76 Replies to “Reader Tips”

  1. The Charter, whether Trudeau intended it or not, has three BIG holes that relate *directly* to the Macleans/Steyn v. Islamofascism matter:
    1) There is no (individual) property rights protection in the Charter;
    2) There is a listed, open-ended categorization of protected groups, which is related to the group rights reference;
    3) The notwithstanding clause renders the whole document meaningless.
    The Steyn affair, I think, has been wrongly classified, even by some very intelligent people, as a free-speech issue. It isn’t. It’s a property rights issue. Do Macleans have the right to determine the content of their magazine or not? Does anyone of us have the right to throw someone out of our homes?
    As the philosopher Ayn Rand pointed out, all individual rights rest on property rights; without property rights, no other rights are possible.* It is ironic that one of Harper’s campaign promises was the insertion of property rights into the Charter. Not that he was tripping over himself to get that done, but it’s interesting that the first real test of the Charter’s efficacy came under his stewardship.
    I’m beginning to suspect that El-Masry may have factored this – Canada being a constitutionally rightless state – into his calculations.
    By the way, is there a right-wing, radio talk-show circuit here in Canada? Or is the revolution all Web-based?
    Thanks.

  2. shamrock and nomdeblog – now THAT strategy, the strategy of pragmatism, of focusing on appealing to the development of small/medium size capitalist enterprises – now that makes sense.
    I totally agree, change must come from the bottom up, incrementally and based in daily local reality.
    There’s no way to change the amorphous clouds of group identity politics (bilingualism, multiculturalism) by suggesting yet more amorphous clouds (let’s not be diverse, let’s all be Canadian!). Yes, it might work but it’s as fragile and frankly, unethical, as the first one. Remember, Kyotoism ‘works’ despite the fact that it’s completely unrelated to reality and the environment and is instead just a money scam. Kyotoism works on guilt, just like multiculturalism and bilingualism.
    In this case, it’s guilt for having industrialized (first)…heh..as if industrialism was some mineral that we in the west happened to find first. No, it took reason, logic, experiment, analysis, risk, tests…to develop. So, we should feel proud. Not guilty.
    The only way to deal with the romantic blather of multiculturalism is by pragmatic reality, which is to stop funding the isolationism and the welfare mode of this isolationism; and focus on enabling the immigrant to be part of the economic reality of the country.
    That also means a change in immigration mode – as the govt is suggesting. Rather than entire blocks of extended family members, most who don’t work, most who never learn the language, most who refuse to identify with being in Canada and whole groups who want to set up their own legal system as privileged over the national one – we must focus on those who actually want to be Canadian and part of our social infrastructure.

  3. I know this isn’t a gazillionth as important as the Muslims taking over the world, but has anyone else ever thought they’d seen that creepy dead gopher flick its little dead tongue in and out? I swear, I’ve got to stop smoking my breakfast…
    —
    Lisa

  4. Dare Balogun: The Steyn affair, I think, has been wrongly classified, even by some very intelligent people, as a free-speech issue. It isn’t. It’s a property rights issue.
    I find the Steyn, MacLeans, Ezra, Kate, etc. affair pushes all of the following equally important buttons:
    • free speech button
    • property rights button
    • abuse of process button

  5. ET .. “now that makes sense.”
    Whew!
    You can see where being PM must take enormous stamina. I must be a lot harder than blogging … ;>)

  6. glasnost: I find the Steyn, MacLeans, Ezra, Kate, etc. affair pushes all of the following equally important buttons:
    • free speech button
    • property rights button
    • abuse of process button
    —
    That’s the thing I’m trying to point out: they’re *not* all equally important. To exercise free speech or to stop “abuse of [whatever] process,” you first *require* property rights. Property rights are the essential rights, and in any epistemological context, the essence is that which determines the others.
    Let me try to concretize this:
    You go into a store to buy something. You think the owner’s wife looks sexy, and then you say so, loudly. The owner hears you and throws you out. Do you yell “Hey, free speech!”? No. And that’s because it’s our right to ownership of property that determines our freedom to express ourselves.
    The contents of man’s mind, which are intangible, require physical objects (property) to be brought into physical reality. First as written words or diagrams, then implemented into real man-made objects, such as houses, bridges, computers, songs, paintings, etc. All these require that there be an inviolable claim to physical property which settles the mind and allows it to focus on creation.
    Notice what the Sock Puppets claimed to be asking: to publish a rejoinder of their choosing without regard for proof or editing. This would have been politically, even if not morally, fine provided they did so in *their own* magazine. Hell, the NYT does it all the time!
    But, why are we here? Because they are trying to force Macleans to surrender their property rights. It’s the same in Levant’s case.
    Property rights are the essential rights; the other rights **rest upon** property rights. Notice that prisoners have free-speech rights: they can yell at the guards all they want. Any man can speak, but where and how and on what and whose grounds? That’s what counts ultimately.

