Ignatieff Disgraces the Liberal Party, Harper Helps

I know it takes some doing, but Iggy has disgraced the Liberal Party of Canada once again. By voting in favour of the budget, he and his party voted in favour of the roll back of pay equity for women. The Liberals are now against equal pay for work of equal value. It's a sad day.

Pay equity is not some frill that can be cut in hard economic times. It is the absolute right of all women. The Harper-Ignatieff proposal cuts off women's access to the courts. Their alternative? The collective bargaining table. Bzzzt, sorry, try again. This proposal leaves behind all the women who work in non-union workplaces, a staggering 41% of all women who work outside the home.

Obviously, it would be nice if all women worked in unionized work places, but even if they did, denying access to the courts is not an acceptable approach to pay equity.

The Conservative-Liberal attack on pay equity also plays the ostrich when looking at the history of pay equity at the bargaining table. Federal civil servants negotiated pay equity almost twenty years ago, but since then have had to fight tooth and nail in the courts to force successive Liberal and Conservative governments to honour that pledge. Why would anyone be taken in and believe that now will be different. The corporate world is no more friendly to pay equity than our corporate government. They will fight as hard as can be to avoid pay equity obligations.

When pay equity is something to be gained at the negotiating table, it becomes something that can be negotiated away. That is an unacceptable possibility. Further, when pay equity is the subject of negotiation, it loses its rights-based aspect. It occurs to me that this is precisely what the Conservatives and their Liberal lackeys want. They want to move the discussion of equal pay for work of equal value away from a rights discourse. Because they don't seem to favour women's rights at all. Oh, the Liberals mouth the words when the camera is on, but their actions belie them. If they had any positive principles at all, they would have refused to vote for a budget containing the attack on pay equity, especially when they could have had it excised in exchange for their support.

The Liberals are lying, hypocritical assholes, at least their party brass is. We should be ashamed that our country has vacillated between dumb and dumber for better part of 150 years.

Prop 8, The Musical

This, this is brilliant.



Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 48

Harper Scampers to Save His Government

Craven Stephen Harper, the true small-man of Confederation has pushed back the opposition day scheduled for Monday by a week in a desperate attempt to save his government that is suddenly on the rocks. Flim-Flam Flaherty's economic update included more poison pills than the opposition could ever have been rationally expected to swallow, including not only the elimination of public campaign financing, but also a frontal attack on collective bargaining rights and the equal rights of women.

Flaherty took union busting to the next level, declaring that the government would use the power of the Crown to roll back collective bargaining and arbitral gains on wage increases, and eliminate the right to strike over wages until 2010-11. Not only is this piece of legislation mean spirited in the extreme, it is quite possibly illegal in light of the Supreme Court decision made last year that overturned BC's Bill 29 which tried to do much the same thing. Workers have a right to the gains they have made, and they have the right to withhold labour over whatever they please.

The government has also made a frontal assault on the pay equity of women, by stating in the economic update that pay equity would not be retroactive, and the right to recourse to the Canadian Human Rights Commission would be removed. This is insane. In the years since the courts forced the government into pay equity, this is the biggest attempt to go back on what was ordered. I don't know where the government gets off trying to eliminate the rights of women retroactively.

This stuff is red meat right out of the reform party platforms of the mid-1990s. This is our "moderate" Prime Minister. The opposition parties were never going to accept this, and it was a red flag. This is our government's way of kicking their opponents when they are down, like a bully on the school yard. We are being governed by people who behave like maladjusted eight year olds.

Dipper Chick summed up my feelings about the coalition quite nicely:

A month or so ago, I never thought that there would be a set of circumstances that would make me supportive of the NDP forming a coalition with the Liberals. But here we are.

...

I am not feeling the slightest bit complacent about any of this. The Conservatives need to be stopped. I still don't trust the Liberals, and I still believe that an NDP government is what Canadians really need. But right here and now, with things being as they are, a Liberal-NDP coalition is the best option.

My apprehension comes from wondering if the Liberals can be fair while negotiating the terms of the coalition. I have a hard time believing that they can put their sense of entitlement aside and offer the NDP a significant enough role to form a true coalition. But if they can come to an agreement that is fair, I say take Harper down.

