Ezra Levant & Mark Steyn Fight Back for Free Speech in Canada

---

Read more at the National Post and also be sure to listen to Rob Breakenridge's interview with Steyn.

Proof Positive of Canada's Failing Healthcare System

A must read for Canadians and Americans alike!

The Almighty Iggy

Even though Michael Ignatieff had nothing to do with the recent confidence test passing, in his own mind he was still very much there.

Hockey Canada Cup 2009

August 30th: Practice Day #2


August 31st: Game Day #1



September 1st: Game Day #2


September 2nd: Game Day #3


September 3rd: Game Day #4


September 5th: Playoff Day #1


With apologies, I missed the last day of the tournament. :-( Finland beat Sweden 1-0 in the Bronze Medal Game and the United States beat Canada 2-1 in the Gold Medal Game.

Participate in Canadian Democracy!

If you're like me, and also a Canadian, then you're probably sick & tired of sitting back and reading these never-ending stories about the dreadful state of affairs in our country. Whether it be our lack of Free Speech rights, our lackadaisical Law & Order policies, or our excessive taxes, there's a lot of room for improvement.

But if you're like most Canadians then you just sit back and do nothing. Why? The most common excuse is "because the politicians won't do anything". Let's be clear about something: We do live in a democracy and our members of Parliament are here to serve us. But let's not forget a key fact: if only a handful of people complain then our politicians will not do anything. And quite frankly, if the majority does not appear to want something changed then the politicians shouldn't do anything!

But if enough people contact them then changes will occur!

The MPs you'll have the best chance of effecting change with are the Conservatives. And the good news is that never before in history has it been so simple to connect with your elected members of Parliament. I've set things up so that you can click on any of the links below and an e-mail will be initiated on your computer. Just click on your particular district:

• British Columbia
• Alberta
• Saskatchewan
• Manitoba
• Ontario
• Quebec
• Maritimes
• Northern Territories

---

As a little inspiration to get you started, here's the e-mail I just sent to my BC MPs:

Dear British Columbia Conservative MPs,

I would like to draw your attention to something I just wrote about on my blog.

Jennifer Lynch and the CHRC is clearly out of control. She is embarrassing not only herself, but also all public institutions. She is supposed to be an accountable civil servant but is instead acting more like pompous member of royalty. Metaphorically she just told Ezra Levant and all other Canadians who deeply believe in Free Speech, "Let them eat cake!"

You NEED to do something about this! And as I've stated publicly before, I will only start donating to the Conservative Party of Canada once the infamous Section 13 of the CHRC and the equivalent section here in BC is removed. You have my word on that.

Sincerely,

Robert Werner
Vancouver, BC
604...

Harper & Co. Refuse to Give Back Canadians Their Free Speech Rights

The federal Conservatives are refusing to reform the Canadian "Human Rights" Commission. A grassroots campaign is being initiated to help change their minds. If you believe in free speech, please lend your voice!

Movie Recommendation: One Week

One Week is about living and dying. It's also about freedom out on the open road. And did I mention, it's also about Canada!

It follows a man on a motorcycle, driving from Toronto to Vancouver Island. I've driven much of this route, in one form or another, several times so it was wonderful to see many familiar scenes once again.

4-stars, highly recommended! Do rent it if you get a chance.

Lil' Inukshuk

My uncle was given this cute little piece of art. It's only about 4cm tall.

Shaping the News, The Alexander Panetta Way

From the beginning I suspected that something very strange was afoot regarding the
Michaëlle Jean seal eating story. Oh sure, you can always expect protests from PETA type activists on the Radical Left, but beyond that I just sensed that this story was being overblown.

This was absolutely confirmed today during Rex Murphy's Cross Checkup show on CBC Radio 1, which you can listen to here. Considering that their core audience is Left and "Further Left" (I'm being polite) I didn't know what reaction to expect from such Canadians across the country. Other than missing a few minutes at two junctures to answer phone calls, I caught the entire two-hour show. Of what I listened to, everyone but one was an adamant supporter of Mme. Jean's actions. Read this sampling of e-mails and you'll see more of the same. I was shocked, in a good way, by this tremendous support for her.

