7 Responses for "Democracy is slipping away"

1. Whiskey Echo (N. Van, not affiliated or decided... yet) September 30th, 2008 at 5:46 pm 1

   I’m no fan of Human Rights Commisions, but people like Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant use their positions as commentators to pour out tons of race-baiting propaganda. This sort of writing was the same 100 years ago, stoking up fears of the “yellow peril” / “asiatic hordes”. What they do may be done with modern technology and more clandestone legal arguments, but it is no different than the open racists of 100 years ago. The basic argument is the same: “foreigners are inherently evil and must be stopped before they overwhelm the white races”. So pardon me if I don’t feel any sympathy that they got their foot caught in a legal bear-trap. Let them suffer.

2. Craig Norman (Conservative) September 30th, 2008 at 7:17 pm 2

   I suggest you actually read Mark Steyn or Ezra Levant before spouting off Whiskey. Try arguing based on facts instead of making them up. Show me a quotation that backs that argument up.

3. Randy September 30th, 2008 at 9:11 pm 3

   It’s interesting to me that the only issues mentioned are right-wing issues, so I don’t buy the non-partisan claim. As a lefty, I’m no fan of censorship, and I oppose hate speech laws (among a great many other anti-expression laws in Canada) as a violation of free speech. People should be free to voice their opinions, their facts, and their artistic expressions, and the worst that should ever happen is that other people recognize them, good or bad. It is valuable to know who the idiots, racists, and hate-mongers are, after all. But when you veer from speech into action, I draw the line. And when I’m paying for it? You bet there’s a problem. The idea that a lack of medical background is tied somehow to censorship is baffling. Reading between the lines, I can only assume this has something to do with abortion, contraception, fertilization, gay health care, or something along those lines. Publicly-funded doctors have a job to do. They should do the whole job. They should not be permitted to intentionally avoid educating themselves so they can claim ignorance on how to handle certain cases or certain patients they don’t want to treat. If they want to do that, there is a country not too far away where they can do that. That brings me to the subtitle of the book “(And why it matters to Americans)”. This seems to be inviting US involvement in Canadian politics, which is obviously an un-Canadian move. We can handle it here just fine, thanks. My last point is that the real threat to democracy here is that we have only one body of representatives, no election for leader, and it’s all done by first-past-the-post. A party that gets a third of the votes can get half of the seats, and all of the power, even though most people voted against it. It’s absurd.

4. Bryan September 30th, 2008 at 9:33 pm 4

   Yes Whiskey,

   Pete Vere raises a very insightful point about how Human Rights commissions have been abused. Your comments are pure conjecture and lend an air of desperation to your position. Write back when you have an actual argument.

5. Pete Vere October 1st, 2008 at 3:19 am 5

   Randy wrote: “The idea that a lack of medical background is tied somehow to censorship is baffling. Reading between the lines, I can only assume this has something to do with abortion, contraception, fertilization, gay health care, or something along those lines.”

   The case, as we document in Tyranny of Nice, refers to Dr. Robert Stubbs – a renown plastic surgeon from Toronto who specializes in augmenting his patient’s private parts. As noted by Margaret Wente in the Globe & Mail, the good doctor drew the ire of the Ontario Human Rights Commission after declining, for lack of proper medical experience, to operate on two transsexuals – one who had requested a labiaplasty, and the other who requested breast augmentation.

   Without the proper training, the doctor felt the operation could be dangerous because transsexual women are still physiologically and biologically different from women who were born women. Therefore he wasn’t quite sure what would go where should he perform the operations.

   Nevertheless, they hauled him before the Ontario Human Rights Commission – that bastion of medical wisdom. Dr. Stubbs was forced to hire a lawyer and endure hours of legal proceedings because political correctness clashed with medical reality.

   Think about the potential havoc on Canada’s health-care system should human rights commissioners aggregate to themselves the title of medical expert. The system is troubled enough without the government coercing cardiologists into delivering babies. Leave treating heart ailments to the former, and entrust the latter to obstetricians.

6. Wasyl Wysoczanskyj (Non-Partisan) October 1st, 2008 at 8:45 am 6

   Freedom is a nice ideal, but because of human subjectivity, means different things to different people.

   People should be free to choose what to say or do with the proviso that they are held responsible for their actions. Equally, people should be free not to do certain things. We can confront objectionable behavior, but should not be able to impose our views on others. Government should never censor, but can provide the forum for resolving these matters. Let the facts decide.

7. Scary October 1st, 2008 at 1:39 pm 7

   Randy wrote, “This seems to be inviting US involvement in Canadian politics, which is obviously an un-Canadian move… My last point is that the real threat to democracy here is that we have only one body of representatives, no election for leader, and it’s all done by first-past-the-post…

   It sounds like Randy is promoting a two-party political system in which a President is elected separately from lower and upper houses of parliament (which I would agree with). Funny, because he says that any American influence in our system is un-Canadian.