The Alberta Liberal Party is "firmly opposed to the concept" of a Charter Right!

 Updated.

Yes you read that correctly. The Alberta Liberal Party is "firmly opposed" to the concept of a specific charter right. In this case section 2.a of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which reads:

2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:

(a) freedom of conscience and religion;

(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;

(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and

(d) freedom of association.   

The official Alberta Liberal Party press release on the subject:

"The Alberta Liberals are firmly opposed to the concept of conscience rights, and are deeply disturbed by the Wildrose Party's suggestion that there is a place for such a repugnant and antiquated notion in contemporary Alberta."


This is not about certain instances of an individual expressing their freedom of conscience, and I do not want to even get into that here, this is about not just being opposed, but firmly opposed to the concept of an existing Charter right. 

Now who are supposed to be the scary ones again?



Are they really opposed to the idea of it? I don't think so, it seems they are more likely to be the victim of a very poorly worded press release than actually against the concept of a charter right, but it did provide for some interesting discussion on the entire issue over the weekend.

Including a guest appearance from Justin Trudeau, whose father Pierre was instrumental in giving us our Constitution and Charter of Rights, and the weird part was that I was in agreement with him on both the Charter and the law.

The bottom line on all of this is that our Charter and our existing laws make all those claims that the Wildrose will somehow be able to take rights away due to conscience rights total BS. It hasn't happened in Alberta where someone has been denied a government service that they were entitled to and it will never happen because can't happen thanks to already existing laws.

Namely Section 15.1 of the Charter, and the law is very clear on this when it comes to individuals working on behalf of the government; they cannot discriminate.

And yes, that does include those that perform civil marriages. Because that is ALREADY the law of Canada and any law that is written that tries to change that will never survive a Charter challenge.


This is such a non issue I can't believe that sane people are buying the BS. It just will not happen.


Glad to go at it in the comments if you disagree but fair warning; the charter, the law and Justin Trudeau are on my side. ;-)

Today's PC smear: Conscience rights. But what is the role of government?

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms:

"
2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:

(a) freedom of conscience and religion;

(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;

(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and

(d) freedom of association.                                    "

Our Charter provides us as individuals with certain rights, and is intended to protect us from any government passing laws infringing on those rights.

So would anyone who is currently aghast about the PC smear du jour of conscience rights and spinning that rights are going to be violated, why should anyone have to surrender their charter guaranteed right of freedom of conscience just because they happen to 'work' for the government?  And that invitation also includes Premier Redford, a lawyer and 'human rights' expert, who called the conscience policy "frightening". Our charter is frightening?  I don't think so but would be happy to hear you try to defend that and your playing politics with charter rights.

So now that we got that charter right business out of the way lets look at what the governments role in all of this is, or at least should be.

Someone is entitled to receive a 'government service'. They get that government service.

Done. That's it.

That is the role of government.

It isn't to force a specific individual to surrender his freedom of conscience by forcing them to perform that service, it is just to make sure that the service does get performed.

And that is why this isn't near the issue that it has been blown up to solely for political reasons. The truth is that no one has been denied a government 'service' because of conscience rights and everyone who has been entitled to be married has been given that opportunity and everyone who was entitled to any other government service has also received that service.

It just isn't happening and it hasn't happened for a long long time in Alberta and even then it they ended up getting the services they were due through the courts. Because that is what courts are for when it appears that rights collide.

Which incidentally is exactly what Danielle Smith said this morning.

First they came for Facebook...

First they came for Facebook and now the Pakistani Government has banned You Tube and 450 other sites including Wikipedia for being "sacrilegious" to the nation's Muslim majority.

When you give the government the power to censor, they will use it.

You may agree with the government on a particular ban, but one day you won't, and by then it will be too late. Think Human Rights Commissions for something a little closer to home.


Related: This doesn't look good.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said in Washington that the United States respects Pakistani efforts to protect the public from offensive images and speech but that Pakistan must also respect freedom of expression online.

Scott Rubin, a spokesman for YouTube, said that the site is working with Pakistani telecommunication officials to resolve the issue and that "we hope we restore service soon." He added: "This is up to Pakistan telecom authority."

I hope they don't go down the Comedy Central route because appeasement never works.

BTW: For the moral relativism crowd out there. Banning over 450 internet sites from over 146 million people is not the same as enforcing rules and the employment contract for 1 single person, no matter how much you want it to be.

Saskatchewan leads the way. Possible shut down of HRC

This can only be described as good news.

Justice David Arnot, Saskatchewan's Human Rights Commissioner, has recommended that Saskatchewan's Human Rights Tribunal be discontinued.

