It’s municipal election season in British Columbia, Manitoba and Ontario, and the CTF’s Prairie Director Colin Craig has put together a menu of 25 campaign platform planks he hopes city candidates will adopt. Colin joins B.C. Director and Tax Talk host Jordan Bateman to run through those recommendations and talk about the plight of the property taxpayer. Plus our usual features – the Comment of the Cast and our Waste of the Week!
Ron Gray uncovers one of the many dangerous nuggets that are buried in the volumes of Canada's latest approved omnibus budget. Approved, that is, before many of our representatives even read its bloated 442 pages! This nugget – now legal – allows the government to take your privately earned and saved money directly from your bank account to help bail out failed banks. If you didn't vote in the last federal election, perhaps you'll want to come up with a new strategy before you are penniless!
Mark Hasiuk recently broke the story of widespread abuse of Purchasing Cards – company credit cards – issued to hundreds of BC Housing employees and used to run up unchecked expenses with taxpayer money. This scandal is right on the heels of Mark's exposé of another British Columbia housing scandal in which tens of millions of taxpayer dollars were discovered being funnelled through the BC Housing Management Commission directly to the CEO's wife's personal housing program Atira, a program that unapologetically runs de facto brothels in Vancouver's east side. How is BC Housing Minister Rich Coleman defending these obvious and egregious abuses and conflicts of interest? During his re-election bid, not much, of course.
– Destructive drug policies of so called “experts” that involve distributing crack pipes to children
– Creating shelters for First Nations young women in the DTES, exposing them to prostitution and drug addiction
Also discussed is this November’s Vancouver civic election, the June 15th riot, and social housing.
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Flash Drive with Ron Gray: The Sham “Ethics” of Campaign Finance
Watching the hearings by the Commons Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics is a bizarre sort of entertainment—almost as much fun as a root canal. The partisan jousting between the MPs makes a mockery of the idea that this is any sort of objective “enquiry”.
A example: NDP MP Pat Martin misquoted witness David Marler (a Conservative candidate) as having said the Tory “in-and-out” funding of television advertising “didn’t pass the smell test.”
“That’s not what I said,” retorted Marler, who then explained that he said he refused to sign because, as a first-time candidate, he didn’t understand what was being proposed—and as a lawyer, he refuses to sign anything he doesn’t understand. “If my Mom proposed it, I wouldn’t—well, maybe I’d sign it for my Mom, because I respect her,” he added. “But not even for a brother would I sign something I didn’t understand.”
Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro then skewered Martin nicely by pointing out that a shared national media purchase, partly reported as a local advertising expense, was exactly what the NDP had done for Olivia Chow in Toronto’s Trinity/Spadina riding.
What makes this “ethics” investigation so painful is that no one questions the ethics of the four parties in Parliament voting themselves $30 million a year of taxpayers’ money, while strangling the fund-raising of other parties.
Clearly, those already in the House want to pull up the drawbridge behind them, to block new parties and new ideas. The formula for funding the four parties in Parliament—tied to the number of votes they gained in the last election—is a formula for preserving the status quo: those who got the most votes get more money to campaign for reelection.
But left out in the cold by this equation is the indefeasible right of voters to have access to adequate information about all the options available to them.
The honorable Members sitting around the table seem only to care about holding onto their sinecures by bolstering their parties’ partisan advantages.
The CHP has several times proposed a plan by which each taxpayer—from whom the lion’s share of the money for election campaigns now comes, after all—should have the right to designate which party gets their money.
As Thomas Jefferson wrote, 200 years ago: “It is tyrannical to compel a man to pay for the promulgation of ideas with which he does not agree.” For example, like most pro-Life Canadians, I disagree strongly with the anti-life policies of the four parties that dominate the House of Commons. Why, then, should I be compelled to finance their immoral policies?
Canadians should write to their MPs and demand a change in the election financing formula. If taxpayers’ funds are to be doled out to politicians, let each taxpayer decide who gets their $2. Doesn’t that make more sense?
