Working in Montréal today --Free guns, lower taxes, imprison women

Good morning folks,

I will be working in Montréal today.

Now is one of those moments where I will make some statements that will have a polarizing effect on my readers, much like advocating the serving of seal meat in the Parliament Hill restaurant. Mmmm pan fried bashed head seal filet stuffed with dolphin fin served with steamed greens and artichoke.

While I expect some hate mail from some of you, just keep it civil.  Not so much for me, but really for you and your own karma.

I recently received a piece of campaign filth, campaign American style where a group, the CLC -The Campaign Life Coalition, is campaigning against the Liberal party and sent out a card filled with photos of aborted fetal tissue and several statements about Justin Trudeau.

I will disclose that I am neither a Liberal party supporter nor in the Conservative camp (who keeps just enough distance from the CLC so it has plausible deniability, but the CLC's mouth piece explains that it is working hand in hand with Conservative MPs and candidates).  I thought that I would make that clear, not a fan of either house.  I have also become quite 'meh' over the NDP since they have moved to pursue the popular vote, in effect, a man without a party, but that is a different Pulp.

I am going to wander a bit from topic flow but will be right back.  I do find it odd that it is usually proponents of less gov't, fewer laws, that are also proponents of more laws about women's bodies.  "The gov't should tax me less, let me 'free range' my children, leave my guns alone, but control my wife's, daughter's and neighbour's wife's sexuality and uterus" --really Biff?

That the card strangely suggests that young Justin is responsible for abortion in Canada is beyond absurd.  Way back in 1988 (Justin was 17), during the Conservative gov't of Brian Mulroney and after a few decades of slow movement away from imprisoning women for life, and forcing them to carry a fetus to full term over what ever objections they might have to the use of their bodies in this fashion, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Canada's abortion laws to be unconstitutional.

The highest court noted that the law "Forcing a woman, by threat of criminal sanction, to carry a fetus to term unless she meets certain criteria unrelated to her own priorities and aspirations" and that the law "asserts that the woman's capacity to reproduce is to be subject, not to her own control, but to that of the state" were essentially a breach of the woman's right to Security of the person, which is guaranteed under Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

I'll let that sink in a bit.  It was the Supreme Court of Canada not Parliament that freed women from the threat of imprisonment if she obtained an abortion.

The Conservative gov't then tried unsuccessfully to pass new legislation in 1989-90.  Yes, the C's have a long track record of trying to replace one piece of unconstitutional legislation with more unconstitutional legislation.  Although the legislation passed vote, while it was waiting to pass the upper house one young woman in Kitchener was severely injured during a botched back room abortion and a young woman in Toronto died from a self inflicted abortion.   Many speculated that she was too scared to go to the hospital for fear of being arrested.  The Senate ended up in a tie vote, failing to pass the legislation.

You see, the proponents of anti-abortion laws seem to always conveniently forget or ignore the fact that countries with anti-abortion laws do have something else instead.  Dead young women.

In the absence of legal, safe abortions, women will take what ever steps are available to them.  Lysol flooding, wire hangars, and back room improperly trained hacks.  These methods result in severe infections, horrible injuries and deaths.

Think about the mindset of a young woman, perhaps in university or the mother of several other children where an additional is simply not feasible, or the incest or rape victim that does not wish to discuss or make her circumstances public, or the woman with emotional stresses or perhaps it would be a high risk because of age or genetic make up, or what ever.  For as many women there are as many situations, all different.  There are a myriad of situations where the burden of carrying a pregnancy to full term and creating a new child that needs to be fed, clothed and cared can be too much to cope with emotionally, economically, physically.

Who the hell is the state, who are we, to require under the threat of life imprisonment (yeah, the good old day, what a bunch of horse sh*t) that economically limited women perform this act?  Safe abortion performed by well trained physicians has always been available to the wealthy and if Canada reversed itself back to the Dark Ages, then women of means will travel to any of the 75 or so countries on this planet where it is legal.  

