What’s ahead in 2008?

by Ron Gray Let me say at the outset that I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet; but sometimes I can read some of the handwriting on the wall: There may well be a federal election this Spring. The Liberals’ strategy of hiding in the bushes cannot continue forever. And the most likely strategy of the Ignatieff cabal is to precipitate a defeat under Stephan Dion’s leadership as the first stage in a palace revolt. Will a Spring election give the Conservatives their majority? Probably not. As the Harper government gains support from disaffected Liberals by avoiding the moral issues, it is at the same time alienating its social conservative base. Many Christians—those who are pro-life and pro-family—will stay home if they think they don’t have an alternative place to park their vote. For us in the CHP, that means we must build new Electoral District Associations and raise new candidates. Right now, we offer a moral alternative in about one-fifth of Canada’s federal ridings. That must increase—dramatically. It’s interesting to re-read the words of Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, writing a majority decision about the role of smaller political parties in our democracy: "The ability of a party to make a valuable contribution is not dependent upon its capacity to offer the electorate a genuine “government option”. Political parties have a much greater capacity than any one citizen to participate in debate and they act as a vehicle for the participation of individual citizens in the political life of the country. All political parties are capable of introducing unique interests and concerns into the political discourse and marginal or regional parties tend to raise issues not adopted by national parties." Even without any elected MPs (yet), the CHP has had an impact on federal politics. And now that the Green Party calls itself “the smallest of the big parties”, the CHP is the biggest of the small parties. And growing! More important, the CHP is the only federal party that brings these important policy issues into the national dialogue about what kind of nation we’ll leave for our children: • The sanctity of life: only the CHP proposes adoption instead of abortion, and opposes euthanasia. • The sanctity of marriage: only the CHP continues to oppose the Liberals’ illegitimate imposition of same-sex “marriage” on an unwilling nation. • Only the CHP advocates Canada leading a global drive for abolition of slavery by limiting trade with nations that allow the use of slave and exploitative child labour. • Only the CHP has a plan for defending democracy and the Constitution against judicial activism. • Only the CHP has a child-care plan focused on strengthening families. • Only the CHP has a plan for increased productivity through labour peace. • Only the CHP has proposals for making home ownership accessible to more Canadian families. • And among federal political parties, only the CHP has spoken against the STD vaccination program that makes guinea pigs of young girls. These are only the highlights of the many policy distinctives that set the CHP apart from the other 15 or so federal political parties. Behind them all is one dramatic difference: • Only the CHP has shown it believes in the Constitutional statement that “Canada was founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law.” That’s what will carry us forward into this coming year. And I hope to see you at the CHP convention in Regina in November!

