seats in the Legislature, which FVO strongly recommended. The Ontario Legislature was downsized in the 1990s. More seats would allow more latitude in designing the best proportional system.
· The final achievement was successfully positioning Fair Vote Canada as a credible and leading voice for electoral reform. The newly appointed chair of the OCA intends to meet with FVO campaign leaders in the near future to discuss our more detailed operational recommendations for the OCA.
One Alternative Only
One key recommendation from FVO was rejected. FVO proposed that the OCA be encouraged to reach a strong consensus on one alternative model, but if the majority did not support a single alternative, they be allowed to bring forward two or more alternatives. The Minister’s office stated the OCA will be instructed to recommend one alternative only.
The Fight for a Simple Majority Threshold
One very important issue is outstanding and requires further attention. Cabinet did not reach a decision on the referendum threshold. The governments of the two other provinces which have had electoral reform referendums applied a super-majority threshold as a means of blocking reform. In B.C., more than 57 per cent voted in favour of reform, but the Government had applied a double super-majority threshold: a 60 per cent of all votes, and a majority in 60 per cent of the ridings. The PEI Premier did the same.
Fair Vote Ontario has pressed for a simply majority threshold – the same threshold that governments and politicians apply to their own decision making. This will be a major focus of FVO efforts until the Government announces its position.
Next Steps – Countdown to the Ontario Referendum
Ontarians are now within 18 months of voting on a new voting system. Before that momentous event, much work remains to be done.
- We need to build a strong, multi-partisan, province-wide grassroots base of support before the referendum campaign begins.
- We need to undertake an extensive public education program to help ensure Ontarians understand the PR alternative.
- We need to ensure that the OCA receives thoughtful, very well presented PR proposals, without being seen as an aggressive interest group that provokes backlash from Assembly members.
- We need to work diligently with the traditional media, where we have some very strong opponents, while taking advantage of web-based strategies that circumvent traditional media.
- And, we need to raise very significant funding for a referendum campaign in mid-2007.
The Fair Vote Ontario council will be meeting in the coming weeks to consider the next steps. Ontario members of Fair Vote Canada will be notified in the coming months when volunteers are needed. In the meantime, any questions can be directed to info@fairvotecanada.org.
We hope you share our excitement with this latest exciting development in our national campaign for fair voting!
Fair Vote Canada
26 Maryland Blvd.
Toronto, ON M4C 5C9
www.fairvote.ca
info@fairvotecanada.org
Ph: 416-410-4034
Fax: 416-686-4929
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Wednesday, March 29, 2006, 10:26 AM - Child Care
Canada too permissive on abortion
Guest Communique By MICHAEL COREN
Last week, several days after Prime Minister Stephen Harper reiterated that he would not reopen the abortion debate, the governor of South Dakota signed legislation that would ban almost all abortions in that state.
Many other jurisdictions in the U.S. are discussing limitations and bans. Even in liberal Europe, there is no country with such a permissive attitude towards abortion as Canada.
Which should oblige us all to analyze our position on this life-and-death issue. Once again, I state clearly and loudly that I am pro-life. As to why, here is just a sample of reasons.
The proposition that abortion is acceptable because a woman can do what she likes with her own body is absurd. The inherent assumption is flawed, in that a woman cannot do what she wants with her body. She cannot, for example, sell her organs for transplant purposes or obstruct the public way.
Further, the argument is not about what she can or cannot do with her own body because it is not just her body that is involved. Within her is an unborn child, unique at conception and a distinct character and soul. If the contents of her womb were mere tissue, there would be no discussion.
But no mother ever tells people with delight that she "felt the tissue kick today" or announces that she has chosen a name for her tissue. Nor does she speak of her "fetus." It's a baby. It is referred to as a fetus by pro-abortionists because it's easier to kill what one has dehumanized.
We invariably hear people who favour what they describe as "choice" say they would prefer there to be fewer abortions. Yet if abortion is merely the removal of tissue without any moral or emotional consequences, there is no reason for there to be fewer of them.
We deny, we disguise, we kill.
Clearly, it is a life. A life whose sex can be determined even before implantation, a life which at 17 days has its own blood cells, which two days later is developing eyes and the day after has an entire nervous system established. A life that at 28 days is forming arms and legs, at 30 days is developing ears and nose and at 49 days is a miniature person with complete fingers and toes.
So convinced are we now that this is a genuine life that in Britain some pro-abortion doctors want anesthetic to be administered to unborn babies before the procedure. In Canada, however, medics who object to performing abortions risk losing their jobs. Several have already paid that price.
This has nothing to do with so-called unwanted babies. There are legions of couples who want to adopt children. Even if there weren't, we still do not have the right to take an innocent life simply because we are larger and more powerful. That is the style of the thug and the fascist.
Nor is there a population problem. In fact, Europe and North America have a crisis of under-population. Where starvation occurs, it is the fault of the greedy West rather than the over-populated developing world. Again, even if there were a problem, it would not give us the right to kill.
We have to provide care and help for mothers in need and guarantee community support for children from conception to birth to adulthood to death. We have to know that the human person, which should be at its safest in the womb, is now, obscenely, at its most vulnerable.
God forgive us. And God change the minds and hearts of our politicians!
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Wednesday, March 22, 2006, 10:56 AM - Environment
Farmers in Ontario are protesting at the Ontario legislature to secure help in the provincial budget which will be tabled Thursday.
Our farmers face: intense competition from cheap imports; the effects of crises such as mad cow; inclement weather; but farming is how we feed this country. A nation that cannot feed itself cannot defend itself. Should our imported food supply be cut off through war or natural disaster, what is the government’s plan? From where will Canada receive her food supply.
