Molly

I find this line of thought pretty amusing. If I was trying to create maximum controversy, I'd change a policy, turn my back on long-standing precedent, introduce a rule that doesn't quite jive with with any established Canadian law or standard. I'd make sure that policy created an us-and-them double-standard, and that it had moral/religious overtones.... It would take a dolt of the first order to believe that such a recipe would effectively avoid controversy.

We aren't, nor are we expected to break or adjust either our own laws, or the laws of the nations we assist. We are expected to reasonably acknowledge that an 11-year-old rape victim (for instance) shouldn't become the victim of the posturing of Canadian politicians.

Ex-cuuuuse me! As someone who has been inadequately represented for a good long while, I wonder why someone who has shown to be guilty of "marrying a husband with appallingly bad judgment, letting him use her office, having an annoying personality and breaking down in public under the pressure of two miscarriages and her mother’s health scare." would not have stepped aside in favor of someone who is up to the job, and who is not in the middle of a personal meltdown! "For that she’s been ousted from her job and party, and crucified in the press" .. as well she should. I'm sure the countdown is on. How many more days before her parliamentary pension is secure?

Read actions, Myata. Do you suppose that if Bruinooge wanted to cross the floor, he'd be accepted by any of the other parties? The stealth of the 'pro-life' caucus says it all... They won't identify themselves because they'd be steered toward the door from that moment on.

Oh, bollucks! No one, not even Conservative pseudo-renegades, will touch late-term abortions with a twenty-foot pole. Late termers, particularly 'partial-birth' folks (a totally meaningless, anti-choice, made-up term, by the way) are exactly the people who want not to abort, but are living the kind of nightmare that forces them to-- the precise people who no one with a whisper of sanity would argue with, ever. Giving those people an even harder time than they are already facing would create a public relations firestorm that would fry... your... hair.

Re: Reform and Harper-- Ditto wrt hating the social conservatism but voting for them anyway, and with an abiding respect for Manning. However, I categorically disagree(d) with most of the so-called reforms they were proposing. My message in so voting was 'Take note! Canada doesn't end at Thunder Bay!' Between Trudeau's open hostility to the west, and Mulroney's disinterest in and presumption of it, a serious re-education for both parties was wildly overdue. Alberta, at least, now registers in public attention, but the devotion to all things large or small-c conservative renders that attention less effective than a little 'What have you done for me lately?' would be. As to HRCs... meh. Mostly, I agree with you. If the truly egregious crap commonly ended up in court, there'd be no need for them at all, and they are a truly bizarre construct-- an ugly tattered patch, and not a seamless part of the whole. In the end, though, they've done far more good than harm. Legal doesn't always mean right. Sometimes the scales need a little help to honestly balance.

'Shady' as in 'dishonest'? 'Shady' as in 'dim'? You might try stepping into the light for a moment and addressing what I said, instead chucking strawmen around willy-nilly. They're a flipping fire hazard!

Dave: I've always felt that the supporters of the reform movement were overly optimistic towards its prospects. I honestly feel that when they joined the PC party they had peaked and that they wouldn’t have made the inroads in SW Ontario that they needed to form a government. This is strictly based on my current perception of course as I was living in NB at the time this all took place. Suffice it to say out East the Reform party was largely viewed as a Western version of the BLOC party. In fact many folks out there called it the Western BLOC. I was living in Saskatchewan, and that's how I saw it, too. The actual reforms proposed meant very little to their popularity in the west. In fact only political junkies knew or cared what they were! Reform was 'Not Liberal, and not PC'- a knee-jerk protest party like WCC and Unionest and any of a half a dozen others, with Manning- a recognizeable name and some political savvy to make the wheels actually turn. Many were disgruntled by the very attempt to charm Ontario.

White, straight, well-to-do, (nominally) Christian men, as a group, seem to have a real hate thing going for human rights commissions. HRCs are quite a lot more popular among those who are brown, gay, poor, nonChristian or female. Funny how that works.

Stuff like that is why folks like me are big on 'How many kids do you have? Are you married?' being inappropriate questions in a job interview... and happy that maternity leave can be divided by a couple, to further accommodate parents, and ever-so-slightly diffuse the stupid sexism that forces women, but rarely men, into a choice between having a family and having a career. It's 'having a child' or even 'potentially having a child' that women are punished for. There is no great difference in effect if there is complete follow-through, from pressure to (be a man in the first place, to) eschew a relationship if you happen to be female, to never become pregnant, or to abort if it happens... That's just basic sexism, and it's common as grass.

