Wednesday, November 29, 2006, 11:00 AM - Miscellaneous
Ron Gray, Leader of the CHP
November 28, 2006
PM’s Québec resolution is clever—and wrong
Are the Québécois really “a nation within a united Canada”, as the Prime Minister’s motion in Parliament states?
Maybe, depending on the definition of “nation”; like other bad bills in Parliament in recent years, this resolution employs terms without defining them—which makes for bad legislation and bad resolutions. In any case, the resolution is still wrong.
It’s important to remember the circumstances out of which this resolution arose: first, Liberal leadership contender Michael Ignatieff said Québec should be recognized as a nation; that put the issue of separatism—and the fact that Québec has not signed the Constitution—back into play. Then, Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe offered a resolution in Parliament stating that “the Québécois are a nation.”
That was mischievous: it plays upon the fact that “nation” in French can have a different meaning than “nation” English; it can also mean the same.
In French, one meaning is simply a group of people of a common origin; another is a group which characterizes itself by an awareness of historic, social or cultural unity, which chooses to live together; and a third is a group of people that constitutes a political community, in a defined territory, identified by sovereign authority = a state. It can also mean just “a collection of individuals which composes a population.”
The Oxford English Dictionary, on the other hand, defines “nation” as “an extensive aggregate of persons, so closely associated with each other by common descent, language or history as to form a distinct race or people, usually organized as a separate political state and occupying a definite territory.”
In short, the definition can be the same, similar or quite different in the two languages, depending on the viewpoint of the speaker. And speakers with an axe to grind can exploit potential differences.
Prime Minister Harper’s revision of the BQ resolution was clever: adding the words “within a united Canada” seems, at first glance, to defuse the clearly separatist intentions of the BQ resolution. But the PM’s motion has two inherent weaknesses: one weakness that it shares with the BQ motion, and one weakness of its own.
The fault share by both resolutions, BQ and Conservative, is that by identifying “the Québécois”, they exclude Les Acadiens and Francophones outside Québec; also excluded are Anglophones and Allophones inside Québec.
Those are divisive statements that only a separatist like Mr. Duceppe might make. The divisiveness of his exclusionary vision of who is a Qébécois—a virtual apartheid—is both the weakness and the sin of the separatist movement. Mr. Harper should not have bought into it.
The other weakness is vividly revealed by the fact that while Mr. Duceppe at first bristled with hostility against the change, he later embraced it. Why? Because, he explained, down the road it can be used to strengthen the Separatist cause: “See, even the Western-based Tories recognize that the Québécois are a nation!”
It would have been far better to leave Mr. Ignatieff alone in his semantic blunder, defeat the divisive Bloc resolution in Parliament, and get on with showing that Canada really is a united country by governing for the good of all its people.
The separatist fringe in Québec today depends on a core of only about 20 per cent. When that number rises in the polls, it is usually in response to insensitive statements by non-Quebeckers. But today’s young Quebeckers are more focused on the globalist challenge than on demanding an independent nation; and they know that Francophones have a much better chance of keeping their language and their culture (which historically included a very strong Christian heritage, as some are re-discovering) within a bilingual Canada: a unilingual Quebec in a sea of 300 million Anglophones, and facing a global economy that is predominantly English, would find mere cultural survival very difficult.
This resolution merely inflames yesterday’s arguments and divisions. It was tactically clever—but strategically unwise.
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Monday, November 20, 2006, 01:05 PM - Morality
I have spent some time considering where we have come as a society in my lifetime, the perception of who Christians are, and the role of family in society.
This country was built on a tradition... a heritage... that allowed for individual freedom within parameters that prevented us from transgressing against our fellow Canadians.
Canadians have allowed values to be removed from both the public and private arenas. This was done in part by allowing the media and social activists to twist truth to meet their own agenda.
The media and social activists have taken it upon themselves to define who Christians are. Once successful in re-defining the beliefs of our founding fathers as narrow and bigoted, they helped us to see that we should be ashamed of the traditions that built this country. The traditions that allowed individual development within parameters that protected society.
From there they turned their attack on the family.
We, Canadians, under the tutelage of the media and social activists have left this nation floundering under waves of relative thought with no basis in logic. We are trying so hard to be inclusive that we have left behind common-sense. One of the most obvious areas has been in the dismantling of our families.
