There's a particular hatred the far-left in Canada holds for Rex Murphy. It's mostly because he occupies a position in the Canadian media -- a contributor for the CBC and host of Cross Country Checkup -- that suggests to them that he should be one of them. But he is unequivocally not one of them.
This becomes most evident whenever he takes aim at one of the far-left's sacred cattle. When he does so a single sentence uttered by Murphy can leave the far-left quivering in outrage.
Such was apparently the case when Murphy took aim at one of the far-left's most recent sacred cattle: the so-called "white privilege" theory. (It doesn't really measure up as a theory, but I've already been over that.) That provoked sputtering outrage from David Bernans of the Montreal Media Coop. In the course of his diatribe, Bernans manages to prove everything Murphy says about the promoters of "white privilege" "theory" to be absolutely correct.
To whit:
"Rex Murphy offers us this pearl of wisdom in his latest National Post column:
'It is bitterly ironic that the anti-racist message has been reduced to this: You have all that you have only because you have white skin.'
No Rex. You have all that you have because of your truly unparalleled talents as an apologist for the wealthy and powerful. No person of any race or gender can suck up to powerful interests with as much self-righteousness and ostentatious erudition as you. You are a sycophant extraordinaire.
You have no qualms with knowingly misrepresenting the white privilege thesis in your hard-won column at the National Post. It's true Rex, you cannot explain every single advantage that every white person has only by reference to white privilege. Therefore, white privilege does not exist. Case closed. That must really put the National Post editorial board and other predominantly white institutions at ease."
This particular outburst left me with a new appreciation for much earlier in Murphy's column, when he wrote the following:
"For if there is one movement, that by its humourlessness, its obsessive mania and its blindness to its failings, chokes on its own goals, it is the so-called anti-racism movement."
Because he couldn't handle Murphy espousing on the many, many shortcomings of "white privilege" "theory" peddling "anti-racists" (each of these terms framed separately because they are all separately absurd) Bernans finishes his "rebuttal" with a racially-charged remark.
That shouldn't surprise anyone, though: it's what new-age racists like David Bernans do.
Monday, May 19, 2014
Saturday, May 17, 2014
MMIW: Take Note, Liberals, This One's On You
As Canadians were getting ready for the annual May long weekend -- treated by many Canadians as their first big adventure of the summer -- the RCMP were getting ready for something altogether different.
They were releasing an eagerly-awaited report on murdered and missing indigenous women in Canada. And they were preparing for the shrill expressions of outrage from the Canadian left in this country... who actually seem quite oblivious to the reality that they, themselves, are to blame for the sad revelations in the RCMP's report.
It's not all bad news. But it's mostly bad news. So, first, the bad news;
Aboriginal women in Canada are disproportionately represented among the country's murder victims. They are most likely to be murdered by a member of their own family. Their murderers are most likely to be not only a repeat offender, but a repeat violent offender. Their murderers are most often intoxicated when they commit these murders, and frequently do it after having had an argument with their victim.
That's the bad news. It's very bad news.
There is some good news: notably, that the rate at which these cases are solved is statistically identical to the rate at which the murderds of non-aboriginal women are solved. This is very much contrary to claims made by the Native Women's Association of Canada, who have spent years outraged that these cases have been placed under the care of professionals, as opposed to their own amateur investigators.
Now for the worst news of all. It's the worst it could possibly be: the Canadian justice system is failing indigenous women.
That failure is very much the design of the usual suspects the left would happily march before the inquiry they are currently demanding: the lawyers, social workers, criminologists, sociologists and assorted race-hustlers who oversaw the softening of the Canadian justice system. The so-called "experts" who we're continually told know better for us than we know for ourselves. The same ones who oversaw the continual shortening of sentences for criminals -- including violent criminals -- that has turned the killers of indigenous women loose. The same ones who have insisted that race should be deemed a mitigating factor in sentencing.
They're the ones who set aside two key principles of criminal justice -- punishment of the offender and protection of both victims and society -- and effectively left indigenous women at the mercy of their abusers; abusers who far too often became their murderers.
And now these are the same experts who, in the face of a government that has set out to turn back the clock on the softening of criminal justice in Canada, run before the courts and say "you can't do that." Not only have they softened Canada's criminal justice system, they demand that it remain that way. And activist judges schooled in the same far-left ideologies have proven stunningly eager to go along with it.