On the show, more than a few people suggested that this was a media contrived story. What precisely they meant by this, I do not know for certain, but at the very least one could construe that the story was slanted unfairly.

I did a little digging and the name "Alexander Panetta" of the Canadian Press kept on popping up. He was clearly the CP reporter assigned to cover her tour up there. Here's one snippet from the many stories he wrote:

Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean was awarded a certificate yesterday for her respect of Inuit culture, after images of her eating a bloody chunk of raw seal heart raised eyebrows around the world.

The emphasis is mine. One has to wonder if this was a news story or the caption of an upcoming horror film?

Panetta's latest story is another interesting case. The headline reads, "Clarkson unimpressed with Jean's seal-eating", which was extracted from the first paragraph: "At least one person's unimpressed by all the fuss over the seal-skinning adventures of Michaelle Jean: her predecessor as Governor General."

The word "unimpressed" has several meanings but when presented without any further explanation, most reasonable people would conclude that Adrienne Clarkson was "not impressed" or "not approving" of Michaëlle Jean's actions. Yet read the story all the way through, and that's NOT AT ALL what she said or meant.

I did some more digging and found this from July 2006. The writer there challenges Panetta's truthfulness and professionalism, indicating a similar pattern of deception.

Turns out there's more. Back in October 2006 both Kathy Shaidle and Kate McMillan had a run-in with Panetta here and here respectively.

---

Alexander Panetta: Poster-Boy for the Downfall of the Canadian MSM

In the past few years he had ample opportunity to clean up his act but instead his tradition of highly biased, inaccurate reporting continues unabated.

Sad. And pathetic. Any wonder why polls continue to show journalists near the bottom of the list of trust and respect?

---

Update: This posting was kindly linked to by Kate at SDA here. Some of the comments therein are absolutely priceless. Pay particular attention to the running debate by SDA regular 'EBD' and someone claiming to be an actual MSM reporter. The latter got caught in logic trap and EBD lit him up big time.

Through the comments, we learned of yet another example of Panetta's reputation as a spinmeister.

Alexander Panetta is, in essence, a columnist. If his writing was clearly published as editorial content then I'd have NO PROBLEM with it whatsoever. But it's published as "news" and, as such, violates the most important tenets of journalistic integrity. Yet none of his bosses, nor the newspapers that print his work, seem to care.

A Primer for Americans on the NDP's Jack Layton

The name "Jack Layton" will be appearing in headlines across America over the next few news cycles. He's going to be appearing on behalf of the Democrat Party as an avid proponent of the Canadian Health Care system.

Do listen to what he says but also be aware of the following:

• He belongs to a party that is in 4th place in terms of seats.
  
• 4 out of 5 Canadians consistently reject the socialist class warfare message of Layton.
  
• You'll learn in this interview (beginning @ 7:00) that not all is rosy here in Canada.
• His nickname is "The Video Professor" due to his striking resemblance with John W. Scherer.
  

So, before you take him too seriously, please realize that most Canadians don't either.

Michaëlle Jean vs. Sonia Sotomayor

Rex Murphy provides a fascinating analysis.

Equality & Empathy: The Primary Values of the Left

I've been engaged in an interesting discussion on SDA with two regulars there. I thought it worthwhile to transcribe the conversation here.

"Barack Obama famously says that a key quality he wants in a Supreme Court justice is 'empathy.' As many commentators have observed, 'empathy' is really a cover for lawlessness. But it's actually worse than that, because empathy, as that term is used by Obama, is inherently selective.

"Does Obama mean that his nominee will have empathy for the unborn? Well, no. He doesn't have in mind that kind of empathy. How about empathy for taxpayers and small business owners? No, that isn't exactly the right sort of empathy either.

"Obama's favorite example of the right kind of empathy is Lily Ledbetter. As Paul has pointed out, Lily Ledbetter was a liar with a lousy case that was properly barred by the statute of limitations. What 'empathy' is at work here? Empathy with unions and, perhaps even more important, the people who profit more than anyone else when lousy cases are kept alive in the courts--plaintiffs' lawyers, among the largest contributors to the Democratic Party. What Barack Obama means by an "empathetic" judge is one who has his or her thumb on the scale on behalf of politically favored groups. This is the opposite of the traditional view that a judge should be neutral, i.e., have equal empathy for all litigants."

