George F. Will writes and EXCELLENT column in the Washington Post and published today in the National Post.

He clearly lays out why the Supreme Court of the United States was correct in it’s decision to overturn the ban on independent expenditures during elections.  He puts it most clearly here:

The Federal Election Commission, which administers the law that rations the quantity and regulates the content and timing of political speech, identifies 33 types of political speech and 71 kinds of “speakers.” The underlying statute and FEC regulations cover more than 800 pages, and FEC explanations of its decisions have filled more than 1,200 pages. The First Amendment requires 10 words for a sufficient stipulation: “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.”

The politicians and bureaucracy in America have been corrupted by power and need to go back and read their own Constitution and the writings of those who laid the foundation or wrote it, like Paine and Jefferson.

Canada can learn from this too… How many times have courts in Canada struck down similar regulations here only to have politicians reimpose them?  Too many.  And our current federal political financing system is corrupt too – giving entrenched political parties public monies removes them from having to raise funds themselves or be accountable to anyone.  And preventing third parties from advertising during elections protects the parties.

I am amazed how many people don’t understand the fundamental reason Jean Chretien changed the campaign finance rules – under the new rules, it is much more difficult (if not impossible) for a new party (a la Reform) to start from scratch again.  If you don’t already have seats in the House and already get a significant portion of the popular vote, a party is beggared by the system.  He was protecting the Liberals, Conservatives and NDP from new competition – because he knew that even the Conservatives would be corrupted by power and become mushy-middle, big government hacks just like himself…

OK, so there is evidence across Canada of long lines at H1N1 immunization clinics, and the data thus far shows that it could take months to immunize the population at this rate.  This could be accelerated significantly if you change a few rules, in the name of “public health emergency”.

First, I heard on the radio last night (Breakinridge show on CHQR770), somebody said they couldn’t let retired nurses work in the clinics because their RN registration was expired.  My question is why is it necessary to have RN’s to give these injections.  It isn’t that complicated.   We could train hundreds of people to give these injections in a few minutes.  You only need a few RNs at each clinic to deal with problems like bad reactions, very nervous people, etc.

Second, the procedure of having an RN ask each person all the questions about allergies to eggs, illnesses, etc. and having each person sign a waiver form seems overly bureaucratic.  If we want to accelerate this, why wouldn’t we just put up a big sign with those questions, basic information about the vaccine and the risks.  In big print.   And at the bottom it should say that if you understand and agree, sign the register as you go by it in line.  If you have questions, please get in the other line where an RN will answer your questions.  This way, those of us who can read and don’t have a lot of questions can get in and out faster.

If this is really an emergency, we should be using battlefield logic to deal with it.  Not pandering to the nurses union and government lawyers.

I am very curious how the Supreme Court of the United States will deal with the McCain-Feingold restriction on corporate-funded (or even remotely funded) ban on election related publications, films or television.

While I would never claim to be a lawyer, it would seem to me that the First Amendment to the US Constitution should make such provisions in McCain-Feingold clearly illegal:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Kevin Libin makes a very good connection in today’s commentary in the Post.   I previously discussed the mess that Canada’s Children’s Aid Societies are in, and Mr. Libin shows the horrible mess in Alberta where a provincial court judge has sentenced a director of child services for contempt for failing to return a child to the parents for FIVE months after so ordered by the court…

And yet this doesn’t shake the government right to the Premier’s office.  Because the Progressive Conservative party has ruled this province since 1971 (before I was born) and to date there is no realistic alternative.  The Liberals and NDP will never gain power with the far-left mindset they have, which restricts them to a few potential ridings, mostly in Edmonton and a few other urban areas.   And the Wild Rose Alliance is still leaderless and is an unknown quantity.  Perhaps the upcoming byelection in Calgary Glenmore will give a warning shot to the government – but I fear not.  The WRA is probably the best choice to run the province, but they may split the vote with the PCs, giving the seat to the Liberals – their candidate was a close second the last two times…

And it’s also funny that the Liberals and NDP aren’t running with the child services issue – why?   Maybe because they like these unaccountable organizations trying to “engineer” society?

Kevin Libin has written an excellent exposé of the Children’s Aid Societies (and their other named kin) across Canada, and he has gotten a significant amount of feedback supporting his findings.