Families, once considered the bedrock of a society, have been under attack for many years.
In my lifetime, I’ve seen the change from strong families, supporting one another and helping each other grow, to disconnected families which are reaching the point of being out of place in today’s world.
Of course that is not to say that families were perfect before. I do believe that they provided a healthier and safer environment in which to raise our children. The security for a child of knowing that mom and dad will ‘always’ be together and that ‘my’ family will always be there for ‘me’, is invaluable.
With the arrival of no-fault divorce we saw the gradual redefinition of family. We saw the arrival of ½ families, step families, we await the verdict on whether legally there can be two mothers and one father in a family, which is one step from polygamy.
We have re-defined family to the point that it means almost everything and therefore it means almost nothing.
Marriage was not a contract between two people. It was a vow made to each other, in the presence of witnesses, made before God. A vow is a promise. A part of that promise is ... until death parts us.
It has been expedient to forget that the marriage ceremony involved a lot of promises made to each other. All of them for the development of a healthy home and family.
For the sake of future generations, we must introduce our children to stable family units. The baby-boomers are the last generation to recall how it felt to grow up secure in their family. Let’s not wait until there’s no-one left to remember what family should be.
Perhaps it’s time to revisit the issue of moral character. When we make a promise, the promise is morally binding. It brings us to the heart of trust. If we cannot trust each other to keep a promise to someone we have loved, how can we be expected to keep promises made before the electorate.
Moral character should be demonstrated before someone is allowed to represent us and make decisions that affect every citizen of this country.
2. FAMILY STABILITY
We believe that the prevention of hardship (rather than its alleviation after it has arisen) is the key to reducing welfarism, and that the stability of the family is basic in this regard. We believe that government assistance should be given to humanitarian and church-based programs which minister to the hurting, strive for reconciliation in marriage through counseling, support those involved in crisis pregnancies, and seek to help an individual overcome those factors (physical and spiritual) which inhibit self-reliance. We favor assistance for the deserving poor through programs which encourage individuals to be self-reliant.
source
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Monday, November 6, 2006, 02:16 AM
I've had a request to change the settings to allow user comments. This had been previously disabled due to an American Gay Rights Activist using it as his platform.
Hopefully it will work out this time and give us a chance to interact.
Vicki
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Thursday, November 2, 2006, 05:26 PM - Electoral Reform
Ontario Referendum Threshold: Undemocratic Roadblock to Democratic Reform (October 24, 2006)
Fair Vote Ontario called today’s Ontario government announcement of a 60 per cent electoral reform referendum threshold an "undemocratic roadblock to democratic reform". The government's legislation also requires that majority support be attained in 60 percent of the ridings.
“We have commended and still commend the Liberal government for setting in motion an independent citizen-driven process for electoral reform," said Larry Gordon, Executive Director of Fair Vote Canada. “But that process will be tarnished and public cynicism about politics, politicians and government will only increase if the referendum threshold is manipulated to ignore a clear majority decision by the electorate. If the threshold announced today is actually applied, then a small minority could block an electoral reform supported by a strong majority of Ontarians."
“No political party in Ontario has ever won 60 per cent of the vote. No political party has ever turned down the right to make far-reaching decisions affecting the lives of Ontarians because they failed to reach 60 percent. No politician has ever declined a seat in the legislature because he or she fell short of 60 per cent," said Gordon.
Fair Vote Ontario is calling on the McGuinty government to follow the example of former New Brunswick Premier Bernard Lord who had pledged to hold an electoral reform referendum and accept a 50 per cent plus one majority decision because, as he put it, that is “the traditional number for democratic decisions."
Fair Vote Ontario (FVO) campaign chair Joe Murray expressed confidence that a solid majority of Ontarians will vote Yes if the Assembly recommends a fair voting system. However, FVO will continue to press the government to apply the standard 50 per cent plus one threshold.
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Thursday, November 2, 2006, 05:25 PM - Miscellaneous
Vol 13 No 45
Does religion cause wars?
“It’s not what we don’t know that’s the problem; it’s what we ‘know’ that ain’t so.”