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/05/023673.php

Posted by: EBD at May 29, 2009 10:20 PM

EBD - what Obama means by 'empathy' is a belief that the most desirable judiciary opinions are not the result of objective reason applied to factual evidence, but are the result of memories of personal life experiences.

This perspective totally rejects the function of Reason, it rejects the value of factual evidence, and instead insists that evaluative judgments are derived from and only from, subjective personal experience. In a very real sense, this inserts a requirement for decision-making based on a supposition that a particular group has a specific identity.

This also denies Obama's oft-repeated insistence on non-partisanship. What can be more partisan than decision-making based on membership in a group identity? And what can be more biased than evaluating an individual based on their presumed membership in a group rather than their individual behaviour?

His nominee is also a deliberate political strategy, geared as usual to bring a particular Set of the population under his sway. He requires that a Supreme Court judge have a particular Set of Memories. In this case, he's after the female, single, Hispanic, and low income Set of Americans.

Is he after justice? Absolutely not. His focus is on controlling a particular Set of the American population by defining them as 'his' by virtue of him giving them 'their very own judge'.

Posted by: ET at May 29, 2009 10:57 PM

I'll go further and say that "empathy" is just a code word for Leftist political philosophy.

The U.S. talk radio show host, Dennis Prager, often talks about the difference between the Left and the Right. On the Left, the primary value they ascribe to is "Equality". But the key to understanding the mindset is to realize that they don't mean "Equality of Opportunity" but "Equality of Results".

Even after 70+ years of seeing the disaster of such political objectives, the Left keeps on trying again and again and ... you get the idea. :-(

Posted by: Robert W. at May 29, 2009 11:12 PM


I don't think that equality of results is the sole criterion of 'the just society' any more.

That does indeed suggest that the man who works hard, whether in investment in obtaining contracts, as a surgeon, as an engineer, as a farmer, ought to receive the same results for his work and expertise as the man doling out hamburgers at the local fast food diner or the clerk in the grocery store. This is indeed a hard core ideology of the socialist left, where what you do, what you know, what you 'put into' something is totally irrelevant to the outcome.

The left assumes that your skills and work are all due, not to your ahh...skills and work..but to being 'privileged'. Skills and work are assumed to be commercial artifacts; you pick them up in a store. Some people are wealthy enough to purchase both; others are not.

That's like saying that all the input, which includes material, work and expertise that one puts into, eg, making cheese, is irrelevant. All cheeses, whether manufactured out of water, sand, poor milk or top quality products, whether made with expertise or ignorance...ought to come out exactly the same.

The results of using an ignorant surgeon ought to be identical to a skilled surgeon.

And so on. Yes, this is a basic criterion of the left. But they've added a new switch to the twitch. They've added a hierarchical order.

So, the equality of output is no longer the same, for some of us ought to receive less. This 'less received as output' is calculated according to input. The MORE input you put into your work, the LESS output you ought to receive. So, if you work with skill, knowledge and years and years of training as a financier, as a car dealer, as a surgeon, you ought to receive LESS than if you chucked hamburgers at the local diner. Why? Because a new criterion enters the picture.

The output (lots of money, which is a symbol of your input) means, according to Obama, only one thing: Greed. Your output, the result of your work is evaluated on a scale. The more you get, the less you merit it.

Great results are no longer related to hard work and education. Again, skills and hard work are no longer psychological attributes but are commercial artifacts that you either have the money to purchase or not.

Furthermore, the psychological aberration of greed is defined as a key genetic characteristic. It replaces skills and hard work as a cause of wealth. White people are, according to Obama and his wife in particular, the key mutant holders of this gene of greed. Again, skills and hard work have disappeared as input criteria of wealth.

Strange, but Obama himself earned millions last year from his narcissistic books about himself. Greed? But he's not white so he doesn't have the gene? Michelle apparently bullied her way to a very large salary prior to their Elevation; but again, she's not white so doesn't have that gene.