‘Way back in 2007, Vancouver journalist Terry O’Neill, former editor of the Western Report magazine—and, until his success in municipal politics, a co-host at RoadKill Radio—wrote an Op-Ed for the National Post that called for ‘human rights’ legislation to be drastically altered, to prevent such tribunals from behaving like ‘Star Chamber’ inquisitions and trampling on Canadians’ rights of free speech, freedom of opinion and expression, and freedom of religion.
We urgently need masses of Canadians to endorse Mr. O’Neill’s call for protection of our rights. NOW! How? Write or phone your MP!
In 1857, American anti-slavery activist Frederick Douglass warned:
“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”
But wait. Aren’t words like “tyrants” and “oppression” a bit too strong for a constitutional democracy like Canada?
As Jonah Goldberg points out in his book Liberal Fascism, it has long been understood that when fascism inevitably comes to the democracies of the West, it will come as a smiley-faced, “nice” fascism, full of good intentions.
So who will bell the cat? Who will make the HRCs and judges keep to their proper spheres? It must be the people; and to do it, we must start electing MPs who are willing to endure the media’s scorn to defend the freedoms for which earlier generations were willing to risk their very lives
So how do you take up arms and become a freedom fighter? It’s not hard: you write to your MP—or better, visit him or her at the constituency office you pay for—and tell them that this is a “make-or-break” issue for you, when the next election rolls around—say that it will definitely determine how your vote. Then, when the next election is called, be as good as your word: ask each candidate to commit to your personal list of “wedge” issues: right to life, defending normal marriage, protecting freedom of expression. And if you can’t find a candidate who is willing to commit to defending your freedom, spoil your ballot.
by Peter Saunders, (CC) 13 June 2011
Original Article Here
Last year’s election in the United Kingdom threw up some interesting results as a variety of issues took prominence in different constituencies. In particular we saw strong reactions to four conservative parliamentary candidates who had, either during the campaign or previously, held views which were judged as being “homophobic”.
Philip Lardner lost his candidacy for saying that homosexuality was “not normal behaviour” – sacked by party leader David Cameron. The uproar surrounding Philippa Stroud’s Christian beliefs about the issue was a major factor in her failing to take Sutton and Cheam for the Tories. Chris Grayling’s comments about Christians offering “bed and breakfast” being justified in denying double beds to gay couples staying in their homes almost certainly cost him a cabinet post.
Theresa May managed to hold on as Equality Minister after the election, despite over 70,000 people joining a Facebook group asking for her to be sacked on the basis of her past “homophobic” voting record, when she said her views on homosexuality had now changed.
Being judged “homophobic” can cost you dearly.
I’ve always been puzzled by the term “homophobia”. In the minds of most people it means being prejudiced against, or even hating, people who are homosexual. Wikipedia defines it as “a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards homosexuality and people identified or perceived as being homosexual”.
In keeping with this view, author, activist, and civil rights leader Coretta Scott King in a 1998 address, equated homophobia to “racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry” on the grounds that “it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood”.
It is therefore understandable that “homophobic” is a label that no one wants to have. There is even an International Day Against Homophobia celebrated on May 17 each year. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton marked the day with a statement condemning the “terrible scourge” of homophobia and transphobia.
However when the term was first used it actually meant something quite different. The word homophobia first appeared in print in an article written for the 23 May 1969 edition of the American tabloid Screw, in which it was used to refer to heterosexual men’s fear that others might think they are gay. It has also been used to describe a fear of people who “come out” as homosexual.
These definitions are much more in keeping with the literal meaning. After all, a phobia is a fear: claustrophobia, arachnophobia and acrophobia being fears of closed spaces, spiders and heights respectively.
For many people “homophobia” is actually about “having a fear of being accused of being bigoted, prejudiced or discriminating against homosexual people”. This fear, which is increasingly common, causes people to take a defensive posture in order to avoid attracting disapproval or adverse publicity. This may take the form of changing ones public position, pretending to adopt views in accordance with the prevailing liberal consensus, actively denying ones real beliefs or simply abstaining from expressing an opinion when the matter is discussed.
This kind of “homophobia” is becoming increasingly common amongst those who belong to religious faiths which teach that sex outside marriage is wrong (ie. most world faiths) and it is not difficult to come up with examples of (often) prominent people in whom the condition is well advanced.