"Currently human rights law, I think it's fair to say, is evolving," Arnot said. "It's becoming more and more complex and the Human Rights Commission believes that judges are best placed to deal with those complexities rather than an administrative tribunal that really doesn't have any dedicated officers or assigned staff and has really little infrastructure."

Saskatchewan Justice Minister Don Morgan has suggested that, if the tribunal is scrapped, that its cases will be forwarded to the Saskatchewan Court of Queen's Bench.

"This is a recommendation that's come forward and is a recommendation that, in fact, may have some merit. There are criticisms that the Saskatchewan Human Rights Tribunal may be seen as too close to the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission," Morgan explained.


Lead the way Saskatchewan and lets hope the rest of the provinces follow.


h/t Nexus of assholery.

Ann Coulter's speech in Ottawa cancelled!

When embarrassing letters are not enough, resort to threats of violence to get the job done.

The tolerant left strikes again.

Update:



ht Dr. Roy.

Related links on Susan Cole: BCL and from Ezra here and here.

What a piece of work this woman is.

Maybe the students should get suspended with pay

Oh wait, students don't get paid, only the teachers do, including the ones in this video.


Students who took the video footage of 2 Winnipeg teachers "lap dancing" may face punishment.




"The Churchill High School students violated the Winnipeg School Division's zero-tolerance policies forbidding the use of cellphone cameras and other devices in schools, officials said. School board chairwoman Jackie Sneesby refused to rule out punishment for the students."

Zero tolerance for 'other devices' that record video you say?

Hmm, do cctv cameras fit into the other devices category? (pdf file on contract to supply and install cctv cameras in WSD schools)

What about regular digital cameras? (pdf file on courses offered in WSD schools on digital photography)


Btw, how do you know that all of these videos were recorded on cellphone cameras?


Go for it WSD; punish the students, but be keep your resumes updated as you will need them soon.

Selective Outrage from the left.

George W Bush was in town yesterday for a speaking engagement and as expected the protesters were out in full force for the cameras. Nothing out of the ordinary really as GWB has always had this ability to drive the left absolutely nutty, but watching the news last night I wondered just how many of those people protesting would be doing the same thing if it was Obama in town rather than GWB. Afterall the Obama administration has not exactly changed much if anything from the last guy in the way of policy, in spite of what they said during the campaign, and in some ways they have done some things that make GWB look good by comparison.

Case in point: the vilification of Fox News.

Normally in a non bizarro world if a President and their administration tried to control or manipulate the media, or direct opinion on the media, bloggers, the media, and the left would go batshit crazy over these efforts, and rightfully so. But in this case not so much. In fact they are getting support for their efforts from not only some others in the MSM but from lefty groups such as MoveOn.org Contrast that with what would have happened if GWB did the same thing with CNN or MSNBC.

Taken from a more Canadian perspective could you imagine what the reaction would be if PM Harper or someone from the PMO went on to CTV and Global and declared that the CBC was not a news organization because they had an agenda and therefore the CBC and any of their stories should be ridiculed and ignored? Yes it would get ugly and it would get ugly fast. Remember early on when the PM got the PPG all worked up because he had the audacity to try to have some control over HIS OWN pressers and asked reporters to put their names on a list to ask questions? The press and the left went nuts and we are still seeing the effects of that even today in stories from the MSM when they sneak references into their reporting of how the PM likes to 'control' everything.


So where is the outrage on what the Obama administration is trying to do?


Vilifying a news organization because you do not like the stories they are doing about you is not only petty & cheap, it exposes your lack of leadership, thin skin and inability to deal with criticism, and it just reeks of something seen in 3rd world countries and dictatorships and is not what one would expect to see from the leadership of a free and democratic country such as the USA. Wrong is wrong.

There are ways to deal with negative or even slanted press stories, fighting back with the truth is the best IMHO, but the government trying to control/manipulate or even vilify the press is not the way to do it and in fact it is a very dangerous game to be playing in a free and open society. But it is a game that the left, in this case because they dislike Fox News so much, is only too happy to play. The next time this game gets played however the left may not be so supportive and when they scream out in outrage it will ring hollow because the last time it was played everyone will remember that the left were on the side lines cheering it all on.





To be fair there has been some backlash from this coming mainly from the press but you know as well as I that the level of outrage we have seen over this so far is nowhere close to what it would have been if GWB or even PM Harper had done the same thing.

Liberal Senator: Quebec has a superior culture to Alberta.

Liberal Senator Celine Hervieux-Payette was at it again yesterday; this time attacking Alberta.

You may remember Hervieux-Payette from her response to a Minnesota family concerned about seal hunting where she said that they should be more concerned with "the daily massacre of innocent people in Iraq, the execution of prisoners -- mainly blacks -- in American prisons, the massive sale of handguns to Americans, the destabilization of the entire world by the American government's aggressive foreign policy, etc." than the seal hunt.