And the less than economically advantaged?  Back rooms and death.

Hey, how about I list some of those 'enlightened' countries that the CLC would like Canada to emulate where a woman can die waiting for an abortion.

Angola
El Salvador
Chile
Nicaragua
Dominican Republic
Malta 
Democratic Republic of Congo
Somalia
Micronesia 
Laos
Iraq
Honduras
Haiti

Let's not let this become an election issue and how about Harper separate his party from the CLC and direct his candidates to disassociate from them as well?  And let's knock off this American style third party soft dollar campaign bullsh*t shall we?

If we give them a foothold on this issue, next it will be the re-illegalization of birth control or being gay.  It was abortion, the pill and same-sex sex that Justin's father, Pierre Trudeau, spoke of when he said in 1969 that gov't should stay out of the bedrooms of Canadians.

Have a good day.

Working in Ottawa today --And no Spitting

Good morning folks,

I will be working on Ottawa today.

It's outrageous, it's egregious, it's preposterous!  Hi kids, Jackie Chiles could not make it so I am sitting in.

Ever been to Taber, Alberta?  Small town of perhaps 75 or 8000 people (20 times the size of my favorite employer) in Southern Alberta, 30 miles east of Lethbridge.  It is either the Corn Capital or the Sugar Beet Capital, I don't recall which, but both sound right.

I once lived about 30 miles past there further east in an even smaller town, actually a hamlet, Burdett.  I farmed potatoes and wheat.  Was on the fire department too.  And the baseball team. Yep.  Not really germane to the topic, but adds some depth to the narrative and the many onion layers of me, yes?

The town of Taber has been busy passing laws lately.  The latest laws, no spitting (I like that one) no yelling, no swearing, but wait there's more..  curfews! Yay.  

That's right kids, in Taber the streets will be rolled up at 11 PM, means that if your summer job is at the drive in, your folks will need to come pick you up.

Wait, there is still more.  The local police will now have the authority to force any crowd of 3 or more persons (yes 3) to disperse.  Now I get it, when you have a small population, 3 people getting together may be enough to overthrow and seize control of the town hall, disrupt law and order, and result in the playing of rock and roll.

But that also means that any gathering of persons to protest bad laws and bad gov't can also be dispersed by the police.  Local employers could also seek police assistance in breaking union meetings, and established churches could stop the formation of apposing faiths.

Oh yes.  Making a movement that annoys is also now illegal.  "No person shall make or cause or allow to be made or continued any noise which disturbs or annoys a person, including any loud outcry, clamour, shouting, movement, music or activity"

Clamour?  Further evidence that the good townspeople of Taber resurrected a law from the 1950s.

Now I am generally annoyed by all persons: teenagers, poets, musicians, steam punks, magicians, street performers, pedestrians that stop to talk in intersections, people with tattoos on their foreheads, slow drivers, joggers, power walkers, people wearing large headphones, people wearing Che Guevara tshirts, those talking on cell phones, clowns, people talking to themselves, anyone wearing Spandex, anyone over 7 with bells on their boots, the list is longer, but it's a short flight.

Might I be able to invoke this law should I find myself in Taber?  Did you notice that you will be in violation of the law should YOU allow the street poet to continue to annoy ME.  The entire town is now on notice.  There is a 30 foot annoyance free zone around me, govern yourself accordingly.

The good mayor of Taber, Henk De Velieger, explained, "it's like every other tool, you can use it and you can abuse it.  A hammer I can use to pound a nail or it can kick in your brains."

Uh, wow Uncle Daniel, violence much?

Yeah, despite the rather screwed up sentence structure and a baffling mixed metaphor he recognized that it can kick in your brains and it sounded like he might be the one on the end of the handle.

The only thing worse than bad laws is a population that sits idly by while they are passed, enforced and kept on the books.

Taberites, Taberians --what ever they call themselves need to wake up, read the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and repeal these dumb laws.  Except the spitting one.  Failing that, they need Kevin Bacon.

Have a great day.