This coalition is necessary, but Stephen Harper will do everything he can to avoid it. He's going to take the week of grace he fabricated for himself and try to turn the Canadian people against his bully-boy government. I have faith that the Canadian people will see through the thing tissue of rationalizations, excuses and lies that Harper is putting forth.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 53

Rallies Against Hate Across the World

Across the United States, and around the world, rallies were held to protest the passage of Proposition Eight in California on Nov. 4. There are some phenomenal pictures out there, from protests all over the United States, as well as some that I could track down from the protest in Toronto. The site with the most pictures is Towleroad, and the pictures from Toronto can be found at This. That. No Other.

The numbers for turnout are absolutely remarkable. The Los Angeles crowd was reported at 30-40,000, and the San Diego crowd was reported at 25,000. This moment may mark a new revitalization in the campaign for equal rights for LBGT folks in the United States, and may mark the point at which the momentum moved from the bigots and haters to the supporters of equality.

In Canada, it is easy to be complacent, to think that because the battle for marriage equality was won here those who support equality here can rest. But it's not true. On the day that the Conservative Party held the plenary session of their policy convention, we have to remember that there are still those in Canada that would roll back equal rights, and that they form the government.

The object lesson of Proposition Eight is that while rights can be won, the bigots will not rest until they find a way to take them away. That means that those of us who support equality can't become complacent. We have to remain on watch until the bigots either see the error of their ways, or die off.

Being angry is good, being angry is healthy. But being angry alone is not enough. In the words of Solidarity Forever, and as equality supporters in the United States are showing, what is necessary is to organize and fight.

Good on everyone who came out to protest, and hopefully this is the beginning of a new, strong, movement for full and equal citizenship for all.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 65

Eva Ariak Becomes First Female Premier of Nunavut

Eva Ariak, the only woman in the Nunavut legislature, was elected by the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut yesterday to be the new premier, defeating incumbent premier Paul Okalik. She becomes the second premier of Nunavut, and the first female Premier of the territory.

I confess to not knowing much about Ariak's policies, but it is always good to see more members of historically disadvantaged groups, such as women, attaining high office. I do wonder to what extent Nunavut's consensus-style government eases the way for this to happen. After all, Ms. Ariak did not did not have gain the leadership of a political party as would be the case in any of the provinces or in the Yukon. Party structures have traditionally militated against female party leaders, particularly at the federal level but at the provincial level as well.

I wish Ms. Ariak well, and I hope that her election will lead to more women running for and winning seats in legislature both in Nunavut and the across the country. Good luck Ms. Ariak!

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 66

Keith Olbermann and Proposition Eight

Keith Olbermann is incredible.

I just stumbled across his Special Comment on Proposition Eight, and thought it was something that merits sharing. Good on ya Keith.



Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 70

Homophobia Lives in the United States

I am bitterly disappointed with voters in California, Arizona, Florida and Arkansas today. In all of those states, voters opted to pass ballot initiatives, some of them constitutional amendments, to eliminate certain rights for gay, lesbian and bisexual Americans. In an election in which racism was shown to be on the decline, voters still proved themselves to be bigots. I am especially disappointed in California. They had marriage equality, and they have opted to tell everyone that their state constitution is a vessel for bigotry, by voting in favour of proposition 8. The most flabbergasting part of these results is how strongly black voters supported prop 8. It is incomprehensible to me that members of a group that 45 years ago was suffering the brutality of segregation could turn around today and tell another group of people that separate-but-equal is good enough (especially since "civil unions" are not as good as marriages, for all the reasons put forward in the now-annulled California Supreme Court decision).

Some day, Americans will look back on the plethora of homophobic ballot initiatives over the last eight years as a dark period in American history. Someday the veil of hateful superstition will lift, and the people of America will realize that holding someone to be less of a person and less entitled to equal benefit of law because of some factor about themselves that they have no control over is a fundamentally wrong thing to do. Someday Americans will look back on this period of ignorance and hatred, and be astonished that the people of California thought that this was an acceptable way to behave.