Tsawassen Treaty Establishes Third Order of Government

by John Williamson, Federal Director, Canadian Taxpayers Federation Who Pays and who gets to keep the money Tsawwassen to its own members on taxes Representative government is a two-way street that gives citizens authority to remove lawmakers. If citizens lose this right, but the state retains its ability to tax and spend the outcome is authoritarianism. When corruption is exposed in such dictatorships, its leaders insist self-rule trumps political accountability. Countries on this path tend to be governed by a self-appointed, well-heeled cabal and are often reliant on foreign money for survival. We call them banana republics and a parallel type of home rule is about to be ratified in Canada – call it the teepee republic. British Columbia’s Aboriginal Relations Minister Michael de Jong was in Ottawa this week to trumpet the Tsawwassen treaty along with Canada’s Minister of Indian Affairs Chuck Strahl. It is a sweeping agreement that will transfer provincial and federal powers to the reserve’s council and create a third order of government. The band will be handed over 700 hectares of land in Delta, south of Vancouver, 14-million dollars, and management over child protection, health services, education as well as control of land, resources, wildlife and the environment. Minister de Jong candidly calls it “powers of self-government.” Along with the cash handout and new governing authority, governments that negotiated the treaty are telling B.C. voters that band members will begin to pay tax. True enough – the exemption on federal income taxes will be removed 12 years after the treaty is law. Left unsaid is that taxpaying natives will not be sharing the cost of things like health care and defence along with other Canadian taxpayers. This is because income tax collected from the reserve will go to the band, not Ottawa. Moreover, a side agreement is expected for a similar share of GST revenues. Most Canadians will instinctively find these tax schemes objectionable. It is conceivable a sound argument could be made that bands such as this one need cash to develop economic infrastructure and help its members. And perhaps there is even value in the federal government diverting tax collected on reserves to band governments to establish the important principal that natives ought to pay taxes. But the tax requirements under this agreement are not limited to natives. Instead, federal taxes paid by non-natives living on the Tsawwassen reserve will also go the band government. Incredibly, these same taxpayers will not be permitted to vote in band elections, which mean they will lose the mechanism to remove lawmakers that waste money. Non-native citizens will suddenly become disenfranchised legal aliens, permitted to stay but without a direct say in the management of their tax dollars. This is hardly an exaggeration – the term our government bureaucrats use in native agreements to describe these non-natives is “non-citizens.” It is a disgrace public servants engage in these linguistic gymnastics to placate the cant of native sovereignty. Ottawa’s department of Indian affairs and B.C. treaty negotiators also suppose the ability to tax “serves as a means of government accountability.” They skip over the caveat that this statement is only true if citizens have an ability to remove government officials. Without that there is no real accountability – any despot can tax. A government is responsible only when it is answerable to the public. The Tsawwassen agreement will instill little accountability on the band council. According to The Delta Optimist, the 2006 Census showed of the 674 people living on this reserve 506 were non-natives. The band is already salivating over the fact it will collect $3 from non-voting, non-citizens for every $1 it taxes from people it considers bona fide citizens (i.e. natives). This is not about self-sufficiency but skewering a new cash cow. Conservative MP John Cummins (Delta-Richmond East) has reviewed the Tsawwassen tax agreements in advance of the treaty vote in Parliament. His findings have generated little interest. This treaty should be unacceptable to anyone committed to democracy, yet the Parliament of Canada is fixated on the Mulroney-Schreiber saga. Winston Churchill once said democracy is the worse form of government, except for all the others. Does the federal government think he was wrong? If you are supportive of this commentary, please consider becoming a supporter of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and add your voice to the campaign for lower taxes, less waste and more accountable government. Click here to become a supporter. --30-- For further information contact: John Williamson, Federal Director, CTF - Ottawa Ph: 1-613-234-6554

Next >

[ Back ]

Ron Gray Defends Freedom of Speech

Ron Gray, National Leader of the Christian Heritage Party, appeared on the Miracle Channel's Insight program, hosted by Paul Arthur. on Wednesday. Ron explained the urgency of defending freedom of speech and talked about the current situation with the Human Rights Commission. As he said so well: "If an agency of the government can tell a political party what it may or may not say, we no longer live in a democracy."

Listen to the interview here---Audio only--plays instantly

Watch the complete broadcast on video---Takes about 5 minutes to download on High Speed

Ron Gray Legal Defence Fund
Money will be needed for court costs and legal expenses. We’re asking every Canadian who believes in freedom and Biblical morality to help. As in all cases of this nature, taxpayers are forced to fund the case for the complainant but those who wish to defend freedom in Canada must pay their own costs. All donations to Ron’s legal defence fund, of any size, are important.

Please send cheques to:

Ron Gray Legal Defence Fund
c/o Ronald McDonald Law Office
406 Stafford Dr.
Lethbridge, AB
T1J 2L2

How Much Do You Know About Roe?

Take the Roe IQ Test
Sure, Roe v. Wade is American Law
but Canadian law is very close.

Sign a Petition to Eliminate the Human Rights Commissions

John Pacheco at Socon or Bust has a petition to get rid of the useless, costly and dangerous human rights commissions. You can sign it or comment on it here.