For people who don’t hate, dislike or fear gay people, but simply believe that sex between people who are not married (including all sex between those of the same sex) is morally wrong, we need a new term. I’d like to propose the term “homosceptic” – a term that is not yet in common use and hence arguably open to (re)definition. My Microsoft Word spell-check rejects it as a known word and a Google search for it throws up only 1,830 examples of its use in any context. (In the American spelling, homoskeptic, there are only 230 examples.)
The Urban dictionary defines a “homosceptic” as “a member of society who does not hate homosexuals, but generally does not agree with the principle of homosexuality in moral and ethical terms”.
I’d like to broaden this definition to include “being sceptical about the key presuppositions of the gay rights movement” such as the beliefs that:
Of course if you accept these “key presuppositions” you may well believe people who don’t to be ignorant, bigoted, prejudiced or even immoral. You might even feel that such people should not hold public office, publicly express their views or hold any job which involves having to condone, promote or facilitate same-sex intimacy.
But if you have some doubts about the truth of some or all of these beliefs – and suspect that they might be more “ideology-driven” than “evidence-based” – then perhaps you could argue that you are not “homophobic” but rather “homosceptic”.
Dr Peter Saunders is a former general surgeon and CEO of Christian Medical Fellowship, a UK-based organisation with 4,500 UK doctors and 1,000 medical students as members. This article has been cross-posted from his blog, Christian Medical Comment.
By Terry O’Neill – The Tri-City News
FACE TO FACE: Oh, about that federal election…
For the many shell-shocked CBC lovers, Margaret Atwood acolytes and other Trudeaupian Canadians who are trying to explain away the new Conservative majority as nothing more than a deplorable result of a cockeyed electoral system or, perhaps, the appalling outcome of polarized politics, I have three words: Get over it.
The result of Monday’s election is a clear indication that Canadians voted with their heads to support a party that promises reliable management of the economy, less wasteful government and a fairer criminal justice system…
Click Here to read the entire Tri-City News editorial, or
Click Here to download the PDF file.
Speculation that Gilles Duceppe wants to leave Ottawa politics for Quebec City has been scotched by the news that the Parti Quebecois under Pauline Marois has solid control of the separatiste vote in Quebec, said pollster Glenn Robbins.
“She has 93 percent voter approval,” Robbins told RKR.
In a free-wheeling analysis of the federal election on Tuesday night’s RoadKill Radio broadcast, Robbins and co-hosts Kari Simpson and Ron Gray agreed that the NDP surge owed more to the Tories’ and Liberals’ heavy reliance on attack ads than to any rise in popularity of NDP policies, which most Canadians still recognize as economically ruinous.
Ekos Research has forecast 100 seats for the NDP; Robbins’ estimate is less than half that. Apart from Thomas Mulcair in Outremont, Robbins said, the NDP lacks the organization on the ground to capitalize on their surge in the polls.
“There’s a change in the air,” said Kari Simpson. “I think people are taking their duty as citizens more seriously. Government has become so intrusive… I think there’s going to be a good turnout at the polls.”
Kari Simpson’s forecast: “Harper’s going to get a squeaker of a majority. The people are going to give everyone a political spanking… that we had to have another election. The Layton rise is fun…”
Ron Gray’s forecast: “Conservatives 128 seats; Liberals 120; NDP 50; BQ 30—another Tory minority, and more of the same.”
Click here for Robbins SCE Research Polls
Show #98 Part 3
FACE TO FACE: Should oil tankers be allowed off B.C.’s north coast?
Most British Columbians want to see oil-tanker traffic banned off the northern coast of B.C. and so it’s no surprise that many politicians running in the current federal election are of like mind.
To me, however, it’s clear that, until the wind blows at reliably brisk pace (which it doesn’t), and until the sun shines steadily upon our roofs (which it certainly doesn’t in the Tri-Cities), and until rivers flow at a reliable rate (which they never will), and until nuclear power plants are made safer and more acceptable to consumers (which may yet transpire), the world’s best, most reliable form of energy will continue to be carbon-based… Click here to read the entire article or click here for a PDF version.
The Ottawa Citizen reported Feb. 18, 2011 that Elections Canada’s spending has increased four-fold in recent years, at a time when voter turnout is declining.
