Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
Diane Francis, February 2006 – I got married to a Brit, Frank Francis, at 19 years of age and one year later we immigrated to Canada, or Toronto to be precise. We started a graphic design and typesetting business, Francis Graphics, which became very successful. I left the business to stay at home with our two babies, Eric and Julie, for six years.
Diane Francis, December 2009 – “A planetary law, such as China’s one-child policy, is the only way to reverse the disastrous global birthrate currently, which is one million births every four days.”
So, which one, Diane – Eric? Or Julie? (Odds aren’t in Julie’s favour)
No pressure. Take your time.
The second one was a mistake anyway…it happened when she got really stoned at Burning Man and slept with one of Phish’s roadies.
Do as I say, not as I do.
Rules for others, not applicable to themselves. Another Liberal hypocrite.
Perhaps the slippage explains why she hasn’t been heard of in the last decade or so. Usually friends look out for each other by keeping them out of the limelight when they lose their minds.
She just wants to show her boss that she can sell newspapers.
Or, at the least, get attention.
Does anyone expect journalists to express a heart-felt or carefully reasoned opinion?
It DOES happen, but not often.
Fraudsters steal $7B in carbon credit scams in past 18 months. http://news.ca.msn.com/top-stories/cbc-article.aspx?cp-documentid=22852625
The way I see it these people that believe CO2 is a problem should just hold their breath for say 20 minutes. That should greatly reduce the amount of CO2, and if they do it properly is should reduce the population as well. 2 birds with 1 stone so to speak. Then there would be work for people removing and disposing of the bodies, great that would mean less unemployment because after the cleanup there would be all sorts of vacant jobs to fill. I know it sounds silly but no more silly than what they are spouting.
Consent to death
14. No person is entitled to consent to have death inflicted on him, and such consent does not affect the criminal responsibility of any person by whom death may be inflicted on the person by whom consent is given.
R.S., c. C-34, s. 14.
Homicide
222. (1) A person commits homicide when, directly or indirectly, by any means, he causes the death of a human being.
Kinds of homicide
(2) Homicide is culpable or not culpable.
Non culpable homicide
(3) Homicide that is not culpable is not an offence.
Culpable homicide
(4) Culpable homicide is murder or manslaughter or infanticide.
Idem
(5) A person commits culpable homicide when he causes the death of a human being,
(a) by means of an unlawful act;
(b) by criminal negligence;
(c) by causing that human being, by threats or fear of violence or by deception, to do anything that causes his death; or
(d) by wilfully frightening that human being, in the case of a child or sick person.
Exception
(6) Notwithstanding anything in this section, a person does not commit homicide within the meaning of this Act by reason only that he causes the death of a human being by procuring, by false evidence, the conviction and death of that human being by sentence of the law.
R.S., c. C-34, s. 205.
Counselling offence that is not committed
464. Except where otherwise expressly provided by law, the following provisions apply in respect of persons who counsel other persons to commit offences, namely,
(a) every one who counsels another person to commit an indictable offence is, if the offence is not committed, guilty of an indictable offence and liable to the same punishment to which a person who attempts to commit that offence is liable; and
(b) every one who counsels another person to commit an offence punishable on summary conviction is, if the offence is not committed, guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.
R.S., 1985, c. C-46, s. 464; R.S., 1985, c. 27 (1st Supp.), s. 60.
How long does Diane Francis want to go to jail for?
Get out the beer and popcorn should be quite the ‘show trial’.
But as Armstrong & Miller noted:
“You haf no rights in zis room!!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1rWvGSmOuo&NR=1
Armstrong & Miller – WWII RAF Sketch 5
Cheers
Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
Promoting population control for the “Western World” is a silly thing.
Firstly, it’s happening naturally, as our perma-adolescent adults want to continuing partying into their 40s, 50s, and 60s, concomitantly avoiding parenthood.
Secondly, for North American born parents, their kids are an expensive and time consuming proposition, with lessons and other extracurricular activities (as well as added food and housing costs), so children are often viewed as an encumbrance.
Thirdly, I have read the statements of others that have given me pause to think – they say where will the people be born who will solve the future major crises of the world? North America or The Sudan? Although on the surface this sounds very distasteful, I think it’s a fair question that deserves debate.
Didn’t she used to be Diane Francis?
I’ll tell you when you begin to pay attention to
idiots like her.
When she begins preaching this in mosques.
I’ll listen to this idiot the day she leads by example and commits suicide. When my hippie aunt espoused this nonsense to me as a teenager back in the 1970’s my response to her was “Why are you still alive?”
Dianne is one of the reasons I dropped my subscription to the Financial Post in the mid ’90s. Much, much too far left for anyone with the amount of influence she has at the Financial Post.
Sounder:
Did you really write “Rules for others, not applicable to themselves. Another Liberal hypocrite.”
Francis, a Liberal!?! I think not.
I very much disagree with the wish for one-child-pre-couple crap being espoused by her or anyone else but …… Francis, a Liberal!? Better you should do some reading.