The problem is that unaccountable “social workers” have been given supra-legal powers to enter homes and “apprehend” children based on entirely subjective criteria.  If people’s children are to be taken away, this should require a court-order (from a real judge) – and be based on objective criteria – such as clear evidence of physical or sexual abuse, malnutrition, or other measurable things.  A statement from a three year old that “Mommy and Daddy fight” would never fly as evidence in a real courtroom, and no one could be convicted of assault because someone has a bruised knee.

Additionally, if and when children do need to be removed from an unsafe environment, they must be placed into a demontrably safe one – and it needs to be above and beyond normal safety.  Children should have their own rooms, beds, good food, clothing, schooling and counselling.  They should not go hungry, or die in the care of so-called foster parents who are really only in this for the cheque they get from the government.

Like the HRCs, the Children’s Aid Societies and Family Services organizations need to be reined in lest they destroy our civilization.

In the news today, Border guards abandon posts on Mohawk reserve.  If the Mohawk at Akwesasne want to be a “sovereign nation”, perhaps we should set up the border posts AROUND the reserve with armed guards.  And Ottawa should stop sending them money.

Voila – problem solved!

I finally had time to read Shakedown by Ezra Levant, and I must say I’m impressed by the energy he has put into this, as well as the uproar he has caused.

Ezra does all Canadians (and all people who live is supposedly “free” democracies) a service by outing the totalitarian lie the so-called human rights industry has become in this country.  The idiocy of the few actions Ezra flags are bad enough, but it is his detailed discussion of his dispute with the AHRCC that is the most telling – these people have no interest in fairness or the rule of law.  They are busybody bureaucrats who think that because they are an arm of the state they can do no wrong.

The Government of Canada should, at the very least, repeal Section 13 of the CHRA, and each province and territory should do the same to their legislation.  Ideally, they should accept that the ideals and societal demands that created the human rights commissions and tribunals is are something that belongs to our past, not our present or future.

According to the Liberal Policy book (p.26), they want to expand the power of the Canadian Human Rights commission to include citizenship status and socio-economic class as a grounds for discrimination….

Excuse me – does that mean:

• I might have to hire someone who can’t read because they suffered from growing up poor and not having access to proper education (which I think in this country is provided by government)?
• Or that banks might be “forced” to give mortgages to people who can’t pay?
• Or that because someone is a foreign national we can’t prosecute them for terrorism because their value system is different from that of a Canadian?

h/t to BlazingCatFur, for chasing this issue down.  Does Ezra know about this?

BC Premier Gordon Campbell has unveiled legislation to give the aboriginal people of BC title to the land. And the “native industry”, as I like to call it, thinks it is a good thing.

Which is why it is bad.  Treating the aboriginal people of Canada differently just because their ancestors were here before the French and English (and Arab, and Chinese) came to this continent is a racist policy.  It is unfair to those of us who were born here but are of a different genetic makeup.

I also think that the policy of treating the aboriginal peoples as collectives, instead of individuals, is the primary reason why more aboriginals live in poverty than other Canadians, and why more aboriginals are incarcerated than other Canadians.  Because we never asked them to be responsible for anything.

The fact is that when the peoples of Europe (and eventually Asia and Africa) came to the Americas, they provided the know-how, culture and technology to drag the aboriginal peoples out of the stone age (or copper age for those in part of central and south America).

Trying to make me feel guilty for the plight of the aboriginals is pointless.  If those of European descent are to pay the aboriginals for the poor treatment of their predecessors with title to land (which is a completely alien concept to the ancestors of the aboriginal peoples), are we also going to try the Inuit for the genocide of the Dorset culture they displaced and destroyed?  And what of the environmental devastation brought to the Americas by the “aboriginal peoples” arrival from Asia more than 13,000 years ago – they helped drive the mega-fauna of the western hemisphere to extinction – and even if they weren’t directly responsible, they clearly didn’t try to prevent it.

The whole “First Nations” lie should be shown for what it is – all Canadians should be treated equally, and given the same opportunities to succeed or fail – and not on the dime of the hard-working taxpayers.

So, once again an institution based on the places where individual thought and new ideas has implemented a program to stifle free speech.

This is absolutely ridiculous…  Putting a few “thought police” individuals into a student body of thousands with the task of “informing” people when they might be offending another person around them will not be effective in improving “diversity”.  Diversity of thought comes with freedom of thought and freedom of speech, along with experience with people of different backgrounds.  Thought police are so 1984…

I think it also funny that in a press story defending the program they get comment from the head of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, one of those “kangaroo courts” that definitely do not support free speech.