— attributed to Mark Twain
I thought of Twain’s aphorism when I read a recent column by Vox Day, who writes for WorldNetDaily. Day—who describes himself as a “Christian Libertarian”, and who is also a member of Mensa (the international club for the super-intelligent) wrote:
“[A] systematic review of the 489 wars listed in Wikipedia's list of military conflicts, ranging from Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars to the 1969 Football War between Honduras and El Salvador, shows that only 53 of these wars—10.8%—can reasonably be described as having a religious nature, even if one counts each of the 10 Crusades separately.”
Yet one of the shibboleths of our era, one that has become dogma for the anti-religious, is the unsupported claim that “religion has caused more wars than anything else in history.”
While it’s amazing how facts can punch holes in shibboleths, it’s even more amazing how impervious such shibboleths are: for a week after reading Day’s analysis, people who hate and fear faith will still say, “Religion has caused more wars than anything else in history!”
The supreme irony in this is that the goal of some religion is to set us free from the avarice and blind hatred that has been the real cause of most wars.
I say “some religion”, because not all religions are so benign in intent. For example, Professor Samuel P. Huntington has accurately written that “Islam has bloody borders.” This does not to mean that all Muslims are bellicose; but since it was established in the seventh century, and the Hadith was collected by al-Bukhari in the ninth century, Islam has been spread by aggression and maintained by fear. Apostasy is to be punished by death.
Even supposedly pacifist Buddhists have resorted to killing and maiming those who reject their beliefs.
Yet the bloodiest of all faiths, beyond question, remains militant Atheism; and the most sanguine form of Atheism is militant antipathy to Judaism and Christianity. It was in the name of official Atheism that Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tsedong, Pol Pot, Nicholae Ceaucescu, and Erik Honneker killed scores of millions of their own people—probably well over 120,000,000. And it was in the name of Teutonic paganism and hatred of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that Adolf Hitler (who is quoted in the book Hitler’s Table Talk as saying “it is not possible to be a good German and a Christian”) exterminated six million Jews and about as many other people he considered “inferior”.
So it’s only if you count Atheism and militant Secularism as religions that the shibboleth about “religion as a cause of war” holds any water.
Even then, it must be remembered that there is a strain of religious faith whose goal is to promote love and peace among men. So one has to wonder why the militant Secularists who dominate our governments, our courts, our media and the tax-funded schools are so terrified of that one stream of faith—the faith of four out of five Canadians.
Perhaps Mark Twain was right.
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Wednesday, October 25, 2006, 06:14 PM - Morality
Oct 25, 2006 Ron Gray - Leader CHP
Rory Leishman’s call to arms
Rory Leishman, who appears weekly in the London Free Press, is one of Canada’s most astute observers of the social scene. Erudite and thoughtful, his comments are always worth reading.
Recently, however, Mr. Leishman’s column was suppressed by the ‘Free’ Press. “Free”, I guess, as long as it’s politically correct. He had written critically about a play in which the lead actress appeared on stage stark naked. His “offense”, according to the editor, was that he had no seen the play—although the editor acknowledged that the nudity occurred as reported. The nudity was, of course, one of the big attractions.
In the closing sentence of his column, (reproduced below), Leishman wrote:
"Decent citizens can make a more concerted effort to support principled politicians who combine a sincere and enlightened compassion for all their constituents with a clear understanding of the difference between right and wrong, and a firm determination to combat the usurpation of legislative power by the amoral and transgressive elitists who predominate on the Supreme Court of Canada." [emphasis added]
But which politicians have shown such determination?
Only the CHP!
Only the CHP has persistently advanced a plan to restrain judicial activism while preserving judicial independence: this Party has repeatedly proposed that Parliament should create a Standing Committee on the Judiciary with authority to review court decisions on the sole grounds of constitutionality; and with the authority to approve or reject proposed appointments to the bench, and to impeach judges for moral turpitude, bias, corruption or neglect. And we said the legislation creating the SCJ should be sheltered under Section 33, the “notwithstanding” clause.
The Supreme Court has declared war on Parliament, but the politicians we have been sending to Parliament up until now simply don’t have the moral vision or the courage to fight back and defend their constitutionally exclusive authority to write Canada’s laws.