But until that day comes, LGBT Americans will continue to live in a country where denying their basic rights is common practice, and where embedding hatred and bigotry in a constitution is deemed an acceptable practice. The pall of racism has begun to lift, but the dusk of homophobia is settling further across the United States. For shame.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 75

A Seminal Moment

Tonight, an African American was elected President for the first time in American history. This is a pivotal moment in the history of the United States. This is an opportunity to turn from the old prejudices and hatreds, and to look to a brighter, more equal tomorrow. Congratulations to you, President-Elect Obama, and congratulations to America for having the courage to elect him.

Unfortunately, this wind of change, hope, acceptance and tolerance does not seem to reach to all. Voters in several states have voted to restrict the rights of gay and lesbian people, whether it be a ban on adoption by same-sex couples, or bans on equal marriage in Florida, Arizona and California, they have all succeeded or are leading at the moment. It is a sad statement that America and Americans are willing to try to move past racism, but are unwilling to move past homophobia.

The Democrats have strengthened their hold on both the Senate and the House of Representatives, but will fall short of the sixty-seat super-majority needed in the Senate to block Republican obstructionism, and as a result will face more filibusters and delaying tactics on the part of an embittered and hateful opposition.

There are many races not yet done, and I hope especially to see Al Franken win in Minnesota and to see Prop 8 fail in California. We shall see.

I will try to post a more fulsome analysis later, when I'm not sleepy.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency (Day Until Obama Presidency): 75

Women and the New Parliament

This entry is the third in my continuing series on issues that have been pointed out by the most recent elections. This discussion will focus on the pathetic level of representation that Canada has of women in the House of Commons.

In the election of 2006 , of 308 MPs elected, 66 of them were women, or 21%. This put Canada in the lower tier of long-standing democracies for representation of women in the legislative branch of government. In the election just concluded, the number of women elected has increased slightly t0 68, or 22%. Embarrassingly, this is a historic high for Canada in the representation of women. The greatest absolute number of female MPs elected in the Conservatives with twenty-three, but this is simply a function of the fact that they have a caucus twice as large as the Liberals, three times as large as the BQ and three-and-a-half times as large as that of the NDP. The NDP has the greatest percentage of female members in the caucus, at approximately 36% (twelve members out of thirty-seven).

This situation is, frankly, pathetic. Canada is a country that has equality for women enshrined in the Constitution, and yet we can't seem to manage the election of women to the House of Commons in anything like their proportion to the population. Many other countries do much better, and some (like Rwanda) have even managed to achieve greater than 50% representation of women, giving women representation proportional to their share of the population.

Now, I'm not going to suggest that this problem in Canada is due to misogyny, but there are two important factors. The first is latent sexism in our society that fosters impressions of women as less capable or less devoted. I don't think, in most people, that this is a conscious prejudice, but rather an unconscious impression fostered by societal conditioning. The second factor is the first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system. 'What?' I hear you ask. It works like this: a system of FPTP elections creates a situation in which the candidates nominated in the individual ridings must be those deemed to be most electable. Because of the first factor above, parties tend to believe that women are less electable than men, and in consequence, fewer women are nominated and of necessity fewer women are elected.

This problem is not one that is easily fixable, and both of the solutions require a ton of work, but I think both of them need to be done, and both are doable. First off, we need to work on wiping out the latest sexism in society. This means stamping on sexism wherever it occurs, whether it be in exploitative advertising or the "pink-collar ghetto." When we do this, it will help increase the representation of women within the FPTP system. Secondly, we need to change that FPTP system. In a PR system, the parties could much more easily achieve proportional representation of women through electoral lists. When the two means were combined, it would be a set of potent steps to address the problem of the under-representation of women.

In an ideal world, and I do believe that we should work toward an ideal world even if we don't get there (because you can't get there if you don't try), women would be represented exactly in proportion to their population, and this would be accomplished voluntarily by the political parties, both through their electoral lists and through their nomination processes. However until we get there, we first need to work on squashing sexism, and changing our political system. If we can bring an end to sexism, then any number of things in society will improve, from violence against women to the prosperity of society (since more women with low incomes will earn more money, injecting it back into the economy rather than concentrating it in the hands of old, rich white men who will put it in Swiss accounts and dodge taxes).

