Elections in Canada, again!

As a somewhat firm believer in democracy, I am happy that there will be a federal election on October 14th, 2008. I will get to have my say in how the country is run. At least I will get my 1/52,000th of 1/308th of a say in how the country is run. Sort of.

If history is any indicator... even if everyone who doesn't vote Tory agrees to all back only one party, the Tory incumbent will still win. Mostly because he's a Tory. You know the old saying: I could paint my horse Tory blue and it would get elected. I think it was coined here.

I guess we'll watch and wait...

Things Paul Harvey Didn't Say

Recently, I received FW:FW:FW: that was attributed to Paul Harvey, the essence of which is: in a country where there is freedom of religion, people of faith should be granted the time to pray without any legal repercussions. The story behind it is that someone was offended by a 30-second prayer and sued.

I appreciate and support the general sentiment that freedom of religion should be just that, and I am not offended if any faith wants to pray (or not).

From a practical perspective, how should we handle prayers at the start of a game if there are representatives of the Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist faiths together with Atheists. Should each be allowed 30s of devotional time? Should they pray or whatever simultaneously?

From a legal perspective, I think that distributing a document that was written (predominantly) by someone (Nick Gholson, Times Record News in Wichita Falls, Texas, September 1999) and attributing that text to someone else (Paul Harvey), may raise issues of plagiarism. Other copyright infringement issues would be related to the general reprinting and distribution without permission. (see http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/prayer.asp for my source)

Also, I don't like FW:FW:FW: chain letters so I try and complain and set the sender on the path to what is Truth, Fairness, Befriendment and Beneficence.

Faithfully yours,
Stephen

Order of Canada

Joseph Emmanuel Yvon Levaque has one, and he was founder and first President of the National Association of Principals and Administrators of Indian Residences
(Didn't the government apologize for Residential Schools because they were evil and wrong?)

Cardinal Paul Grégoire (October 24, 1911 – October 30, 1993) was a Canadian Archbishop of Montreal. In 1979, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.
(Wasn't he in charge of those Quebec priests who were inappropriate with children?)

Where is the righteous indignation against their OoC's? Just Asking

So who is the parent, again?

So far this week we have a Quebec court overturning the grounding of a 12-year-old girl and a new law that makes spanking illegal. The traditional tools of swift physical punishment and revocation of privileges are being removed.

As a some-time educator, I recognize that positive reinforcement of desired behaviour is a very strong teaching tool, but teaching consequence requires that an appropriate consequence must follow a behaviour. Let us encourage good behaviour, but do not force parents to ignore bad behaviour. These children who have been spared the rod hand and spoiled with no negative feedback for negative behaviour will likely become the miscreants and malcontents of the future. And we will blame the parents for not doing enough.

Maybe Macgyver has some way to make a punishment out of a spatula, some chewing gum, and a pile of bad legislation and judicial rulings. If employing literary devices and fictional characters isn't illegal, yet.

Random application of the Charter

The headline jumped out at me: "Random use of police sniffer dogs breach of Charter: top court"
(http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/04/25/school-search.html)

I read the article and find something vaguely disturbing about it. On one hand, I really enjoy the freedom to wander about and not have to wonder when the police will be searching me and my stuff. On the other hand, if buddy has enough cocaine and heroin in my kid's school to make it obvious she is never going to use it all herself, I don't mind if it gets found in a random search.

So are CheckStops now unconstitutional without a specific warrant?

Canadian Tax Credits for Film

As reported on the CBC (http://www.cbc.ca/arts/film/story/2008/04/10/tax-credits.html), Canadian film stars and producers are up-in-arms about the discretionary power to deny tax credits on films that the department deemed inappropriate to be granted to the Heritage Minister by bill C-10.

The descriptions of the bill (I haven't read the actual bill yet...) suggest that we shouldn't be funding "inappropriate" films. The film producers say that they can't make movies with that kind of financial uncertainty hanging over their head.

I think we should probably cut all tax credits for film. We shouldn't be giving gifts to certain industries just to keep them in business. Why should we shield them from risk and let them take all the rewards.

It's not like we do handouts for the farming, cattle, logging, energy, and sporting industries.

Stephen