  7. glasnost – it IS a free speech issues, as much as it is a property rights issue.
    With regard to free speech, the basic axiom is that in a civic democratic society, the individual must have the right to think and express these thoughts. If these opinions offend someone else, so be it. The issue can be debated; it can be resolved or not resolved.
    Free speech can’t be defined as similar to hate speech (even though some fogged minds have recently done so). Hate speech is a direct incitement to take actual steps to physically harm someone, i.e., to breach the peace. I’d note that Richard Warman’s approval to the students to fling a ‘pie-in-the-face’ at Icke would, in my view, fit into this section.
    Those opposed to free speech can’t declare that it’s the same as defamation/libel, which protects your actual reputation, not your alleged reputation and not your feelings.
    Free speech is – speech. It presents opinions and must be, in my view, open to debate. If it isn’t open to debate, it’s irrelevant, it’s dogma.
    The steyn article was free speech; it wasn’t hate speech, it wasn’t defamation. It’s open to debate. Elmasry is quite wrong to declare it hate speech and to our deep shame, Canada has ‘Human Rights Commissions’ which define ‘hate speech’ not in the specific manner in our Criminal Code section 315, but in an ambiguous focus on a subjective and personal feeling of ‘being viewed with hatred or contempt’.
    This latter, being subjective, is completely unprovable as being the result of any speech/article.
    The question then moves on to the issue of Debate. There is no reason whatsoever that the debate must be in the same room, the same lecture hall, the same town, the same magazine. Yet, Elmasry and his puppets are demanding just that. This moves the case to property rights.
    Is a private publication owned by the owners and editors? Or, if I don’t like an article, can I insist that Macleans publish my counter argument. And then, JoeBlow will dislike what I said and insist that he get his rebuttal published, and then, SusieSmart will..and so on. Can’t be done.
    If Elmasry and the students want a debate, he can do so in another publication – and that’s been done. He has no legal right to demand that it be in the same space, hall, room, building, magazine. And he should expect that HIS article must be open to debate by others. That’s a sticking point for many of these Muslisms; they can’t handle critique and debate of their lifestyle and religion. Tough; this isn’t 7th century Arabia.

  8. 2.36 AB time and I just checked the g&m poll again. Still no recorded votes.
    Must just be getting yes votes from Ont.

  10. Thanks, ET. I altogether agree with Me No Dhimmi’s assessment of your fine posts today.

  11. nomdeblog: “At a private luncheon with MPs in the mid-1990s, Trudeau was asked whether multiculturalism had developed the way he hoped. He replied: ‘No, this is not what I wanted..’… I’m no fan of Trudeau, but the point is, he put something in motion and wasn’t able to correct it as it morphed.”
    My question is, if Trudeau wasn’t happy with the direction in which the multiculturalim he instituted had gone, then why didn’t he make this abundantly clear before he died? He had ample opportunity–and a drooling and compliant media through which to do it–to write about his disenchantment with the direction in which multiculturalism had gone and why he wasn’t happy with it.
    He didn’t.
    So, he spoke about it at a private luncheon? Well, whoopee, big deal. And his comments can’t even be Googled, so how the heck would most Canadians even know?
    He was an entitled, Mount Royal socialist, who happened to have been “educated” by the Jesuits. It seems that all he got from them was their arrogance; as far as “the Catholic” goes, I see very little evidence of adherence to the Magisterium.
    What Pierre Elliot Trudeau did, in his monumental arrogance and ignorance, was to unleash a Frankenstein’s monster on the Canadian populace.
    And, lucky him: he’s not around to have to deal with the mayhem it’s resulted in. His children are privileged enough, and have sufficient financial resources, to hide out in their gated mansions, to send their kids to private schools and camps, and to otherwise shield them from the day-to-day realities that the rest of us have to live with, so what’s it to him or them–or the rest of the I’m-OK Librano$?
    Even though Canadians stood three-deep along the railway line on PET’s final journey in order to pay their last respects, when all the facts and figures are in, I suspect that history will not accord him the hallowed place in Canadians’ memory that he enjoys today.
    His legacy will be a ruined Canada, a Canada brought to its knees, with the commensuarate loss of its democratic freedoms, by the “open,” “tolerant,” and “diverse” multiculturalism he ushered in. I guess he just wasn’t able to discern that the world didn’t need anymore “isms” to free the proletariat.
    Useful idiot?