We can all do our bit, and hopefully when the next election rolls around, we will see a significant increase in the number of women elected. And hopefully a couple elections from now there will be some real momentum toward electoral reform.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 92

First Pride Parades Held in India

In defiance of homophobic legislation in India that provides a punishment of up to ten years in jail for being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered, hundreds of gay rights activists have held the first widespread pride parades in India's history (there had been a couple small events in Calcutta in the last couple years). Good on them. What is sad is that many of those brave individuals who turned out felt the need to wear masks to hide their identity.

India's laws prohibiting homosexuality are a disgusting throwback to the era in which Imperial Britain imposed appalling Victorian moralizing on it's empire. The British Empire has many things to answer for, and the horrifying attitude toward GLBT folks is yet another one of them. I salute those with the courage to show up and show their pride. Straight society around the world needs to come to terms with the reality that gays, lesbians, bisexuals and trans folk exist, and are entitled to the exact same rights as every other person.

In many parts of the west, we like to congratulate ourselves on having a progressive attitude towards LGBT folks. The sad fact is that while in some countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Canada, South Africa and Norway) there is full formal equality for LGBT folks, even in those countries, deep undercurrents of homophobic hatred persist. When school children feel it is alright to use "you're so gay" as a put-down to mean stupid or worthless, something is deeply wrong. When people rely on ridiculous injunctions from a book more than 2000 years old (that also, by the way, condemns as abomination wearing clothes made of two kinds of fibre among other idiocies) to decide that being gay is abomination, something is wrong. When a person is allowed to declaim violent hatred under the thin guise of religion, something is wrong. Ultimately, formal legal equality is meaningless unless there is substantive society equality to go along with it. Until the day that no child grows up learning to hate someone on the basis of a biologically determined reality, until the day that there is no danger of another murder like that of Brandon Teena or Matthew Sheppard, the work isn't finished.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 205

Equal Marriage in California

California has, today, become the second American state to allow equal marriage for all people, regardless of sexual orientation. In a 4-3 ruling, the California Supreme Court overturned the statute defining marriage as between a man and a woman. The reasons of the Majority, written by Chief Justice George, contain several clear explanations of why LGBT folks are entitled to equal rights, and why "separate but equal" civil unions/domestic partnerships just don't cut it. First the Chief Justice had this to say:

Furthermore, in contrast to earlier times, our state now recognizes that an individual’s capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual’s sexual orientation, and, more generally, that an individual’s sexual orientation — like a person’s race or gender — does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights. We therefore conclude that in view of the substance and significance of the fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship, the California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples.

He added this:

Second, retaining the traditional definition of marriage and affording same-sex couples only a separate and differently named family relationship will, as a realistic matter, impose appreciable harm on same-sex couples and their children, because denying such couples access to the familiar and highly favored designation of marriage is likely to cast doubt on whether the official family relationship of same-sex couples enjoys dignity equal to that of opposite-sex couples. Third, because of the widespread disparagement that gay individuals historically have faced, it is all the more probable that excluding same-sex couples from the legal institution of marriage is likely to be viewed as reflecting an official view that their committed relationships are of lesser stature than the comparable relationships of opposite-sex couples. Finally, retaining the designation of marriage exclusively for opposite sex couples and providing only a separate and distinct designation for same-sex couples may well have the effect of perpetuating a more general premise — now emphatically rejected by this state — that gay individuals and same-sex couples are in some respects “second-class citizens” who may, under the law, be treated differently from, and less favorably than, heterosexual individuals or opposite-sex couples.

Those two excerpts from the decision eloquently make the case for equal marriage.

The forces of acceptance have won the battle, but the forces of bigotry and hatred haven't yet given up the war. They have one last play: an attempt to change the constitution of California to return to unequal marriage. This attempt will likely be on the ballot in California in November. If that battle is won, then it will truly be a time to celebrate.

That is not, of course, to play down the incredible victory that today's ruling represents. Thousands, if not millions, of Californians will be able to marry the person they love now, and that is certainly a cause for joy.

