Road Warrior of the Week

Heroes and Good Samaritans

Not a Natural Situation

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Jul 222011
 

By Terry O’Neill – The Tri-City News

Once upon a time, there was a people — an entire country, moreover — that professed a great love of all things natural. Except, that is, for one of the most important natural processes of all.

The people, let’s call them Canadians, praised the natural beauty of their great land. They looked in awe at the magnificent mechanisms of the natural world around them.

They passed laws against pollution, carbon emissions, and the dumping of toxic wastes in order to protect nature. They preserved great expanses of natural eco-systems.

Why, they even bought natural foods and natural remedies in copious quantities.

But these nature-loving Canadians had a blind spot. While they loved, adored or even worshipped the many natural things around them, they ignored a vital aspect of their own natural beings.

You see, nature has chosen to give we humans an equal number of baby girls and baby boys. It’s only natural, since one woman and one man come together to procreate.

One would think that Canadians, of all people, should recognize this essential, natural balance. Instead, they have willingly allowed a decidedly unnatural process to take place—the gender-based culling of unborn baby girls.

In fact, Canada has no law whatsoever regulating abortion, with the result that gender imbalances are beginning to show up in some communities, according to a 2006 report, “Canada’s Lost Daughters,” by investigative journalist Andrea Mrozek, now with the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada.

The problem is more acute overseas, where hundreds of thousands of female fetuses are aborted every year in countries such as India and China, according to a recent Maclean’s cover story. Nevertheless, Canada has no official foreign policy opposing sex-based abortion.

My colleague on the other side of the page is ready to sacrifice these unwanted baby girls on the altar of feminism and choice, and also professes to see my opposition to the rampant purging of unborn girls as a none-too-subtle pro-life initiative.

I cannot claim to be without convictions in this matter. But I would rather be guilty of defending the natural goodness and intrinsic beauty of newly created human life than be responsible for abetting the destruction of a class of humanity because of prejudice, ignorance or misguided ideology.

Money should be spent on services

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Jul 142011
 

By Terry O’Neill – The Tri-City News

He haunts us still. Gordon Campbell, that is. The former premier may be packing his bags for London, but, for better or worse, he is leaving his tax polices behind.

We all know about the slender thread by which the controversial HST currently hangs. Less well-known but no less significant is Campbell’s carbon tax, which jumped by more than a penny at the beginning of the month and now adds five-and-a-half cents to the cost of every litre of gasoline that motorists buy at the pumps.

Unlike last week’s proposal by Metro Vancouver mayors to levy a two-cent gas tax to help pay for the Evergreen Line, the carbon tax accomplishes little. In fact, it now seems to have been less about improving the province’s environment and more about improving Campbell’s image, so he could cast himself as a Schwarzenegger-worthy green crusader.

While it’s admirable that the B.C. Liberals cut personal and corporate tax rates to offset the extra burden created by the carbon taxes they heaped onto on gasoline and other fuels, the green levies simply aren’t having the effect they were designed to have.

In the key area of automobile usage, for example, the higher pump price caused by the carbon tax was supposed to force B.C. motorists to drive less. But this hasn’t happened, meaning there’s been no benefit to the environment. Instead, British Columbians have simply had to divert more of their income to pay for transportation.

Thanks to Campbell’s machinations, the B.C. Liberal government’s entire energy policy is a mess. He stuck B.C. Hydro with bad deals forcing it to pay astronomical prices for alternative energy, and Hydro’s billion-dollar “smart meter” program is an extravagant and needless exercise in eco-political correctness.

And let’s not forget that, in a misguided desire to see the government become ‘carbon neutral,’ Victoria is forcing public institutions, such as school districts and municipal governments, to buy ‘carbon offsets,’ primarily from private corporations. The Fraser Health Authority, for example, has had to spend almost $1 million on such offsets.

Surely, this money would be better spent in reducing waiting times in the Emergency Room than on a program that amounts to little more than carnival shell game in which the consumer and taxpayer always seem to lose.

B.C.’s gambling advertising goes too far

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May 272011
 

by Terry O’Neill

Is gambling good for B.C. or bad for British Columbians?

Drive by Coquitlam’s Boulevard Casino at any hour on any day of any week in any month of the year and you’ll see a parking lot full of cars driven by folks who have gone inside to part with their money in amusing and diverting ways.