Yesterday on CTV's Power Play Hervieux-Payette was again her classy self when talking about her nanny state private members bill outlawing spanking. She was discussing statistics and how support for her bill was "off course" lower in Alberta than in Quebec because "we don't have the same culture" and went on to say in way of an explanation after being called out by host Tom Clarke "I am just telling you that maybe we (Quebec) have the appropriate way of dealing with children and education is different then hitting a child."

Not that her arrogant and clueless statement was enough she went on to laughingly say "We have some support in Alberta? That is news for me." again in response to Tom Clarke's observation that her statement was going to hurt Liberal support in Alberta and Western Canada.

The Liberal Party of Canada: not only are we more united than ever as a party but we continue to unite Canadians from coast to coast to coast for a better Canada.

You can watch the CTV segment here.


More on Hervieux-Payette from CTV. Apparently she is sexist as well as being clueless on the economy.

Even more important than the empty suit Ignatieff's bluster.

The beginning of the end of Section 13.

Finally!








H/T our favorite combustible feline. BCF has a very complete listing of links on this.

Hollow Words.

More from Michael Ignatieff, but this time he has gone international with his hollow words.

Canada's "fragile" unity is being rattled by a rigidly Conservative government that plays "region against region and language group against language group, "In our country, a politics that arouses ethnic and regional resentment, creating wedges in order to mobilize a conservative base vote, is playing with fire."

He has gone from coast to coast saying that he will not play the divisive politics game, but to date we have only heard the words. But the words mean nothing if they are not backed up with actions and so far Ignatieff has waffled on pretty much everything he has ever said or written. Seriously, has there been anything he has stood by? Yes Ignatieff is that predictable, and I expect him to again shy away from taking a stand or show any type of real leadership.

So you tell me. Will he waffle again or will he stand by his oft spoken words and for once show some balls and publicly distance himself from his alleged 'war room guy' for playing perhaps the most divisive card possible, religion. At the funeral of the Godfather of his own daughter no less.

It doesn't get more divisive and blatant than that people.

I say he waffles again even though he really can't afford to do it again. The man has almost no credibility left and the polls are starting to reflect this.

Hey Jennifer Lynch, file this!

It seems that Jennifer Lynch, chief commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, is keeping a "file" on those that are speaking out against the travesty that is the CHRC. A secret file no doubt with the names, and the examples of people exercising their right to free speech by criticizing the CHRC.

Here are her own words on the file: "Please, please, look. We have experienced 16 months of invective hurled at us, and at any time when anybody has tried to speak up and correct misinformation, gross distortions, caricaturizations, then the very next day there's been some full-frontal assault through the blogs, through mainstream media. I have a file. I'm sure I have 1,200, certainly several hundred of these things."

So Jennifer, since you are so interested in keeping a record of those that dare speak out against your operation, you can add mine to the list and file this.

You should be fired and the CHRC disbanded. We have existing laws on defamation and hate speech in this country and we have courts which can deal with these matters in a fair and procedural manner, which is something that HRC's all over have had a real problem doing as normal legal process' gets tossed aside by tribunals in their twisted quest to stamp out real and existing rights and create non existent ones such as the right not to be offended.
You speak about honest debate but you are afraid to actually debate anyone. You commission a report, using an CHRC insider, and when you do not like the findings you file it away into a drawer and spend more taxpayer money to get another report written that is more to your liking.

Cowardly, and pathetic.

Fire them all!


h/t At Home in Hespeler.

Attention Privacy Commissions.

Tomorrow as I am going about my daily business and driving around Edmonton; I will randomly stick the camera out of my vehicle window and will be taking some digital photographs. If I am feeling really crazy I might take a short video as well but no guarantees.

I plan on publishing these pictures on the internet and I will not be blurring out any faces, license plates or any other potentially identifying material in those images. Deal with it.


If anyone would like to explain to me why myself, or even Google, cannot do this I would love to hear from you in the comments.

UN Human Rights Council removes rights from humans...

... and gives them to inanimate objects and ideas.

Full Story here: A United Nations forum on Thursday passed a resolution condemning "defamation of religion" as a human rights violation, despite wide concerns that it could be used to justify curbs on free speech in Muslim countries.

The U.N. Human Rights Council adopted the non-binding text, proposed by Pakistan on behalf of Islamic states, with a vote of 23 states in favor and 11 against, with 13 abstentions.

"Defamation of religious is a serious affront to human dignity leading to a restriction on the freedom of their adherents and incitement to religious violence," the adopted text read, adding that "Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism."

It called on states to ensure that religious places, sites, shrines and symbols are protected, to reinforce laws "to deny impunity" for those exhibiting intolerance of ethnic and religious minorities, and "to take all possible measures to promote tolerance and respect for all religions and beliefs."