CHP Leader to Discuss ‘Human Rights’ Cases on Miracle Channel Wednesday

Does a registered federal political party have a right to promote the policies it has held for 20 years?

Does a Christian have a right to state publicly that he (or she) regards homosexuality as immoral, unnatural and unhealthy?

Ron Gray, National Leader of the Christian Heritage Party of Canada, will be interviewed on these and other questions relating to the ‘gay rights’ conflict in Canada, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2007 on the Miracle Channel’s Insight program, hosted by Paul Arthur. The main topic of the interview will be three human rights complaints brought against the CHP, one of its Electoral District Associations, and Mr. Gray .

The human rights allegations against the CHP bring into sharp focus the conflict between the rights of free speech, freedom of religious, freedom of conscience, and the political liberties guaranteed in Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, on the one hand; and the ‘equality rights’ for sexual orientation that were deliberately excluded from the Charter by Parliament, but later forced into the Charter—unconstitutionally, Mr. Gray contends—by the Supreme Court, bypassing the role of Parliament and the provincial legislatures in amending Canada’s Constitution (of which the Charter is a part).

Mr. Gray and the CHP are merely the latest in a long line of defendants subjected to ‘human rights’ allegations by militant homosexual activists. Earlier victims of the purge of free speech rights have included Toronto printer Scott Brockie; Hugh Owens of Saskatchewan, in whose case a judge declared that citing Bible verses made his newspaper advertisements “hate”; an elderly couple in PEI who had to close their Bed & Breakfast establishment because they did not want two unrelated men sleeping together in their home; Craig Chandler of Calgary, who wrote a letter to the editor of the Red Deer Advocate denouncing the ‘gay agenda’; Dr. Chris Kempling, a BC teacher with a doctorate in counselling psychology, who was punished by his employer for advocating CHP policies about homosexuality, when he sought the nomination as a CHP candidate; Rev. Stephen Boissoin of Calgary, convicted by an Alberta ‘human rights’ tribunal for writing a letter to the editor expressing his concerns about homosexuality. Other victims of the ‘human rights’ campaign against free speech have included Mark Harding of Toronto, accused of fomenting hatred when he published a booklet complaining that Christian prayers were not allowed at his daughters’ school, but a room was set aside for Muslim prayers. And now, internationally renowned columnist Mark Steyn has been accused before the Canadian Human Rights Commission of ‘Islamophobia’.

“If an agency of the government can tell a registered political party what it can and cannot say in advancing its policies,” notes Mr. Gray, “Canada has gone a long, long way down the road to totalitarianism—to becoming a one-party (militant Secularist) state. What the human rights commissions and others forget is that Secularism is also a religion—perhaps the most intolerant in the world; it seeks to drive every other faith out of the public square.”

The Miracle Channel is available coast-to-coast by satellite; or on the Internet by live streaming at www.miraclechannel.ca

PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING HOURS AND TIME ZONES

as a follow up to the previous email 're chp on television'

*Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2007 on the Miracle Channel’s Insight program, hosted by Paul Arthur.

10:00 PACIFIC STANDARD TIME

11:00 MOUNTAIN STANDARD TIME

12:00 CENTRAL TIME

1:00 EST

2:00 ATLANTIC TIME

2:30 NEWFOUNDLAND TIME

Comments on the proposed Social Justice 12 Curriculum

by Rod Taylor

Background: the BC Ministry of Education, in cooperation with Attorney General Wally Oppal, made a deal with two homosexual teachers (Corren and Corren), which gave the two men unprecedented influence over the development of new curricula for use in BC schools. The following commentary points out several obvious problem passages for family-values advocates.

The following comments on the proposed Social Justice 12 “Integrated Resource Package” (Curriculum) are merely specific points in regard to this blatant attempt by the BC government to introduce significant philosophical changes to current public school curricula.

