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It’s been weird over in twitterland regarding Canadian politics as of late. The amount of furor and nasty partisan attacks going both ways seem to have intensified – people are doubling and tripling down on their hills to die on. I’m not sure as to exactly why, but here’s an example. This is a attack by a self identified Liberal supporter in Canada.
It is my understanding that one part of the Left’s body politic is this small topic called “Feminism”. One of the things that Feminists point to and try to move society away from is judging women by their looks. “Vicki” not only does this, but then further extrapolates what Pierre Poilievre ‘s wife’s motivations are. Her name is Anaida Poilievre which never seems to be mentioned – another little detail that would rankle most authentic feminists as believe it or not women exist outside of their relationships to men. But treating women as subjects as opposed to objects seems to be a bridge too far for Vicki in her blind rage against all things Pierre Poilievre.
I would be concerned if I was part of the Liberal tribe because how you treat your political enemies reflects on no one but yourself, and letting unhinged partisan hackery slip into outright misogyny isn’t a flattering perception to demonstrate in the public sphere.
At one time I thought that perhaps the level of Canadian political discourse was a little less divisive and partisan – at least compared to our neighbours down south – I was wrong.
Greetings my fellow Canadians. I need you to take action on the the bill that is before the Canadian Parliament :Bill C-8.
Why Bill C-8 will be harmful to children and parental rights –
“Under the guise of prohibiting “conversion therapy,” Bill C-8 would make it a criminal offence for parents to help their own gender-confused children find peace in accepting their biological gender.The Liberal government’s proposed legislation, introduced as a First Reading on March 9, defines “conversion therapy” as “a practice, treatment or service designed to change a person’s sexual orientation to heterosexual or gender identity to cisgender, or to repress or reduce non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behaviour.”
This proposed House of Commons legislation has the same major flaws that the Senate’s Bill S-202 had, as I argued in 2019. Under C-8, parents could spend up to five years in jail for trying to help their son accept himself as a boy, or for helping their daughter to accept herself as a girl. Bill C-8 also would impose prison terms up to five years for doctors, counsellors, psychiatrists, psychologists and other paid professionals whose treatment for gender confusion departs from politically correct orthodoxy. Parents would be punished if they do anything other than encourage a confused child to “transition” to the opposite gender. Transitioning is an extreme form of intervention that includes taking puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and undergoing permanent surgical sterilization, including the removal of healthy organs such as breasts and testicles.
Bill C-8’s preamble denounces as “myth” that a person’s “gender identity” can and ought to be changed. This ignores reality. Many people – especially some minors – do experience change in their gender identity. Confusion during puberty later resolves in favour of their biological sex. Bill C-8 ignores the leading work of Dr. Kenneth J. Zucker, who for many years was psychologist-in-chief at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and headed up its Gender Identity Service. An international authority on gender dysphoria in children and adolescents, he and Dr. Susan Bradley helped hundreds of children integrate their gender identity with their biological reality, saving them from a lifetime of dependency on cross-sex hormones. Their work demonstrates that with appropriate therapy and encouragement, the vast majority of gender-confused children come to accept their bodies by the time they reach the age of 18.
“Transitioning” is not the panacea Bill C-8 makes it out to be. For example, a 2011 comprehensive study shows that post-surgery transgender people in Sweden commit suicide at a rate 19 times higher than the national average. Bill C-8 further ignores the rapidly growing number of deeply unhappy and disillusioned people who have “transitioned” genders and are now “detransitioning” back to their biological sex.
If Bill C-8 becomes law, it appears that the only legal treatment available to Canadian youth who struggle with their gender identity will be “transitioning” toward the opposite gender: puberty blockers, opposite-sex hormone injections, and eventually gender-reassignment surgery. The law’s definition of “conversion therapy” still allows for “a practice, treatment or service that relates to a person’s exploration of their identity or to its development,” so there may be some wiggle room. But C-8’s clear prohibition on changing “gender identity” to conform to biological reality, combined with C-8’s preamble declaring that gender identity should never be changed, means that counselling to help a child accept biological reality becomes practically illegal.”
Contact your MP right away and outline your concerns. I’ve talked with my fellow blogger Tildeb and he has given me (and you permission) to use the form of his letter to raise your concerns to your MP. Thank you Tildeb for your contributions in the struggle for a rational approach to gender ideology and safeguarding female rights, boundaries, and safety.
“I am gravely concerned about the inclusion of gender in this proposed Bill [C-8] that criminalizes conversion therapy.