Losers always outnumber winners by a wide margin — that’s the nature of the gambling beast. But since no one is forcing any of the players to try their hand at the slots or poker, I don’t see much wrong with the way the casinos do business.

But I do have a larger concern…

Click here to read the full Tri-City News editorial, or

Click here to view / download a PDF file of the entire text.

Parents have primary rights in kids’ education

 1 Response »
May 232011
 

by Terry O’Neill

FACE TO FACE: Does court-ordered ‘socialization’ in Quebec case go too far?

Of the countless buzzwords that flutter around the practice of child rearing, none currently surpasses “socialization” in its pervasiveness.

We are informed that infants should begin to experience the joys of early socialization in daycare; that toddlers should go to playschool to better socialize with their peers; that pre-schoolers must attend kindergarten in the name of socialization; and that children should enrol in school in the name of several goals, among which socialization is in the first rank…

Click here to read the full Tri-City News editorial, or

Click here to view / download a PDF file of the entire text.

Click here to watch Terry O’Neill deliver this commentary during a RoadKill Radio webcast.

Canadians voted with their heads

 1 Response »
May 072011
 

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.

With criminals in jail, we’re all safer

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May 042011
 

by Terry O’Neill

FACE TO FACE: Is ‘getting tough on crime’ a useful approach for our country?

My colleague on the other side of the page has developed the habit of bashing, blaming or otherwise bandying about the name of the United States as a way of adding some gravity to his arguments.

He’s aware of his overuse of the references but will undoubtedly have had to wage an epic battle with his inner Maude Barlow to dissuade himself from dragging the U.S. into today’s debate about the Conservative party’s law-and-order agenda, which leftists throughout our country regularly denounce as being “American-style.” Here’s hoping he has been able to bring something fresh to the Face to Face table…

Click here to read the full Tri-City News editorial, or

Click here to view / download a PDF file of the entire text.

Christian roots are democratic roots

 2 Responses »
Apr 262011
 

FACE TO FACE: Should Canada formally recognize Easter’s Christian roots?

What have I done? I challenged my colleague this week to a debate on whether Canada — as a society and as a country — should do more to celebrate the contribution the Christian faith has made to the way we live. I admit I am now being nagged by the thought I’ve bitten off more than I can chew in 375 words.

Nevertheless, onward we go. I’ll begin by noting that I am gratified that our country continues to mark this day, Good Friday, along with Easter and Christmas as official holidays, even though the original meaning of the word, holy day, no longer registers on most people’s personal radar…

Read the entire Tri-City News editorial here or click here for a PDF version.

It’s time to get tough with public sector unions

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Mar 302011
 

Published in and Copyright © by The Tri-City News, March 25, 2011

FACE TO FACE: Are public-sector unions the problem in government finances?

Wisconsin is best known for Milwaukee’s beer, Green Bay’s Packers and the state’s artery-clogging cheese.

But let’s not stop there. The state also gained prominence recently after it became a raging battleground between a cost-cutting, union-busting Republican governor, Scott Walker, and a thoroughly enraged unionized civil service, thousands of whose members stormed and occupied the State Capitol.

The great recession of the past two years hit our American cousins right in the chops and, as a consequence, many governments at all levels in the U.S. have been teetering near insolvency. In Wisconsin, the situation was particularly bad, leading Walker to call for laws to limit the power of public-sector unions — power that had led to levels of pay, benefits and locked-in job security unheard of in the private sector…

To read Terry O’Neill’s entire commentary, please visit Tri-City News

Or

Click here for a PDF file of the commentary.

Terry O’Neill: Gas prices! Collusion? Check this out!

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Mar 052011
 

FACE TO FACE: Gas prices go up and down in lockstep – is collusion the reason?

It’s easy to imagine inflexible class warriors such as my debating partner using crayons to do their economic ’rithmetic. Got a difficult business problem to work out? Forget the calculator! They think they can figure out the toughest questions with the crudest tools possible, in no small part because they already know the answer: Big Business is always to blame.

And so it is that my colleague ignores the facts, ignores countless studies and ignores common sense when he predictably claims gasoline companies are gouging consumers. click here for the full debate in the Tri-City News.