Interesting how the left changes reality.

Posted by: ET at May 30, 2009 10:29 AM

ET, thank you for your excellent analysis. I hope that everyone on here reads it ... carefully!

Regarding Obama's perceptions of Greed, only time will tell whether he truly believes it or whether it is just effective political class warfare rhetoric.

Here in Canada, hasn't Jack Layton been espousing something similar for years? Yet it has not bought him any more votes than his core constituency. Perhaps the difference is that Canadians have viewed socialism first hand for 40 years and clearly see the flaws in the theory, whilst it's brand new for Americans and they still are mesmerized by the sparkle and promises of the Obama snake oil.

Posted by: Robert W. at May 30, 2009 2:00 PM

A pox on the houses of ALL of the federal political parties. As I said from the very beginning, no bailouts should have ever occurred. But the Conservatives listened to the Liberals, the NDP, and the Bloc Quebecois. Now look at where we are! :-(

Sonia Sotomayer: Postergirl for the Leftist Elites

Directly before our eyes is a perfect example of how democracy is being eroded by the elites of our society. Drip-drip-drip, it is happening slowly but it is happening nonetheless.

Sonia Sotomayor is Barack Obama's first nomination for a Supreme Court Judge. If she gets the job, and there's every indication she will, she will have the job for life. In many ways that makes sense, as such judges should not be affected by political influence.

What does not make sense though and is, in fact, the antithesis of the spirit of the democracy itself, is Sotomayer's view of what a judge's job is. As this article clearly illustrates, she absolutely believes that it's a judge's right and even duty to make policy, even if that policy conflicts with the will of the politicians who were elected by the people; unlike her.

The Radical Left love judges like her because they know that only through them can they get their unpopular policies foisted on the majority of the citizenry, who disagree with them.

I know all of the Left Wing claptrap to explain why giving judges the power to make policy is the best course of action for society. It's absolute bunk. The same disastrous thing has occurred here in Canada. The result is that politicians are often afraid to effect any new policy for fear that such policy will be overturned and their political careers damaged in the process. So effectively, it's unelected judges who ultimately rule over us.

Lest we forget, judges are not God. Their decisions are often not based on wisdom but simply on their own political views. Politicians in a democracy can be removed by the people at the ballot box. Supreme Court judges cannot. That is why it is absolutely critical for them to never be able to make public policy.

The video below is of a judge long ago named Roland Freisler. I am not making any comparison between him and Ms. Sotomayer. But is critically important to be aware of how out of control a judge can get. We all have to accept the inherent paradox of our system: in order for a Supreme Court Judge to not be affected by political influence their decisions have to be paramount and their job tenure has to be guaranteed. Fine. But allowing the scope of their job to go beyond ruling on existing laws is very, very dangerous.

---

Update #1: For anyone who still believes that judges have a greater wisdom than us "mere mortals", I strongly encourage you to read about the Dred Scott decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. And if you think that is the only time that judges have made bad decisions, you are in severe denial!

On SDA I received a fascinating comment about what I've written:

Robert W - yes, an unelected, which is to say, unaccountable authority, is the antithesis of a democratic state.

The democratic state operates by and only by, the will of the people. This Will is not utopian, which is to say, it does not function within a belief that society can attain a state of perfection, whose attributes are accessible and knowable only to an elite or distinctive Set of people.

This Will is, instead, a perception that societies are piecemeal processes, whose rules must be answerable to the diverse and flexible needs of the people. The laws must therefore be answerable to and made by the people. That is why the Legislature must make the laws. Because the Legislature represents the people; they are elected.

The Courts have a different role; they must ensure that the legislated laws developed by the people fit with the long term structure of the society, as outlined in the Constitution.

For an unelected judge to move into judiciary activism is a violation of democracy because it denies this basic Will of the People. Instead, such a perspective operates within a sense of 'hubris', arrogance, elitism, a sense that the Judge has some special innate attribute of wisdom, lacking in The People that gives the judge alone direct access to Wisdom.

Note that this perspective assumes that there is One Truth, an Essential Truth, and this moves the society into a utopian notion of ultimate purity - as found in communism and fascism or any fundamentalist sect.