In the 1984 election, 75.3 per cent of the electorate voted; in Canada’s most recent election, only 58.8 per cent showed up. (The 2006 election was an exception, with voter turnout up four percentage points over the 2004 election.) Overall spending by Elections Canada, $32 million in 1998-1999, is expected to reach $138.6 million this year. In an election year, add another $350 million. Program spending—the cost of enforcing party financing legislation, education, revising electoral boundaries, and improving computer mapping, etc.—has increased more than tenfold since the 1990s. It’s expected to reach $30.9 million this fiscal year, up from $2.6 million in 1998-1999.
Most of those increases are not Elections Canada’s fault. For example, the Conservative government passed a law fixing election dates, then broke its own law. Parliament’s changing regulations on voting—for example, banning the burqa at the polls, while not requiring voters casting absentee ballots to prove their identity—have sometimes tied EC in knots.
Problems surrounding Canada’s elections are the result of a lack of focus. Elections Canada is so determined to ensure that everyone can vote, they send teams to find homeless people under bridges and sign them up. The turnout among those “voters”—whose identity and “residence” are almost impossible to verify—is, of course, appallingly low. But there aren’t enough of them to bring the participation rate down as drastically as it has fallen.
While the four parties in the House of Commons, all chasing the same polls, come closer and closer to convergence—the “Conservatives” policy looks like a reprint of the Chrétien Liberals’ “Red Book”—the downstream media’s exclusive focus on the four parties in the House, that share $30 million a year of taxpayers’ money, leaves voters asking, “What’s the diff?” and staying home.
The media have simply failed to fulfill their responsibility to inform the electorate about all their options.
Meanwhile, Elections Canada should focus less on giving a ballot to anyone who wants to vote, and focus more on protecting the integrity of the ballot, by requiring anyone who wants to vote to prove they are eligible.
What’s required is a Voter Identification Number (VIN). The Social Insurance Number (SIN) won’t work, because Ottawa never gave it the protection needed to protect privacy; the SIN was only supposed to be used for access to government benefits, but Ottawa didn’t make other uses illegal—so when employers and financial institutions found it useful, there was no privacy protection. If you wanted to get a mortgage, you had to give up your SIN. The VIN should only be accessible to Elections Canada—by law, with severe penalties for unauthorized access.
While we’re at it, people who have shown contempt for the law—convicted felons—should not be allowed to help choose those who will have the power to make and revise those laws. Giving convicted criminals the vote was arguably one of the stupidest rulings ever to come out of our Supreme Court. Nor should they be allowed to draw pensions (although dependent families should not be cast into penury when their putative bread-winner is incarcerated; felons convicted of non-violent crimes should to be made to work, so they can pay restitution to their victims and support their families—but that’s another issue).
If carefully pre-qualified voters had an electronic voting card—or better, a biometric identifier—it wouldn’t matter if they wore a suit of armour to the polls. In the meantime, we need to recognize that the burqa is not required by the Qur’an. If Muslim women fear for their modesty, they should be allowed to show their picture ID and their faces to a female poll official.
That’s the least of our electoral problems!
The Prime Minister’s plan to end direct taxpayer subsidies to federal political parties—by which the parties already in the House get almost $30 million a year from taxpayers who may or may not want to subsidize them—is sound. It just doesn’t go far enough in correcting the basic error.
Thomas Jefferson said, “It is tyrannical to compel a man to pay for the promulgation of ideas with which he does not agree.” By that dictum, Canada’s funding of political parties is wildly tyrannical.
But it doesn’t have to be. We can both have public funding and end the tyranny. Here’s how:
Our income tax return forms should include a statement something like this: Two dollars of your taxes will be used to help support the democratic political process in Canada. You may designate which registered federal political party receives your $2. If no party is designated, your $2 will go into a non-partisan fund administered by Elections Canada, to teach students and immigrants how Canadian democracy works.
Under such a plan, the cost to taxpayers would be no more than it is now; but not a penny of any taxpayers’ money would be spent for the support of politicians whom s/he does not endorse.
An ancillary benefit would be that, without waiting for the next election, taxpayers could give politicians an annual “report card” on how well they are representing the electorate.