The Liberal Party bears special blame for the mess. They're the ones who amended the criminal code to facilitate this softening, and they're the ones who appointed the judges who seek to set it in stone.
These same people are now demanding a public inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women. And I say: let's have an inquiry. But not the inquiry they want. Let's put them on the stand and force them to account for their role in this ongoing tragedy.
Let's put the lawyers, social workers, criminologists, sociologists and assorted race-hustlers responsible for this before a Parliamentary inquiry and make them account for the social experiments and bad ideas that have led to this unacceptable state of affairs. And as soon as we're done shaming these so-called "experts" for their failures, let's tear what they've built down to its foundation and build it again, properly.
They were releasing an eagerly-awaited report on murdered and missing indigenous women in Canada. And they were preparing for the shrill expressions of outrage from the Canadian left in this country... who actually seem quite oblivious to the reality that they, themselves, are to blame for the sad revelations in the RCMP's report.
It's not all bad news. But it's mostly bad news. So, first, the bad news;
Aboriginal women in Canada are disproportionately represented among the country's murder victims. They are most likely to be murdered by a member of their own family. Their murderers are most likely to be not only a repeat offender, but a repeat violent offender. Their murderers are most often intoxicated when they commit these murders, and frequently do it after having had an argument with their victim.
That's the bad news. It's very bad news.
There is some good news: notably, that the rate at which these cases are solved is statistically identical to the rate at which the murderds of non-aboriginal women are solved. This is very much contrary to claims made by the Native Women's Association of Canada, who have spent years outraged that these cases have been placed under the care of professionals, as opposed to their own amateur investigators.
Now for the worst news of all. It's the worst it could possibly be: the Canadian justice system is failing indigenous women.
That failure is very much the design of the usual suspects the left would happily march before the inquiry they are currently demanding: the lawyers, social workers, criminologists, sociologists and assorted race-hustlers who oversaw the softening of the Canadian justice system. The so-called "experts" who we're continually told know better for us than we know for ourselves. The same ones who oversaw the continual shortening of sentences for criminals -- including violent criminals -- that has turned the killers of indigenous women loose. The same ones who have insisted that race should be deemed a mitigating factor in sentencing.
They're the ones who set aside two key principles of criminal justice -- punishment of the offender and protection of both victims and society -- and effectively left indigenous women at the mercy of their abusers; abusers who far too often became their murderers.
And now these are the same experts who, in the face of a government that has set out to turn back the clock on the softening of criminal justice in Canada, run before the courts and say "you can't do that." Not only have they softened Canada's criminal justice system, they demand that it remain that way. And activist judges schooled in the same far-left ideologies have proven stunningly eager to go along with it.
The Liberal Party bears special blame for the mess. They're the ones who amended the criminal code to facilitate this softening, and they're the ones who appointed the judges who seek to set it in stone.
These same people are now demanding a public inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women. And I say: let's have an inquiry. But not the inquiry they want. Let's put them on the stand and force them to account for their role in this ongoing tragedy.
Let's put the lawyers, social workers, criminologists, sociologists and assorted race-hustlers responsible for this before a Parliamentary inquiry and make them account for the social experiments and bad ideas that have led to this unacceptable state of affairs. And as soon as we're done shaming these so-called "experts" for their failures, let's tear what they've built down to its foundation and build it again, properly.
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Sniff... They Grow Up So Fast...
I think it's fair to say that in federal politics, a party hasn't really grown up until they've had a multi-million dollar scandal.
The federal NDP has spent 50 years trying to get themselves into a position where they can actually have a multi-million dollar scandal. For the first time in their history, they are. So in terms of multi-million dollar scandals, they're batting a thousand.
Plenty of people have had serious concerns about the NDP's "satellite offices" they've been operating in ridings in which they do not have an MP. In my opinion the legitimacy of these offices focuses strictly around whether these offices, and the staff employed by them, are performing work on parliamentary business for opposition MPs or partisan work for the NDP. In my personal opinion, so long as they're doing the former, the offices should be fine. I've said this before.
But the problem is that the NDP lied. In October 2011, Jess Turke-Browne, Deputy Chief of Staff for then-interim NDP leader Nycole Turmel (not for Thomas Mulcair as I mistakenly reported earlier) lied to House of Commons staff when she insisted that the staff for these satellite offices would be working in Ottawa.
In response to this revelation, current NDP leader Thomas Mulcair has adopted an interesting approach: he's using the Pamela Wallin/Mike Duffy/Patrick Brazeau defense.