Ms Sotemayer is clearly an elitist; she assumes that her genetic identity as a woman, as Hispanic, affects her capacity to reason, and gives her unique and special access to Ultimate Truth. Such a view of cognition is invalid, and such a view of society is the antithesis of democracy.

Posted by: ET at May 28, 2009 10:33 PM

---

Update #2: Rex Murphy shares his thoughts.

---

Update #3: Mark Steyn shares his thoughts:

Re: Empathy vs Activism [Mark Steyn]

Jonah, that's a very good point. "Empathy" seems to me to be defining activism down. I can't say I care for it, but at least "activism" requires a certain art — the ability to detect in 18th-century parchments that a bunch of guys in powdered wigs had cannily provided for partial-birth abortion or gay marriage or whatever. By contrast, "empathy" absolves you of the need to bother with any pretzel-like argument and lets you simply announce your bias, as Judge Sotomayor did in the Ricci case, like the schoolkid who knows the right answer but can't work out how to get to it.

Justice Sotomayor will not be good news for the United States constitution.

05/27 10:24 AM

The Limits of Sotomayorian Empathy [Mark Steyn]

I was interested to see that Sonia Sotomayor was the judge in the New York Times v. Tasini case, a case close to my heart. The authors of various freelance contributions to the Times sued over the paper's subsequent licensing of their writing to electronic databases that then re-sold the pieces to customers for $3.95 per. It was a fairly obvious breach of the 1976 Copyright Act, as well as of the more basic principle that rights not specifically assigned remain with the owner.

Judge Sotomayor cheerfully sided with the Times, a ruling that (as appears to be not uncommon with this jurist) was subsequently overturned at the Supreme Court — 7-2 (with David Souter being among the seven). Despite being a "wise Latina" enjoying all the benefits of "the richness of her experiences," she was sadly unable to empathize with the impoverished writers in their garrets eking out a thin crust from their freelance contributions to the appallingly low-paying Sulzberger GloboCorp Inc.

As I learned during my battles with Canada's "human rights" commissions, almost all "diversity" issues have a "property rights" component. I don't think Justice Sotomayor will be any great friend of the latter. And, alas, there will now be no David Souter to overturn her decisions.

05/27 09:20 AM

Shirtsleeves to Shirtsleeves

I often discuss with a good buddy of mine in Seattle the distinct possibility that all liberal democracies like ours have a built-in self-destruction mechanism.

The best way I can explain this is with the micro-example of a family. A parable, which was told to me by an economist, is known as "The Story of Shirtsleeves to Shirtsleeves" :

1. The first generation couple comes to America penniless, often not speaking English. But they work hard in blue collar jobs or perhaps starting their own small business, making sure their kids get a great education. By the time they pass away they likely have saved up a few hundred thousand dollars in equity, often in the form of a house, the mortgage of which was completely paid off.

2. The kids of this couple are instilled a good work ethic by their parents. They work hard in school and then work hard in their white collar professions. But they also want their own children to have a better & easier life than they did. So they start giving their kids things and more things and more things. What they don't realize is that in doing so, they're destroying the work ethic of their children.

3. By the time the kids - now the 3rd generation - graduate from high school, they have been handed everything and don't have a care in the world other than where to find the next party. Their work ethic throughout college, which they might not even make it to, is questionable. Ditto for when they enter the workforce. Implicitly they know that they will inherit everything from their parents, who have become very successful in their work lives, so their motivation to achieve anything on their own is muted.

4. The 3rd generation stumbles through life, not at all clear about what's important. Even the term "strong work ethic" sounds square and irrelevant. All they care about is vacation time and getting high, be it from alcohol or drugs or sex. When they have kids, these youngsters have little to no moral guidance and no memory of who their great-grandparents were or how they struggled to provide for the generations below them. So when these kids graduate from high school, if they even do that, they're back to working in blue collar jobs, just like their ancestors who first came to America.