Political dishonesty is trying to say a party is something other than the sum of its parts, (or that its platform rhetoric means more than its actions). If he's just one MP with an agenda, and the CPC disapproves of that agenda, then why isn't he sitting as an independent instead of as a Conservative in good standing? Conservatives (and all other parties) toss the people whose agendas they disapprove. They haven't tossed this doofus.

"A person coerces an abortion if he or she knows of or suspects the pregnancy of a female person and engages, or conspires with another to engage in, conduct that is intentionally and purposely aimed at directing the female person who has not chosen to have an abortion to have an abortion, including but not limited to the following conduct: (a) committing, attempting to commit, or threatening to commit physical harm to the female person, the child or another person; ( committing, attempting to commit or threatening to commit any act prohibited by any provincial or federal law; © denying or removing, or making a threat to deny or remove, financial support or housing from a person who is financially dependent on the person engaging in the conduct; and (d) attempting to compel by pressure or intimidation including argumentative and rancorous badgering or importunity;" A is and B are redundant (A is double-redundant, since it's also fully coverd by .... C is a refusal to be a party to a pregnancy (pay expenses or provide housing), and D is arguing about it- really nothing more than openly expressing disapproval. Functionally, this one would criminalize many, many more parents than signifigant others. That's pretty darned amusing.

Thanks, Dizzy.

Deleted for taste.

Yup. A million miles off-topic, particularly since Sikhism and Islam are two entirely different religious groups. However.. 'approved'=/= 'CSA approved'. CSA does not test motorcycle helmets, and has no standard for them. Various provinces pick and choose whatever standards appeal to them-- out of the air.

Doh! I expect that it says exactly what Mr. Bruinage says it does, and that the press is accurately reporting it. You say "Its about women having their right to choose being taking away by a bullying partner or any other person.", but that's not what Bruinooge is saying. He's not offering to defend choice. He's offering special protection for one option and not for the other. (Coercion and intimidation are already frowned upon by law.) The implication -the legal implication- is that while it's undesireable to force a woman to abort, to force her not to abort is not so bad.

Aye. Clark is one of the very few still kicking around who one could, without embarrassment, refer to as a statesman.

Really! When it becomes available, you can show me the clauses that would prevent a bullying husband from beating the crap out of his wife to stop her from seeking an abortion. Of course it's not going to pass-- but if you think it's intended to protect choice rather than to restrict it, you are sillier than I am.

(Were Helena and Rahim at that MacDonalds to talk to finance minister Flaherty? No, no. That was Tim's, not MacDonalds. Silly me.)

If his interview rhetoric is to be trusted, then it's about 'intimidation and coercion to have an abortion', definitely NOT about 'intimidation and coercion to forgo an abortion'--- and not just about intimidation and coercion wrt abortion in general. One would have to be hopelessly naive to suppose for a second that a 'butt the Hell out of the decision' bill would fly with Mr. Bruinooge, or that this bill would resemble such a thing. It will become available for review soon. I look forward to saying "I told you so."

Consider the source, and cut through the weenie, self-righteous, mendacious bafflegab. Bruinooges goal is to recriminalize abortion, and there's precious little that comes out of him that isn't focussed on that goal. This is just one more piece of the same nickel and dime campaign, aimed at that endpoint. If he can't get abortion criminalized.... he can try for criminalizing some aspects of talking about abortion.

No. It's just more anti-choice claptrap. Must there be a special law wrt every possible goal of coercion/intimidation? That depends on whether you are trying to discourage coercion/intimidation, or just some specific goals of that intimidation.

Ha! Not only do they not want to talk about it, they don't want anyone else to talk about it either! Are we soon to see dictionaries redacted, a smeary black blot left where that word used to be?

David Emerson?

I had to go find out what the CSA standards for motorcycle helmets were... and found out there aren't any. What's more, BC helmet law is a mess. This site tells the story reasonably well: http://www.bccom-bc.com/news_topics/may_29-06/Is-My-Helmet-Lega-full-version.pdf I replied specifically to your comment, Muddy, rather than just generally to the chorus that seems to overestimate the merit of a unknown regulations, and underestimate the protective capacity of layers of fabric, because of this quotation: "...a person who is wearing a device on his head which consists of a hard outer shell, soft inner liner and which is affixed by a strap, then that person will not face criminal sanctions. That has been the law in B.C. for 15 years..."