At the recent Calgary Congress, the CHP’s plan was praised by constitutional counsel Burton Kellock as “perhaps the most important question this conference will address.”
The CHP has been putting forward this idea for more than four years. We first offered it to the Official Opposition at Ottawa (at that time, the Canadian Alliance Party, which has since been co-opted by the old P-Cs). They did nothing—not even the courtesy of a reply.
We also put it before the then-Justice Minister and the then-Prime Minister. They sent form letters.
But no MP has been willing to consider it. Why not? Because they’re afraid the media might call them names.
That’s the reason the Canadian Alliance turfed MP Larry Spencer for telling the truth about homosexuality (you can read the whole story in his book, Truth or Politics?, available at www.truthorpolitics.com). That’s also why the “new” Conservatives killed Bill C-291, the “Unborn Victims of Violence Act”—a private member’s bill proposed by their own Alberta MP, Leon Benoit!
The CHP’s plan would achieve two important goals: it would make the courts obey the Canadian Constitution; and it would restore a right which Canadians had from Confederation to 1947: the right to appeal Supreme Court decisions.
Supreme Court judges can make bad decisions. In spite of Beverley McLachlin’s fulsome self-praise in New Zealand a year ago, they are only fallible human beings.
One such wrong decision was U.S. Supreme Court Justice Taney’s 1851 ruling, that people of African origin were “not persons”. A similar absurdity was the Canadian Supreme Court’s 1927 ruling that women were “not persons”. Both rulings were overturned: the SCOC’s ruling against women was reversed by an appeal to the Privy Council; lacking such an appeal mechanism in the U.S., Taney’s diktat had to be overturned by a civil war.
We must have such an appeal mechanism—the capacity for the electorate to tell the judges they’re wrong—because, as the late President John F. Kennedy said, “Those who make peaceful change impossible, make violent change inevitable.”
There remains a backlog of Supreme Court absurdities to be appealed. The most important of theses is the idea that a pre-born baby is “not a person” until it has fully emerged from the birth canal. That legal lunacy allows atrocities like partial-birth abortion. Another moral transgression is the Canadian Supreme Court’s Labaye decision, referred to below.
It’s time for pro-moral Canadians to stop pinning faint hope on politicians who take their votes for granted. Political strategists in the “big” parties apparently think pro-moral Canadians, who regard innocent human life and the traditional family as sacred, have nowhere else to go. Until they understand that decent citizens do have another party to represent them, and until pro-moral Canadians are willing to switch their votes, the comfortable “Conservatives” will not defend these core causes.
Here is PART OF Rory Leishman’s excellent column that was censored by the “Free” Press:
Following the tawdry example of theatres in England and the United States, London’s Grand Theatre is luring customers with a play featuring a lead actress who appears stark naked on the stage.
Count this as another sign of the escalating degradation of our Judeo-Christian civilization.
Just a few years ago, such a shameless performance would not have occurred, even in one of the city’s seedier strip clubs, because the offending actress and the club’s managers would have been liable to be charged under section 167 of the Criminal Code with presenting “an immoral, indecent or obscene performance, entertainment or representation in a theatre”—an indictable offence punishable by up to two years in prison.
What has happened in the meantime? Has Parliament repealed section 167 of the Criminal Code? Not at all. The law is still on the books. The problem in this, as in so many other instances, is that the Supreme Court of Canada has decided not to uphold the law as enacted and originally understood…
Ever-more-flagrant exhibitions of sexual promiscuity have coarsened our entire culture to the point that many husbands and wives—who would not have dreamed of entering a relatively tame strip club 30 years ago—now sit complacently through a far more graphic presentation of lewd conduct in the Grand Theatre.
And that’s not the worst of it. Only the naïve can suppose that there is no connection between a rising tolerance for obscenity and the epidemic of fornication, adultery and divorce that has undermined the stability of that most fundamental of social institutions, the natural family.
What can be done? There is one obvious remedy: Decent citizens can make a more concerted effort to support principled politicians who combine a sincere and enlightened compassion for all their constituents with a clear understanding of the difference between right and wrong, and a firm determination to combat the usurpation of legislative power by the amoral and transgressive elitists who predominate on the Supreme Court of Canada.
WELL SAID!
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