It's clearly a generalization, but I think it's quite profound. In the larger picture of North America I think it speaks volumes about the predicament we're in. Too many in our society, having been given so much, seem to have lost track of the notion that it's the inherent duty of each of us to give more back to our communities and our nations than we should ever expect to get in return.

Once this mindset becomes too widespread then society will have reached a tipping point from which it will be exceedingly impossible to recover.

This is my fear for the future.

Double Standards for Racism in Canada

This afternoon Roy Green interviewed the allegedly "racist" mother of an 8 year-old girl in Winnipeg. You can listen to it here at 34:00.

Here's the letter I sent to him afterwards:

Roy,

Great interview! It was very honest radio and I appreciate that. While that woman & I would probably never be close friends, I do believe she has a valid point regarding political correctness and double-standards aplenty.

Let me share a quick story with you: Three and a half years ago I founded a non-profit organization in Vancouver that refurbishes used computers and gives them for free to less fortunate families throughout British Columbia. In our first year of existence we had a young man join our team of volunteers. He was a high-school student. He and his family had moved to Canada from China about 10 years prior.

This young fellow was one of our techs, responsible for doing the actual refurbishing. Since he didn't drive, I had all sorts of other volunteers dropping off to his home computers needing work and picking up refurbished machines.

One day he called me up and had a very serious tone. I asked him what the matter was. He hesitated and then said, "I need for you to stop sending [a certain volunteer] over to my home any more. My parents insist upon it." The fellow he was referring to happened to be a dark-skinned man from Sri Lanka. I thought about it for a second and responded, "Is it just this particular fellow or all darker skinned people?" He quietly said, "All of them."

Roy, tell me honestly, do you think that any Child Service Agency in this country would ever dare to take away such a child from his Asian parents?

Robert W.

Quote of the Day 2

"The key factor to being a successful Canadian Liberal is that you must have no short term memory at all!"

Lorne Gunter, talking with Roy Green, May 27, 2009

Quote of the Day

"Liberals . . . creating a Canada without your consent since 1968."

Posted by: kursk at May 27, 2009 11:56 AM

It's in reference to this pretty shocking arrogance from Michael Ignatieff:

Lorne Gunter: The Liberal way with hypocrisy

I LOVE this article by Lorne Gunter! Much of it focuses on the hypocrisy of Liberal party members wrt Ignatieff, but it's the first 2 paragraphs that really hit a chord with me:

What hypocrites the Liberals are. For more than four decades, the Liberal Party of Canada has deliberately confused its policies with our national interest, then labelled as "un-Canadian" anyone who disagreed with them.

Not a fan of government monopoly health care? You're un-Canadian. Not big on easy unemployment benefits, official bilingualism, dismantling our military, beggaring our economy in the name of environmentalism, coddling criminals, huge public debts, activist judges, multiculturalism, foreign investment reviews, national energy policies and so on? Shame on you for being so un-Canadian.

Throughout my adult life, I've been to social gatherings in Vancouver and Victoria and Toronto and Montreal and Sudbury and Ottawa and Kitchener and . . . where I've heard such nonsense spewing out of the mouths of ignorant sheeple who thought it "completely inappropriate" [and un-Canadian] for me to express any ideas that didn't echo those of the Liberal Party of Canada.

Bravo Mr. Gunter, Bravo!

---

Update: You can hear Lorne Gunter discuss his article here @ 7:00.

Proof Positive of the Idiocy of Multiculturalism

Out of Toronto comes a story about a Muslim man filing a formal complaint because another man said "Good morning" to the Muslim man's wife in their shared apartment building hallway.

A dirty little secret amongst Canadians is that Toronto has been lost to the dumbest, most politically correct policies ever conceived in this country.

Incidentally, for those not aware, there is a HUGE difference between the terms "multicultural" and "multiple cultures". The latter is more commonly associated with the "melting pot" concept where people from all over the world harmoniously blend together under one new nation, under one flag, providing a delightful blend of cuisine, art, music, relationships, etc.

But make no mistake, that is NOT what "multicultural" means. It refers to the belief that all cultures & customs are precisely equal and any questioning of any other culture makes you a bigoted racist.

Toronto has been pushing multiculturalism to the extreme for decades and that is why we end up with situations like in this story.