You've heard it before: they followed all the rules. The expenses were approved. They were where they were supposed to be when they were supposed to be there.
The consensus has become that this defense was laughable. I've never been so certain about that myself, as I don't consider the allegations against the Senators to have ever been adequately investigated. But what is certain is that Thomas Mulcair had a heyday with the affair. He was like a pitbull in question period. He'd found himself a fresh bone to chew and he gnawed it for all it was worth.
But now with his party under fire, let's look at how Mulcair is defending himself:
They followed all the rules. The spending was approved. They were where they were supposed to be when they were supposed to be there.
Sound like anyone you've heard of? Sure it does.
Except, they weren't. The employment forms the NDP submitted to House of Commons staff insisted that the staffers would be working in Ottawa. They weren't. Apparently, seven NDP MPs signed those forms. They aided and abetted Turke-Browne in her apparent deception of HoC staff.
And hear Mulcair: parroting Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau. Well done.
Whoever those seven MPs are -- they know who they are, and soon the rest of us will too (one of them is Guy Carron) -- owe the House their resignations. Nycole Turmel owes the House her resignation. And the buck stops with the leader: Thomas Mulcair owes the House his resignation.
With this scandal the NDP has finally grown up. Now they have to own up.
The federal NDP has spent 50 years trying to get themselves into a position where they can actually have a multi-million dollar scandal. For the first time in their history, they are. So in terms of multi-million dollar scandals, they're batting a thousand.
Plenty of people have had serious concerns about the NDP's "satellite offices" they've been operating in ridings in which they do not have an MP. In my opinion the legitimacy of these offices focuses strictly around whether these offices, and the staff employed by them, are performing work on parliamentary business for opposition MPs or partisan work for the NDP. In my personal opinion, so long as they're doing the former, the offices should be fine. I've said this before.
But the problem is that the NDP lied. In October 2011, Jess Turke-Browne, Deputy Chief of Staff for then-interim NDP leader Nycole Turmel (not for Thomas Mulcair as I mistakenly reported earlier) lied to House of Commons staff when she insisted that the staff for these satellite offices would be working in Ottawa.
In response to this revelation, current NDP leader Thomas Mulcair has adopted an interesting approach: he's using the Pamela Wallin/Mike Duffy/Patrick Brazeau defense.
You've heard it before: they followed all the rules. The expenses were approved. They were where they were supposed to be when they were supposed to be there.
The consensus has become that this defense was laughable. I've never been so certain about that myself, as I don't consider the allegations against the Senators to have ever been adequately investigated. But what is certain is that Thomas Mulcair had a heyday with the affair. He was like a pitbull in question period. He'd found himself a fresh bone to chew and he gnawed it for all it was worth.
But now with his party under fire, let's look at how Mulcair is defending himself:
They followed all the rules. The spending was approved. They were where they were supposed to be when they were supposed to be there.
Sound like anyone you've heard of? Sure it does.
Except, they weren't. The employment forms the NDP submitted to House of Commons staff insisted that the staffers would be working in Ottawa. They weren't. Apparently, seven NDP MPs signed those forms. They aided and abetted Turke-Browne in her apparent deception of HoC staff.
And hear Mulcair: parroting Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau. Well done.
Whoever those seven MPs are -- they know who they are, and soon the rest of us will too (one of them is Guy Carron) -- owe the House their resignations. Nycole Turmel owes the House her resignation. And the buck stops with the leader: Thomas Mulcair owes the House his resignation.
With this scandal the NDP has finally grown up. Now they have to own up.
Monday, May 12, 2014
Contempt
It's been a talking point of the NDP and their partisans since forever: contempt of Parliament.
It dates back to 2011 when the Liberals and the NDP trumped up a contempt complaint against the then- and still-sitting Stephen Harper-led government, then rammed it through the commons because they could.
The government misled the commons, they argued: it wasn't actually true. Even a Constitutional expert as vaunted -- and hardly a staunch ally of the Conservative Party -- as Ned Franks declared that the case was razor-thin. But that didn't matter because between them, the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Quebecois had the numbers. The facts didn't matter then.
And I'm sure the NDP is hoping they don't now. The story recently broke that the NDP has been operating what they insisted were constituency offices in constituencies they don't represent, in the case of Saskatchewan, in a province where they don't have a single MP.