These changes lack the warrant of proper public dialogue, and do not conform to the specific wording of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms; and fail the dictates of common sense.

These changes, initiated by the Corren Settlement Agreement, whereby two citizens have been given disproportionate influence over the curricula of the BC Education system, seem designed primarily to foster change in the sexual attitudes and lifestyle choices of young people.

P. 37 contains an attack on “religion” as a negative influence on public policies and practice; then encourages thinking based on this premise and lays a groundwork for the dismissal of policies “originating” from these beliefs.

P. 38 throws “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” into a list of other personal identification characteristics, and suggests that these newly-contrived aspects of personhood might lead to marginalization or oppression, thus eliciting from sincere students a desire to become “agents of change”.

P. 39 injects further “moral impetus” for students to work to create new protected categories, insinuated by the authors, such as “addictions, secular worldviews (merely another form of religion that denies a personal God) and the environment (clearly a call for students to jump on Al Gore’s bandwagon).”

P. 41 clearly places all gender-orientation issues (personal lifestyle choices) in the same category as race and gender in terms of potential discrimination. This is contrary to logic.

The endless appeal to victimhood is not justified by history.

P.42 is full of heavily propagandized language designed to move students towards a worldview different than that of their parents and the historical and cultural roots of our nation. Prostitution (“sex-trade”) and animals are loosely thrown into a discussion purported to be about human rights as protected under Canada’s Charter. The assumption that all lifestyle choices—such as prostitution—are of equal value, and that animals should be protected by the Charter, are imaginative positions inconsistent with logic and history.

The authors go far beyond any legitimate effort to encourage students’ thinking, and here show that their true intent is to tell students HOW and WHAT they should think.

Finally, the invitation for students to write a positive commentary on how the Civil Marriage Act (the 2005 endorsement of same-sex marriage forced upon Canadians by a partially ‘whipped’ vote [Cabinet ministers were not allowed to vote their conscience]) “promotes social justice.” This is clearly not meant to lead to an open-ended discussion of the Act, its pros and cons, but an endorsement of same-sex “marriage”. Note that the invivation is only for positive comments; the possibility that students might be aware of negative social consequences flowing from this Act is excluded. That exclusion typifies the one-sidedness of this IRP.

All the above, which barely scrapes the surface of this terrible piece of work, should be sufficient to send this draft curriculum AND the companion curriculum “Making Space, Giving Voice” the overbroad and under-thought K-12 equivalent, back to the drawing board.

Family-values advocates, who actually represent a large segment of BC’s population, should be involved in the draft FROM the BEGINNING (real input) not merely be given a token opportunity to respond after the damage is done.