I salute the judges of the California Supreme Court for coming to the right decision, and I hope that the people of California will see fit to reject the ballot initiative to entrench bigotry in California's constitution. For anyone interested in reading the decision, the following link will take you to the PDF version of the ruling.


Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 251

Conservatives continue efforts to roll back women's rights

Another private members bill that would set the stage to radically roll back a woman's right to choose and to control her own body has been proposed by a Conservative member of parliament, Maurice Vellacott, MP for Saskatoon-Wanuskewin. Bill C-537 would allow health care practitioners to refuse to participate in a medical procedure that "offends a tenet of their religion."

If a person's religious beliefs prohibit them from offering a certain service, then that person should not get into a profession where they might be required to provide that service. If a person feels that their religion prevents them from giving out the 'morning after' pill, then they shouldn't be a pharmacist. If they can't perform an abortion, or prescribe emergency contraception, then the person shouldn't be a physician. If they can't perform a blood transfusion, they shouldn't practice emergency medicine. This really isn't that complex.

This bill is framed in the context of protecting religious rights, but it should tell you something that Vellacott is the chair of the "Parliamentary Pro-Life Caucus" which includes both Conservative and Liberal MPs (but thankfully no New Democrats). This nonsense would allow doctors, who are being paid by the state, to refuse to provide abortions, in effect banning a practice that the Supreme Court of Canada (in R. v. Morgentaler, 1988) said the government could not use the law to ban, because doing that violated the right of women to "security of the person" under section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

This is the same philosophy that has seen women left without pharmacists willing to dispense emergency contraceptives in various parts of the United States. It is the philosophy that says that a doctor's dogmatic beliefs are more important that a woman's right to control her body. That is utter garbage and nonsense.

Furthermore, this bill follows hard on the heels of Bill C-484, which would impose extra penalties for killing a pregnant woman since the assault also terminates the fetus. That bill deems the fetus to be a person, since only a person is legally capable of being murdered, setting us back on the road to banning abortion as murder.

The Conservatives are being cagey on how they push this radical patriarchal and misogynist agenda. It is being done through private members bills, not government bills, so in the next election campaign Harper can claim his government had nothing to do with it. This is very important, because the majority of Canadians think this issue is settled, and that a woman has a right to choose. The Cons want to roll back a woman's rights, and want to take our society back to some twisted 1950s ideal, where everyone is white, everyone is straight, everyone is Christian, people don't have sex until they are thirty and a woman stays in the home, with a martini for her husband at the end of the day. That's not my Canada, and I sure as hell know it isn't any Canada I want to see. We have to remember that women's rights are human rights. If the Cons take rights away from one group, it is only a matter of time until they are taking them away from everyone else.

To everyone reading this in Canada, I encourage you to get in touch with your MP and let them know that you oppose this bill and bill C-484, and that you want them to vote against both bills. Tell your friends, make noise, be heard. Don't let the Conservatives take rights away in the dark and in silence.


Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 271

Lukiwski Drama Continues

The controversy continues to swirl around Tom Lukiwski, homophobe par excellence. He continues to assert that the vile insults heaped on the LGBT community no longer represent his views. Bull. I'd be more convinced if he actually, say, repudiated his votes on same-sex marriage, and the motion to reopen SSM. In the era of polite homophobia, bigots for the most part close their mouths and work quietly to undermine the rights of those they hate. Lukiwski expressed his hatred for gays and lesbians when he voted against equal rights on the Civil Marriage Act and on the motion to reopen it. Shame on him. Unless you support equal rights for all people regardless of sexual orientation, religion, race, sex, gender identity, ethnic origin, creed and so forth, guess what, you're a bigot. You may not think so, but if you think it's okay for the government to racially profile Muslims and Arabs, then guess what, you're a bigot. If you think it is okay to deny equal access to the institution of civil marriage to LGBT folks and fob that group of society off with "separate but equal" civil unions, you're a bigot. If you think the native people should shut up and stop whining, guess what, you're a bigot. If you think women don't deserve to control their own bodies in all respects, you're a bigot. And hey, surprise, all of these things can be found in the two parties with a realistic chance of forming a government in Canada. The Conservatives (until they got elected) would take these positions openly. The Liberals would take them behind the collective back of the people. Some of these positions have even turned up in the NDP to a distressing extent. It's not as bad in the NDP, but it sure as hell is more disappointing.