Not being fair here. Diane Francis is much older than the 19 years she was when she got married. I suggest that the world wasn’t in peril back then. Two kids, but normal standards is not even replacement numbers. Diane did the right thing staying home until the kids were in school.
I don’t see how trashing Diane Francis with such a flimsy grab is doing anything but trashing a good conservative woman for making a perfectly decent choice at the time.
As far as the “Sophies Choice” question, I don’t think it is very nice to ask a woman such a question. There is no answer to that one, only anxiety and profound sadness.
Besides, the only reason we have any population rise is because we are importing people who have eight kids each. Let’s have a look at that.
On this blog, most are conservative type freedom loving capitalists. Our system has one flaw … it is that in order to work it requires never-ending growth. You know … investment and development … larger markets etc.
The dilemma is that on one hand you scorn a women for having two kids (she would likely choose one if her choice was today) yet you promote the continuation of the growth economy?
Which will it be?
BCer you’re such a typical BCer- not able to spot a liberal just because they are in the financial pages. I think you should read carefully her past tripe.
With all due respect Jake, Ms. Francis is being scorned for being an idiot, not for having two kids.
well I’m doing my part.
I have a daughter, an only child. Furthermore she is mixed race, coincidentally Chinese and my race whatever that may be. the kid got thru 1st year university on a scholarship. just like the stereotype.
get off the pedestal ms francis. and stay off, your 15 minutes is up.
More anti-western hate. We should just die out. Not mentioned is that the developed countries already have birth rates well below replacement and their populations -less immigration are declining sharply.
The big population increases are in the developing world esp. the Islamic countries. Good luck on the birth control for Muslims spin.
Funny how all the problems in the world are the west’s fault, even when they aren’t
Jonah Goldberg comments:
Imagine if someone wrote an op-ed saying that we need a planetary ban on abortion. Feminists would get their dresses over their heads in outrage about such a naked assault on “reproductive freedom.”
Meanwhile, at the Calgary Zoo.
We have a Small Dead Animal and it instantly becomes an international incident.
Diane Francis zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
The reproduction rate in Canada is 1.6. Less than the 2.1 required for replacement.
How come Francis does not know this?
Jake, it doesn’t matter whether Francis is Lib or Con, her thinking is weak. Canada has 33 million and a low birth rate. Why should anyone in our society practice population control. All western democracies but one, the USA are reproducing below replacement.
This my Dear Diane, is simply not a problem for highly developed Western Democracies.
Period.
Hey diane you NUMPTY !! how many people around the world are dying every four day’s , from natural causes and …sooomee shall we say not so natural causes….http://www.answeringmuslims.com/2009/10/al-qaedas-schoolyard-massacre.html ….Your a Dumb woamn and a hipocrite!! if the chinease only allow one child per familly that is there problem , if the africans refuse to use birth control or condoms (i am agaainst both as well i beelive in marrige and educating youth how to handle those situation if and when they get into them it just eliminates so many problems)and have an aids pandemic and a birthrate of 8 or nine kids per family that is there problem as well i beleive in helping everyone including these people but but look at who and where there is an overpopulation ….definatley not in any western white christian countries we are dying as fast as they are breeding and out breeding us at that so i say live and let LIVE. China should not be killing babies they should be educating and giving incentives for smaller families simple !! And here in canada we should be giving incentives for large famillies closing our boarders ,this way we don’t have tamil tigers closing our highway’s or the muslims threatening MR. Harper with there shoes!!! start breeding patriotism and pride into our canadian people and future!!
Sorry i know alittle off topic!!
Paul in calgary
“So, which one, Diane – Eric? Or Julie?”
She won’t make that choice, but what people like her WILL do however is choose to “off” your one child instead.
Jake, Francis may be a fiscal conservative, but not a social one. People who are fiscal but not social conservatives are simply liberals who at least understand economics. Anyone who could support the tragedy that is China’s one-child law has a fascist control streak that would make Hitler proud. Her logic would only destroy western civilization, making the future of the world even grimmer than it is right now. And we don’t scorn her for having 2 kids then, we scorn her for being a hypocrite now.
In terms of total population, the world has an incredible capacity for growth. As was discovered with crop yields 40 years ago, our technological capacity outstrips our growth rate by a significant margin. You might not think so living in downtown Toronto, but try visiting Saskatchewan some time.
Your dilemma is as invalid today as it was when posed as “Limits to Growth” by the Club of Rome 40+/- years ago. Will it be 40, or 140 years from now? If it survives factors other than population count, I bet it will.
Kate,
You always “cut-to-the-quick”! Maybe DF’s #2 was a “cut-to-the-quickie” as well?
Cheers.
I disagree with Francis because it is none of her (or the government’s) GD business how many children should be allowed per family. As a libertarian I would prefer that a family can afford to raise them without burdening the welfare system but that is another debate.
BTW, wouldn’t she have been in her childbearing years at the same time the Population Bomb was exploding on the bookshelves. Kind of odd that her concern was delayed until after her own menopause.
