Ohh Canada!

The following short excerpts from some news and opinion this week need very little further comment!

It’s this simple.   If you don’t have money to maintain our Coast Guard stations and our fisheries monitors, you don’t have money to squander on an Office of Religious Freedoms.

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Do you remember when Canada was seen as a friendly, socially progressive country? Well, perhaps not, but I will bet that your parents do.
We have lost ground and are now a reactionary anti-science- pro military, right wing led and controlled country.

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In the nightmarish world of Harperland it was just another bizarre photo-op. Stephen Harper in a hockey arena, standing in front of yet another group of human props. And behind yet another absurd sign. Selling himself, and peddling defibrillators. But I thought this one was particularly symbolic eh? Because nobody needs a defibrillator more than Canada does, after what he has done to it.
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At best freedom of religion is a derivative right — because we have freedom of conscience and freedom of speech, that means we must be free to believe things about the divine and to speak about those beliefs. The religious have it exactly backwards here: religious freedom flows from our other basic human rights, not the other way around.

Which is why the skeptical among us wonder why there’s an Ambassador for Religious Freedom and not an Ambassador for Freedom of Conscience, an Ambassador for Freedom of Expression, or even, for that matter, an Ambassador for Democracy.
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I’ve seen the BC Liberals do some pretty cruel, heartless things over the years, but this is one of the worst.

They are cutting more than 50% of the money that supports adults with fetal alcohol disorder and autism, while giving snowbirds a 7th month of medical coverage for living in warmer climates over the winter.
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The Quebec government says its language watchdog was a little too aggressive in chasing after an Italian restaurant for excessive use of Italian on its menu. ........

The agency recently visited the Montreal eatery after receiving a citizen’s complaint, and it agreed that certain words on the menu needed to be switched to French. Among them: “pasta,” “calamari” and “bottiglia” (“bottle” in Italian). They did leave the word “pizza” alone.

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And finally from the fellow who who has not visited his cottage in PEI for months, now says he rents a place, who is not registered for health care in PEI and in fact may not even be eligible to sit in the senate, and was not the day Harper appointed him......

"We are going to pay it back, and until the rules are clear — and they're not clear now, the forms are not clear, and I hope the Senate will redo the forms to make them clear — I will not claim the housing allowance."

That’s not the only thing that's unclear Duffy!

Ohh Canada!

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