Unbelievable! Real rights removed from people and given to religions instead. What the hell is going on in the UN?

How was something as insane as this even considered, never mind how it passed a vote with 23 countries in favour and 13 countries who apparently couldn't care less and abstained. When I find out how the countries voted I will post up the list.

So what was Canada's position? (at least currently, I have doubts it would remain the same under a Liberal Government)

"It is individuals who have rights, not religions," Ottawa's representative told the body. "Canada believes that to extend (the notion of) defamation beyond its proper scope would jeopardize the fundamental right to freedom of expression, which includes freedom of expression on religious subjects."

A voice of common sense for now, but it did not do any good in the end.

This Weeks Outrage: Entertainment Industry Edition.

Not to be out done by the big "entertainment industry outrage" story this week about an obscure late night Fox News show called Redeye where the host and guest panel basically dissed the Canadian Armed Forces in a lame attempt at humour; Britney Spears seems to have stirred up some outrage of her own with the release of a new song, "If U Seek Amy".

Shocked? I know I am because I did not think that there could possibly be any outrage for the entertainment industry left after the fallout from the Redeye thing. I mean it was everywhere; first on the blogs, then the papers, and when it had eventually made it onto the television news I thought that there could not be anymore, but I was wrong. Wrong because my fellow citizens have once again proven that the well of outrage towards entertainers seems to never come up dry.

So a big thank you to my fellow citizens for the good work. It is because of you that I can sleep at night knowing of your efforts to keep the entertainers closely monitored for the nasty and evil crime of offending people.

And here I thought that this was the reason why we have HRC's.

Silly Ardvark.



Let me close out by quoting a A. Wine who in 1982 said:

"If you see Kay, tell her I need her."





Good night and remember Leave Britney Alone!!! (NSFW)

The Progressive Left Calls Upon the CMA...

An AWM Exclusive:

Members of the so called progressive left have called upon the Canadian Medical Association and it's provincial counterparts to ban Muslim doctors from practicing medicine in Canada. The general consensus of the left seems to be that a belief in a higher power and the science of medicine cannot coexist together and that Islamic doctors should be banned from practicing in this country for the safety of the Canadian public. Jeffrey Moonbat a spokesman for the left stated "We cannot have doctors that believe that things happen because of the will of Allah while ignoring the science." He added, "A real risk with this type of archaic thinking is that it is possible that an Islamic doctor may not put forth the necessary and expected effort to treat those that get sick or injured because the disease or illness might be Allah's work." "Modern medicine is science based and the will of Allah is not science."


In related news; rumour has it that CUPE Ontario is proposing a motion that Muslim professors be banned from lecturing in the pure sciences on university campuses.

More to come on this story as more information becomes available.

-----------------

This ladies and gentlemen this is the progressive left in this country again showing their respect for the constitutional rights of others to their beliefs by discriminating against them in their choice of vocations based solely on religious beliefs.

Just the type of thing that human rights commissions in this country were set up investigate and prosecute. It is too bad that HRC's are so busy prosecuting the free speech of Canadians that they ignore very obvious and real violations of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Free Speech in England.

For some.







But not for all.

Kinsella Barking at the Moon

Expect to see some howling coming to the Canadian blogosphere soon as University of Windsor law professor Richard Moon's report on the CHRC suggests section 13 be repealed.

Colour me surprised.

Proportional Representation

With the election over we again hear calls for proportional representation, mostly from those that didn't get anyone elected, but here is something Elizabeth May or anyone else always fail to mention in their PR pr.

If we adopt some form of PR in Canada we would NEVER again have an independent elected to Parliament.

Think about that for a moment.

Think about last night and both André Arthur and Bill Casey.

Think back to 2004 and Chuck Cadman.

Think about an average person never again being able to run for Parliament unless they were members of some national political party .



That would not be a step forward for democracy, it would be a step backwards.

The Original "I am" Speech.

"I am a Canadian,
a free Canadian,
free to speak without fear,
free to worship God in my own way,
free to stand for what I think right,
free to oppose what I believe wrong,
free to choose those who shall govern my country.
This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold
for myself and for all mankind."

Prime Minister John G. Diefenbaker, from the House of Commons, Debates (on the Canadian Bill of Rights), July 1, 1960.


h/t Nick and Kathy,


Do not forget to vote.

Comments have been disabled on the blog due to archaic election laws.

Dear Liberal Party of Canada.

Dear Liberal Party of Canada:

Stop trying to take away all of my hard earned money and please stop telling me what to do and how to live my life.

You are not better than me, and just the fact that you believe that you are and that somehow you know better how to live my life than myself is enough of a reason why you should never be returned to power in this country.

Thank you,

Al