Patrick Carroll's Research and the ABC Debate

by Colin Mason Population Research Institute Rates of breast cancer are skyrocketing in countries which have legalized abortion. But this suggestion--that abortion causes breast cancer--causes radical feminists, who are otherwise greatly concerned about breast cancer--to go into spasms of denial. This is why it is vitally important to the pro-life cause that the ABC link be investigated rationally, documented carefully, and presented convincingly. British statistician Patrick Carroll, who is Director of Research at Britain’s Pension and Population Research Institute, has done just that in his new study, "Assessing the Damage," which was just published on October 25th of this year. Some years ago, Carroll recognized that the U.K., because of the all-pervasive British Medical System and the public funding of abortions, has some of the most complete data on abortion, breast cancer, and other illnesses available anywhere. He used this data, which spans the 40 years since the legalization of abortion in 1967, to see if it showed any connection between abortion and suiicide, mental illness, and breast cancer in each of the U.K.'s four regions: England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. He also looked at other medical sequalae of abortion, such as the level of mental illness and subsequent suicide rates. According to official figures, the modal age for abortions in England is 20, while the modal age for live births is 30. Women are marrying later, if at all, and the proportion of pregnancies among unmarried women continues to grow. Many of these women seek abortions. Of the 180,000 abortion in 2006, 100,000 were performed on women who had no prior abortions, while 80,000 were performed on women who have at least one prior abortion. Carroll's study shows, as one might suspect, that mental illness is more common following first-time abortion. As the number of first-time abortions grows, so has antidepressant use. Thirty-one million prescriptions were written in England in 2006, a nearly 10 million increase over the 21.3 million written in 2001. Most importantly, however, his study clarifies why there has been a radical upswing in the incidence of British breast cancer since the legalization of abortion. Rates of breast cancer have risen by an incredible 80 per cent since the late seventies. Carroll begins by noting that upper class women are more likely to develop breast cancer and more likely to have abortions. "The social gradient for female breast cancer is unlike that of other cancers with upper class women having a higher rate of incidence than those from lower social classes," Carroll writes. "As in other countries this is termed a negative or reverse social gradient for female breast cancer . . British official publications report on the social gradient but do not explain it in terms of known risk factors." This reverse social gradient for breast cancer is far too steep to be explained by the fact that upper-class women are having children later in life, when the risk for breast cancer is more severe. Rather, Carroll explains, "upper class and upwardly mobile women are more likely to choose abortion when they are pregnant and this helps to explain this otherwise inexplicable social gradient. Upper class women tend to postpone childbearing and have a later age at first birth. Abortions before full-term pregnancies are the more carcinogenic nulliparous [first-time] abortions." The results? After a judicious parsing of the data, Carroll concludes: "Breast cancer can be considered a long term sequel to abortion." Although the causes of breast cancer are not completely understood, it is commonly accepted that hormonal changes play a large role. Pregnancy causes breast cells to grow and divide. An abortion interrupts this process, leaving large number of undifferentiated cells which are especially susceptible to cancer. The media in the U.K., not surprisingly, have not been kind to Carroll's study and the British medical establishment has yet to comment. What can they say, after all? The data on abortions and breast cancer come from the government itself, and are not subject to "recall bias," or any of the other shortcomings that normally afflict survey data. The argument is clear and convincing. While Carroll ends by calling for further study, he also makes it clear that he thinks the facts speak for themselves. "The correlation [between breast cancer and abortion] is much higher than for other known risk factors such as Childlessness, Age at First Birth and Fertility," he says. He goes on to point out that "Modelling using abortion and birth rates as explanatory variables has been used to make forecasts for eight countries for the future incidence of female breast cancer." When you can not only explain the past, but offer predictions of the future, you are in possession of a very powerful theory indeed. We have long been convinced at PRI that the abortion breast cancer link is fact. Carroll's work should help convince all those who are not blinded by the ideology of choice. Colin Mason is the Director for Media Production at PRI.

Sign up for the Weekly Briefing Here Media Contact: Colin Mason Email: colin@pop.org (540) 622-5240, ext. 209 _________ (c) 2007 Population Research Institute. Permission to reprint granted. Redistribute widely. Credit required. _________ PRI is a 501(c)(3) educational organization. If you would like to make a tax-deductible donation to PRI, please go to our Donations Page. All donations (of any size) are welcomed and appreciated. _________ The pro-life Population Research Institute is dedicated to ending human rights abuses committed in the name of "family planning," and to ending counter-productive social and economic paradigms premised on the myth of "overpopulation." Find us at www.pop.org. PRI, PO Box 1559, Front Royal, VA 22630 USA Phone: 540-622-5240

Divorce is Bad for the Environment

A really inconvenient truth: Divorce is not green. Dec. 3, 2007

EAST LANSING, Mich. — The data are in. Divorce is bad for the environment.

A novel study that links divorce with the environment shows a global trend of soaring divorce rates has created more households with fewer people, has taken up more space and has gobbled up more energy and water. The findings of Jianguo “Jack” Liu and Eunice Yu at Michigan State University are published in this week’s online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences...

Posted on Solarion by RavenII Read the whole article