  12. Well said batb.
    Minority interest groups that represent gay rights, women’s rights and disabled peoples rights are in the pockets of the left wing political parties. The very existence of these publicly funded institutions depends on pushing this agenda. These brand names carry so much clout with the groups they claim to represent that advocates of the aforementioned movements follow blindly where there masters take them. I guess what I’m trying to say is that WOMEN should spend more time informing themselves about public affairs and spend less time thinking about shoes and Avon. Nullius Inverba

  13. Yes indeed, batb, spot on. Trudeau did not speak up. Then he died and was assisted to his final resting place by his hero Fidel Castro, about whom he evidently didn’t change his mind, unless maybe he didn’t get around to changing his instructions to his executor!
    He was a utopian fool or a knave which in the real world for people over 18 is a distinction without a difference.
    Way back in the earliest Trudeau days my father, a small businessman and lifelong liberal, said of him: “He doesn’t understand economics”. I mentioned this to a friend once who replied, “Well yeah, but he could have ….”.
    Well, yeah, but he chose not to!
    This “it didn’t turn out the way it should have” schtick is all too reminiscent of the old excuse still retailed by aging Marxists in the academy: Marxism is great, it’s just that we had the wrong folks running it”. Trudeau didn’t even have this handy excuse, eh?

  14. batb “What Pierre Elliot Trudeau did, in his monumental arrogance and ignorance, was to unleash a Frankenstein’s monster on the Canadian populace.”
    Now I’ve Googled it, according to the Ottawa Citizen PET spoke about it in the mid-1990’s luncheon of about a dozen Liberal MPs:
    Each MP was allowed to ask just one question of the former prime minister, on any subject. After a series of relatively routine questions that Trudeau batted away with relative ease, now-retired Liberal MP John Bryden asked about the multiculturalism policy his government had proclaimed 15 years earlier.
    “Mr. Trudeau, you were one of the key architects of multiculturalism and now we are in a situation where many newcomers to Canada consider their ethnicity before being Canadian. Is this the outcome you wanted?” asked Bryden.
    There was silence around the table as the former prime minister thought before replying.
    “No, this is not what I wanted,” he said.
    According to Bryden, Trudeau made no attempt to hide his disappointment.
    So batb , I’m with you, except that PET is dead. But now we do know that Liberals obtained new opinions from their messiah. Yet, they did nothing. where’s the outrage? Where’s the new adjusted Liberal policy? The answer: follow the money.

  15. Angry’s conclusion: Suzuki is a misanthrope*.
    …-
    “Does David Suzuki advocate exempting industry from the Liberal carbon tax?”
    “It makes me wonder if David Suzuki is truly an environmentalist, or if he just hates people. Punish the people for overpopulating the planet — that’s the real goal.”
    http://stevejanke.com/archives/262760.php
    *Noun
    “Origin: 1555–65; n. use of Gk mīsánthrōpos hating humankind,” (dict-com)

  17. I think the point is that Trudeau’s multiculturalism was intended to be multiculturalism amongst those of European origin–the two founding cultures of bicultural/bilingual Canada plus those who had immigrated since. Remember it was the non-Brit Anglophones–or at least those in organizations who cared about such things–who were somewhat upset about “biculturalism” which seemed to exclude them.
    Remember also that Trudeau thought that nationalism of the European (or Quebecois) sort was a very Bad Thing. Hence a multicultural Canada based on liberal, British and European, values would be a very Good Thing that would curb any development within Canada of nasty nationalism of the type that I suspect he also disliked in the US (the “melting pot” that enabled the Americans to conduct the Vietnam War).
    What Trudeau did not foresee was that Canada’s immigration source countries would rather rapidly become very largely third world and that immigrants would increasingly lack the British/European liberal and philosophical values he so cherished. And he certainly did not foresee that our elites would change their values so much from the ones he held as to essentially deny the value of the British/European values on which he based his policies.
    I think Trudeau would have agreed with most of what Robert Sibley has just written in the Ottawa Citizen. Unforeseen consequences and all that.
    Mark
    Ottawa