It’s time our government recognised the vital role played by farmers in feeding this country.
The CHP has proposed a series of funds——financed by a surcharge of a-few-pennies-per-unit at the consumer level, not at the farm gate——to be invested (with tax-free income accumulating in the fund) and administered by producers’ associations, sector-by-sector, in order to provide fast and substantial emergency relief when crises (such as BSE) strike.
The CHP will look towards protecting the interests of our farmers. A nation that cannot feed itself can only survive on the good will of other nations.
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Friday, March 17, 2006, 06:41 PM - Miscellaneous
;)
Beyond Kandahar
Prime Minister Stephen Harper deserves praise for his decisive demonstration of support for our troops in Afghanistan.
Under the aegis of the United Nations and NATO, Canadian servicemen and women have willingly placed themselves at risk in hopes of introducing freedom and democracy to a part of the world where those priceless benefits have never been known.
Politicians clamoring for a debate on Afghanistan are out of touch, out of time, and out of order. The time to debate — or even discuss — the role of our troops is not after they’re in the field. And we can’t trust them to pass up the temptation of an easy sound-bite; Jack Layton never met a microphone that didn’t immediately set his jaw-bone in motion. Nope. No debate.
And the Prime Minister is right: it’s not the Canadian way to cut and run once such an undertaking has been launched.
Now Prime Minister Harper should — at the earliest opportunity — turn his attention from the liberation of Afghanis to the liberation of another group of people who have never known the benefits of democracy, never get to vote, and therefore have zero political clout. And these people live in one of the most dangerous places on earth: the womb.
It’s great to defend the rights of people half-way around the world. But every year the lives of 110,000 Canadian babies are snuffed out for the “crime” of being conceived at an inconvenient time. Who will defend them?
The Prime Minister’s statement that “Canadians don’t cut and run” should also be applied to the abortion crisis and the need for Parliament to respond. Canadians don’t cut and run from foreign obligations; now will Mr. Harper’s government show the same kind of courage and tenacity in this urgent domestic situation?
Having made such a brave start, our Prime Minister would really establish his legacy — not just in Canada, but in the whole world — if he took a similarly courageous stand to defend the rights of the most helpless members of the human family.
It would take courage, character and conviction to state — as Stockwell Day once did — that the position political advisors persuaded him to take during the election campaign was wrong. The Prime Minister whose first foreign trip was to visit our troops in Kandahar just might have the iron in his spine to undertake that kind of honest re-examination, and then lead the nation to do what’s right about the most burning moral issue of our time.
Freedom and human rights for Afghanis and Iraqis? Sure! And also for pre-born Canadians.
It’s time.
Ron Gray
Leader CHP
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Thursday, March 9, 2006, 05:47 PM - Justice
In the March 2 edition of “The Sheaf”, a student newspaper at the University of Saskatchewan, an editorial cartoon was printed of Jesus performing oral s*x on a pig.
This same newspaper had declined to print the pictures of Mohammed, which caused so much offence in the Muslim community, out of respect for those of the Muslim faith.
President MacKinnon at the University of Saskatchewan communicated with the campus community requesting a public apology from The Sheaf, which was later issued. A more formal apology will be issued in today’s edition of The Sheaf.
The editor of The Sheaf, Will Robbins, has resigned his position. His resignation has been accepted by the Board of Directors “for failure to carry out his duties diligently”.
I applaud these actions, however, we see this same disrespect for faith communities, in particular Christianity, across the country.
Are we operating under a double standard? We require ‘freedom of the press’ while ‘freedom of speech’ is denied to Canadian citizens.
We need only to look to Dr. Chris Kempling, Scott Brockie, or Hugh Owens, to see a few Canadian citizens who do not have the right to ‘freedom of speech’.
What made The Sheaf think that they may disrespect Christians, with impunity?
What made them think that it is important to show respect to Muslims?
Why may homosexuals speak against Christians but Christians may not speak against homosexuality? (Please note that the one is comprised of speaking against people, the other is comprised of speaking against an action)
I believe that, if a Christian is to be convicted for writing a letter to the editor, taking out an ad, or declining business from a particular group, then a person who writes a letter against Christians, takes out an ad offensive to Christians, or declines business from Christians, should be convicted under human rights violations.
If the press may speak offensively then people may speak offensively.
If we are all socially pressured to show respect for each other, then the press should be socially pressured to show respect.
Equal rights should be equal for all!
I would like to see respect shown to all people.
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Monday, February 27, 2006, 03:26 PM - Justice
Today Marshall Rothstein will face a 3 hour hearing to determine if he is suitable to become a Supreme Court of Canada judge. Is this a positive move?
We’ve heard a lot about judicial activism over the last many years and we’ve all seen the changes brought about in this country by judicial activism. Will this really curb it?
I think the hearing is a step in the right direction by having all elected Parties part of the process, but it still leaves us open to judicial activism.
The CHP plan, having a Standing Committee on the Judiciary, protects the independence of the court in matters of law. This body would oversee the judiciary which is accountable to Parliament. Parliament, of course, is accountable to the voters.
This protects the democratic process by ensuring that our democratically elected leaders make our laws and our SCOC judges remain within their mandate of judging the law “as it is written”. Whether they are liberal minded or conservative minded should not affect the outcome. Does it comply with the laws of Canada is the question.
We’re looking at reforming our process of appointing SCOC judges. Let’s do the full job and ensure that we have neither liberal nor conservative judges. We need judges judging on the basis of the law, alone!
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