Tom Lukiwski is the poster boy for the new age of polite bigotry. His voting record shows that he still hates gays and lesbians, but he knows now that he can't say what he really feels. Some on the right call this the political correctness police and call those who stand up to bigoted statements "humourless". That's ridiculous precisely because these same people will turn around and scream bloody murder if any ridicule or hatred is turned back around on them, on their institutions. They demand that others be tolerant of their intolerance. I say fuck that.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 290

Big Surprise - Conservatives are Homophobes

Surprise, surprise. Turns out Conservative MP Tom Lukiwski is a homophobe and Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall is a racist and a sexist. Who would have expected that from the political heirs of the Reform Party?

The Saskatchewan NDP discovered a tape from 1991 left behind in the Official Opposition offices in the Sask. legislature, that shows a forty year old Lukiwski saying that "there's A's and there's B's. The A's are guys like me. The B's are homosexual faggots with dirt on their fingernails that transmit diseases.” Disgusting homophobic trash. But frankly not that unexpected from the bigoted dinosaurs of the Conservative Party of Canada.

As for Wall, he put on a fake Ukrainian accent and pretended to be Roy Romanow (the Sask. NDP leader of the day, who is of Ukrainian heritage) and then he made sexist fun of the Sask. Liberal leader of the day. All of this coming just days after Wall got himself worked up into a hypocritical lather about David Ahenakew (I don't excuse Ahenakew, what he said was repulsive).

Interestingly, this would never have come to light if the electorate of Saskatchewan, in a short sighted and self-destructive desire for change hadn't turfed the Sask. NDP just as the job market and economy were picking up. Apparently the Saskatchewan Party either doesn't think that homophobia, sexism and racism are important to cover up in their staffers, or they are criminally stupid and too dumb to clean out their files on the way to their new offices.


For those interested in watching the video for themselves, the relevant stuff by Lukiwski is at the end of this clip from the CBC. I haven't been able to find the stuff by Brad Wall yet.





This is yet another in a long stream of examples of Conservative/Alliance/Reform bigotry towards LGBT folks, and towards immigrants. Speak up, everyone who is surprised that Conservatives are once again shown to be haters. *Crickets*

Now, Lukiwski has apologized for this stuff, saying that it no longer represents his views. I would find it easier to believe if he didn't sit in the caucus of Canada's "we hate everyone who isn't white and male" party. After all, he has been given the opportunity to show his supposed changed views by voting for measures to give equal rights to LGBT folks, and has not done so. He voted against equal marriage in 2005, and he voted to re-open the equal marriage debate in 2006. He also has voted for Conservative budgets that have slashed funding for programmes that supported women's equality efforts, and is backing the changes to the immigration act that would allow the Immigration Minister to, by fiat, reject any immigrant arbitrarily. And given the Reform-Conservative history of being anti-immigrant, this is a Very Bad Thing. Lukiwski has shown no objective evidence of his supposed changed views, and we have only his word that he has changed them. I for one, don't believe him for a minute. He isn't sorry he said it, or that he held (and most probably still holds) such abhorrent views. He is sorry he got caught.

Lukiwski ought to resign his seat. Haters shouldn't (but unfortunately do) have a place in the House of Commons. If he won't resign, the Conservatives ought to (but, of course, won't) give him the boot from their caucus. Canadians everywhere, of every sexual orientation, sex and race should be up in arms, calling for Lukiwski's resignation, along with Brad Wall's. These people are below pond scum.

This is a classic example of why Harper is so desperate to keep a muzzle on his MPs, with some duct tape added for good measure. If he didn't we would be hearing about comments like this every other week, rather than every other year. Remember Cheryl Gallant who said abortion is like beheading hostages in Iraq? Or Randy White who said he would like to re-criminalize homosexuality? Or any of half a million things said by Conservative/Canadian Alliance/Reform MPs over the years? These people are haters through and through. Scratch a Conservative, find a bigot.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 291