  18. Can you find the name of the “scientist” “academic”? Couldn’t be Suzuki; he is non-taxable.
    This is the money quote: “In the case of the academic who fabricated data, a technician notified university officials in 2002 alleging the researcher had been falsifying data since 1993.”
    It’s Jeancula Chretien-MartinJr’s Librano$ at their best. Are they untouchable? The article will tell you how they are legally untouchable. It’s Adolf’s method: achieving illegal ends by legal means.
    The rot/malfeasance is deep in the Canadian psyche. This the tip of the iceberg (cliche, but true).
    …-
    “Scientist still getting federal funds despite misconduct finding
    Margaret Munro , Canwest News Service
    A Canadian academic continues to receive research money from Ottawa almost two years after top government advisers recommended the scientist be cut off and banned from receiving another penny because of misconduct, federal documents say.”
    http://tinyurl.com/3hn93h

  19. Sorry folks for those of you who support an elected Senate, I give up very little ground in my full hearted support for a conservative philosophy: a tradition respecting approach to life and problems; but, I do regard an elected Canadian Senate as a brain dead, foolish shiboleth of the Reform wing of the Conservative party ( much like fixed election dates). Liable to lead to all sorts of unintended consequences and incapable in itself of solving any of the woes ascribed to that institution or Canadas’ condition. Before bemoaning the Senates’ cost and expense and ineffectiveness I suggest that you pay close attention to CPAC and its Saturday evening transmissions of the various senate committees in action or read their reports on-line. For the $3-4 dollars a year that the senate costs me the education provided by those committees is well worth it, especially because while some small number of senators are party hacks the majority are of a much more independent and questing mind cf. the Liberals Colin Kenney and the Defense Committee, or Joabin Granestine at Banking. Do you really want a segment of goverment in direct rivalry for popular legitimacy to the Commons, bearing in mind 1/ ( a variation on Parkinsons Law) that the smaller a bodies’ membership the more influence and informal power it wields? 2/ the prevalence of vote splitting, voting one parties MP but the others Senator? 3/ the loss of the collegiallity and relative civility currently present in that body? At what cost to our common civility or deepening divisions in the country at large? 4/ Long service in a body that gets to hear the various beaureacratic excuses/ exercises/ schemes trotted out every decade or so and is not afraid to call them on it 5/ A cross selection of people (some brilliant or able or both), trades and experiences but many of whom could not win any election against the vaguest hint of charisma? 6/ a currently legitimate solution to any Goverments’ worst problem; that of organizing patronage so that it is more or less above board, commonweal oriented, hierarchical and respectable instead of underground, virulently selfish and short-sighted? 7/ yet another government body whose members are beholden to the current PM, fads and trends instead of maturing to some independence of action; always with one eye on the next election instead of being able with good conscience and independence of action to tell some powerful or influencial or whingeing victim group to ” go pi** into the wind and up a rope” ( would that they did that more often!).
    MY liking for the current Senate is that once appointed ( and yes I do know that some have sold their soul for that appointment and can never reclaim it) they have the option of independence from whatever PM or PMO or sponsoring group that got them there. My second reason is because of their long service possiblities, as a conservative I have no problem with someone drawing on 20-30 years experience on the self same committee in dealing with something as byzantine or full of unseen pitfalls as government policy. Third, the more I see of them in action on CPAC the more I respect some of those I thought I would loathe (ie Muncie). Fourth, I am a traditionalist and the Senate is one of the deepest roots to our Canada.
    If you really want to shake the roots and foundations of what Sir John A and his compatriots set up for this country ( and a pretty successful country at that) then may I make a modest suggestion?
    A Senate chosen by lot from a winnowed population of the whole country.
    All passport holders over 55 who can get the signatures of 25 people to vouch for them ( a low but not inconsequential hurdle) with an equal selection of 8 per province ( rep by pop is for MPs and boo hoo for your odds if you are from Ontario instead of PEI, a province is a province). Fifty names in any particular year that a sitting Senator retires to be drawn in a provincially based lottery. Of those 50 some will have died or no longer be interested but the remainder to be taken to Ottawa for a few weeks intensive civics training course ( a value in and of itself) and the participants to self select from amongst themselves whom they deem the most able at the end of that course ( Senate Survivor) to fulfil the role. Senators serve for life and cannot be removed except voluntarialy or by Act of God or expulsion by the whole of the Senate. If a particularily good crop of prospects comes along in any one year then that provinces’ sitting senators may individually choose to relinquish their seat to that cohorts’ runners-up; remember that some years there will have been no retirements/deaths/expulsions to initiate the process.
    I think that this scheme has several advantages over a direct election of the Senate. Worthy and tested people will have been selected by their peers and have some knowledge of what the job entails. The power of the party organizations and /or PMO will have been curtailed thus allowing more independence of mind. Long experience may be accrued by Senators. The population at large could legitmately dream of winning a meaningful lottery. There would be upon the retirement of any one senator a great upsurge in political interest in that province irrespective of the political cycle in Ottawa. Ordinary ( albeit somewhat extraordinary) people would have a legitimate chance to make government policy without devoting the whole of their earlier life to politics or law or the other usual avenues to office. The Senate seat would have popular legitimacy and have been acheived via vote ( by the fellow contenders as representatives of the citizenry at large).
    Of course the above still leaves what to do about rewarding party activists/hacks/patronage seekers without the Senate as a place to stuff the more able ( hence more dangerous) of them. Perhaps a system of honours/ civil list/ pensions? A la Britian? Or putting them further into the shadows as a currently conceived EEE suggests?
    Sincerely,
    Robert Albin
    Calgary
    PS But then I am no expert.
    PPS Gone for a week so no use lambasting me till later. Ta.