There is a solution for her. She absolutely must insist that her children only produce one grandchild to make up for her own baby overage. Any subsequent grandchildren should be shunned for the ecological burden they represent.
I’m thinking Diane is no spring chicken anymore. Does she think the elderly (she’ll be there in 10-15 years or so) will be exempt from eco-nazi-totalitarianism????
Pre-borns and oldsters will be on the chopping block. She should think about that a little bit more. Remember death panels??
Guys, give her a break. She’s obviously desperately grasping for attention while her ship goes down.
One kid? Heck, even David Suzuki has five.
Oh, and there is another downside. Population control will lead to vast numbers of males and vastly fewer females.
That, is as Mark Steyn points out, a recipe for war. Teenage and young men with no women to pursue means a huge population of males with fighting on their minds, and governments eager to start a war to occupy those same young men.
I believe that men really only have two primary interests. fighting and f***ing. In my experience, food trails a distant third.
Didn’t Bob Rae’s Uncle Mo suggest something similar, like getting rid of a billion or so people?
Ah the leftist elite, they never seem to think that these policies they dream up for us, the great unwashed, will never come back and bite them in the ass.
Gore has four kids…
I believe that men really only have two primary interests. fighting and f***ing. In my experience, food trails a distant third.
I think fighting and food switch rankings somewhere around 35ish. The chip falls off the shoulder and lands in a bowlful of potato chips that deliciously compliments the sports shows on TV.
My point is that at some point, on a finite ball in space, we will be beyond capacity. That would be hell on earth for sure.
Those think continued growth of population is good, please note the living conditions in the most populous countries and why that is so.
At some point there just ain’t enough to go around and like today’s world it will not be distributed equally and that is why we have the save the planet crowd nipping at our heels.
Francis is correct in supporting limited pop growth. I have noted in my lifetime, the high the world’s population gets, the more problems, wars, famine etc we have.
Remember, capitalism (my favorite system) has the fatal flaw of requiring unlimited growth for it to work. That cannot be sustained for ever.
Just as Socialism eventually runs out of capitalist’s money to spend, Capitalists eventually run out of resources to develop.
Neither can be sustained forever. That is the real dilemma. The larger the population, the less time we have left.
Just as Socialism eventually runs out of capitalist’s money to spend, Capitalists eventually run out of resources to develop .
One of these has been proven again and again , the other , not so much .
Jake,
the living conditions your refer to are due more to shitty governments than to the population.
You also presume we will always be restricted to this planet; Lazarus Long would disagree.
I have always enjoyed Francis’ writings, although not always agreed with her propositions.
She appears to be moving to the dark side: “Socialism/envirometalism for you but not for me”.
Jake at December 11, 2009 7:55 PM
Jake you completely miss the point. If resources become constrained, then economic activity shifts in a liberal, capitalist society.
The problem is when hierarchical organizations attempt to determine how to use those resources, which are, after all, still constrained.
It’s called dictatorship.
So, the big question is:
Did Gore do a Francis or did Francis do a Gore?
Or have they both done a David (two home) Suzuki?
Must decide.
Holdren, Obama’s Science Czar, wrote a book discussing how to limit populations. It was called Ecoscience. ALthough he recommended, among other things, placing sterilants in a population’s water or food supply. I am pretty sure the CBC covered this. lol.
She is on Fox News right now . . .
Actually, history shows that war, famine and disease was more prevalent when there was lower population and primitive technology (what the progressive greens would like to return to). The Dark Ages for instance. The modern world wars and genocides were a product of megalomaniacs with a grand plan and an all powerful totalitarian state.
No society has ever been able to even control the cat problem! Why even bother trying with humans?
HRM City Council, I’m sure, would do a fine job.
Jake, you need to study up on how capitalism works. The stone age didn’t end because we ran out of stones.
I sent Dianne a note:
“Dianne, Which one gets it in the neck, Eric or Julie? Further to that, will you support the implementation of that law, rather than just the deluded do-gooder “its for the planet” meme? Lets say Julie, by an accident, gets pregnant after already having had a child, will you put the needle into the baby’s skull as it crowns, to kill it, or are you above such tawdry chores as executing babies? I would ask the question as if it pertained to Eric’s wife, but since Julie is alive, clearly he has been the victim of state extermination, and as such is………..a statistic?
You know the best part of you having your head so far up your ass? At least we only have to read your drivel, rather than listen.”
Eric and Rick and Paul are all correct and the reason we are in trouble is because we’ve turned our back on the old religion, the decalogue and Natural Law. We have several generations brought up with divorce, abortion, birth control, etc.. Children born out of wedlock, or not knowing who their mother or father is, wondering why they left them, whether they are loved or just put up with. This is not conducive to building families, having children, and working for the common good. Jake, no one claimed life is “fair” or “nice” and Diane couldn’t be described as being either.
My goodness, a priviledged, wealthy, white woman advising the third world on birth control. Does she not see the racism in that statement? Sounds colonial to me. Cheers.
I look forward to reading in Diane’s next column her explanation of why she is exempt from the law she espouses. Let’s hear it Diane. Educate me.