They misled the House of Commons. They told HoC staff that the staff the NDP had hired to work in the so-called "satellite offices" would be working in Ottawa. They didn't simply submit information to the House that the opposition refused to accept. They lied. Which makes this case for contempt of Parliament a whole different beast.
According to documents obtained and reported on by iPolitics, NDP leader Thomas Mulcair's then-Deputy Chief of Staff met with two House of Commons staffers -- one from Finance Services and one from Human Resources -- on October 3, 211. Ms Turk-Browne told the staffers that the hirees would be working in Ottawa.
It was a lie. There's no way, whatsoever, that it wasn't a lie.
And to cover up what? That I can't understand.
As outraged as a lot of people were about the so-called "satellite offices." Personally, I wasn't. While it's true the NDP located these satellite offices in ridings where the elected MP was not NDP, Canada's system of representation is actually quite complex. Canadians are represented locally by their MPs within their own ridings, and across provinces and regions within government, and within cabinet.
A lot of people in Saskatchewan, for example, didn't vote for the Conservative Party or the NDP. And while it's perfectly reasonable for Conservative MPs (and one lonely Liberal, Ralph Goodale) to become MP in each riding where they won a plurality of the vote, it's also perfectly reasonable for those voters who didn't to also have access to a voice in Parliament. In their case, it's the opposition.
There's plenty of room for argument regarding the democratic legitimacy of this. In my opinion, it's legitimate. I don't understand why the NDP opted to lie about this rather than argue for its legitimacy.
But it seems to me that now there's only one thing to do: Thomas Mulcair was and remains responsible for the actions of his Deputy Chief of Staff. He's the leader of the NDP, and the leader of the opposition.
The House of Commons should immediately vote to hold the NDP caucus in contempt of Parliament. The entire NDP caucus must then resign their seats in the House of Commons and run in by-elections. At the very least Thomas Mulcair must be held responsible for the deceit that took place within his staff and under his watch.
It dates back to 2011 when the Liberals and the NDP trumped up a contempt complaint against the then- and still-sitting Stephen Harper-led government, then rammed it through the commons because they could.
The government misled the commons, they argued: it wasn't actually true. Even a Constitutional expert as vaunted -- and hardly a staunch ally of the Conservative Party -- as Ned Franks declared that the case was razor-thin. But that didn't matter because between them, the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Quebecois had the numbers. The facts didn't matter then.
And I'm sure the NDP is hoping they don't now. The story recently broke that the NDP has been operating what they insisted were constituency offices in constituencies they don't represent, in the case of Saskatchewan, in a province where they don't have a single MP.
They misled the House of Commons. They told HoC staff that the staff the NDP had hired to work in the so-called "satellite offices" would be working in Ottawa. They didn't simply submit information to the House that the opposition refused to accept. They lied. Which makes this case for contempt of Parliament a whole different beast.
According to documents obtained and reported on by iPolitics, NDP leader Thomas Mulcair's then-Deputy Chief of Staff met with two House of Commons staffers -- one from Finance Services and one from Human Resources -- on October 3, 211. Ms Turk-Browne told the staffers that the hirees would be working in Ottawa.
It was a lie. There's no way, whatsoever, that it wasn't a lie.
And to cover up what? That I can't understand.
As outraged as a lot of people were about the so-called "satellite offices." Personally, I wasn't. While it's true the NDP located these satellite offices in ridings where the elected MP was not NDP, Canada's system of representation is actually quite complex. Canadians are represented locally by their MPs within their own ridings, and across provinces and regions within government, and within cabinet.
A lot of people in Saskatchewan, for example, didn't vote for the Conservative Party or the NDP. And while it's perfectly reasonable for Conservative MPs (and one lonely Liberal, Ralph Goodale) to become MP in each riding where they won a plurality of the vote, it's also perfectly reasonable for those voters who didn't to also have access to a voice in Parliament. In their case, it's the opposition.
There's plenty of room for argument regarding the democratic legitimacy of this. In my opinion, it's legitimate. I don't understand why the NDP opted to lie about this rather than argue for its legitimacy.
But it seems to me that now there's only one thing to do: Thomas Mulcair was and remains responsible for the actions of his Deputy Chief of Staff. He's the leader of the NDP, and the leader of the opposition.
The House of Commons should immediately vote to hold the NDP caucus in contempt of Parliament. The entire NDP caucus must then resign their seats in the House of Commons and run in by-elections. At the very least Thomas Mulcair must be held responsible for the deceit that took place within his staff and under his watch.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)