  20. And that’s the whole point about an appointed rather than elected and limited term Senate, (assuming we even keep the Senate and why should we?)You see, Robert Albin, like you, an appointed Senate refuses to be held accountable.
    And Colin Kenney is one of the worst of the lot, arrogant and ignorant as he is.
    Enjoy your week fleeing accountability.

  21. ET: “…Colin Kenney is one of the worst of the lot, arrogant and ignorant as he is.” I am reluctant to disagree with you but Sen. Kenny is, in my view, far better informed, and right, about defence and national security issues than the current ministers of national defence, or of public safety, and indeed the prime minister.
    His Senate committee was severely critical of recent Liberal governments. The committee is just continuing to present what I would consider non-partisan–and very good analysis. Much better than anything in the MSM.
    Mark
    Ottawa

  24. TO; ROBERT ALBIN now that you’ve spoken, perhaps we could eliminate government altogether, and have Stehane Dion wear an army uniform…. What a f@#$%&* crock of bullshit!!

  25. Canadian Sentinel 7:18 PM mentions,
    ** Drug lords go after Mexican police officers **
    AP.google.com/article/ALeqM5jtgNIPlWAt6m7WNNeMV5fSoJ4hUwD90O739O0
    This is only part of a massive problem brewing for us north of the Rio Grande, [ Mex/US fence].
    AP makes it available, yet the MSM seems unwilling to bring the news of growing drug cartels powerful threats to our attention.
    Between Mexico, Columbia and Venezuela, one has to wonder about security for Panama, all the retired who live there, and the vital canal. = TG

  26. nomdeblog: “So batb , I’m with you, except that PET is dead.”
    Not dead enough.
    His socialist views and policies–and their negative impact on our communal lives–live on, with the added veneer of having been put in place by “a Canadian icon.” Pierre Elliott Trudeau posed as a Magus, and his dead hands still pull a lot of puppet strings.
    As far as Trudeau and unintended consequences go, Mark Collins, it was clear that many of these consequences had begun to deeply erode the fabric of Canadian society when PET was still alive and when he could have–had he chosen to–set the record straight. I don’t let him off the hook because he was an old man. Supposedly with age, comes wisdom and, perhaps, a little humility, neither of which I detected in the Old Magus.
    It also seems clear that he did everything in his power to emasculate anything to do with the British–and Judeo-Christian–heritage in Canada. I think he knew all too well what he was doing when he instituted official bilingualism and multiculturalism, the latter to “replace” the millions of Canadian voters/workers who were never born because of his liberal abortion policy.
    His is a sad legacy.

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