Gender-based scientific research is starkly insufficient and lacking biological knowledge compared to sex-based research. Sex-base research is currently under attack by gender identity ideologues driving researchers out of the field and closing facilities offered by universities. I have grounds to properly fear that this well-intended inclusion in this Bill will be successfully used by gender identity ideologues and activists to threaten those who criticize the role of gender identity as it now stands, criticism like questioning the safety of female inmates from sexual assault by fully intact male inmates – some who have killed children – identifying as women (a deplorable allowance that is currently in place by misguided federal policy), criticism of male encroachment into female spaces like rape centers and domestic abuse shelters whose public funding is stopped when they deny fully intact males from admission, criticism of the encroachment of fully intact males into dominating female sports and using a convenient switch in gender identity to gain the financial rewards and professional advancements from competition, criticism of fully intact males bullying and driving out of business those who provide female only services like waxing. And the list goes on and on and on. You’ve heard these cases. You stay silent in public but surely you must say something in caucus!
By inserting gender identity into outlawing conversion therapy – an unsuccessful therapy intended to alter biologically driven sexual preference for same sex to the opposite sex which sex-based research shows us is both harmful and ineffective – you are enabling ideologues of gender identity politics to not just displace females from female safe spaces with the permission of the legal code (gender advocates can threaten anyone who disagrees with legal censure under this proposed Bill) but gain special access to influence and direct prepubescent children to begin physiological and chemical therapy – in many jurisdictions without the consent or even knowledge of parents – whenever the child indicates any gender questioning – by threatening legal censure of anyone who dares to intervene… including parents!
This Bill is a green light for those who wish to advance gender identity over, and in place of, compelling sex-based scientific research and psychiatric best practices such as Watchful Waiting. The science is being driven underground while the ideology is becoming law!
Why so many politicians agree with these ideologues that biology magically ends at the neck and gender identity takes over, is a modern mystery but by enabling gender ideologues the legal power to suppress criticism in the name of either hate speech or partaking of illegal conversion therapy is a legal and ethical travesty waiting to happen, a travesty any academic who investigates this issue with an open mind and concern for what is true in reality should not endorse.
Please seriously reconsider the inclusion of gender in this Bill.”
In Canada it is easy to see where elite consensus lies. Marijuana legislation is barrelling ahead (potheads rejoice!) and electoral reform is dead in the water and slowly sinking out of the public’s consciousness.
This is how electoral reform died in Canada:
“In response, Trudeau pointed to a difference of opinions among the major political parties.
“As people in this House know, I have long preferred a preferential ballot. The members opposite [in the NDP] wanted proportional representation. The Official Opposition wanted a referendum,” he said, gesturing toward the Conservatives.
“There is no consensus. There is no clear path forward. It would be irresponsible to do something that harms Canada’s stability.”
Later, in response to a question from May, Trudeau expanded on his explanation.
“Anything a prime minister or a government must do must be in the interest of Canada and all Canadians, particularly when it comes to transforming our electoral system. I understand the passion and the intensity with which the member opposite believes in this and many Canadians mirror that passion and that intensity.”
“But there is no consensus, there is no sense of how to do this. And, quite frankly, a divisive referendum, an augmentation of extremist voices in this House, is not what is in the best interests of Canada.”
It is quite odd that ‘building consensus” and “augmentation of extremist voices” were of such a deeply troubling concern to our dear Prime Minister. The Liberal Party currently holds a majority in our House of Commons – 184 seats (14 more than the required 170) – so they can pass whatever damn legislation they choose, at any time, and the opposition can do precisely diddly-squat about it.
Enter the consensus building. Or, to look at things slightly more Machiavellian, why would the government dismantle the electoral system that has brought it to power tweny-four times since the inception of Canada as a nation?
I’m pretty sure that’s all that needs to be said on the issue of electoral reform.
The other half of the story is the legalization of marijuana and that folks is an example, par excellance of Canadian Government policy careening downhill on the greasiest of skids. Nothing is going to stop this fully loaded freight-train of weed goodness. (I have heard nary a whisper of building consensus on this issue – it’s just getting done). From the Liberal Party website –
” Canada’s current system of marijuana prohibition does not work. It does not prevent young people from using marijuana and too many Canadians end up with criminal records for possessing small amounts of the drug.
Arresting and prosecuting these offenses is expensive for our criminal justice system. It traps too many Canadians in the criminal justice system for minor, non-violent offenses. At the same time, the proceeds from the illegal drug trade support organized crime and greater threats to public safety, like human trafficking and hard drugs.
To ensure that we keep marijuana out of the hands of children, and the profits out of the hands of criminals, we will legalize, regulate, and restrict access to marijuana.
We will remove marijuana consumption and incidental possession from the Criminal Code, and create new, stronger laws to punish more severely those who provide it to minors, those who operate a motor vehicle while under its influence, and those who sell it outside of the new regulatory framework.”
Oh the principled anguish!
I’m not buying it for a second. The legality of marijuana is a trivial issue. It will not affect those in the halls of power one iota. And, thus we have this great commitment and expressed vigour to helping all Canadians and making things better for the country. (Clearly, reforming the skewed FPP electoral system won’t benefit Canadians or the country…)
“OTTAWA — The Canadian government has introduced sweeping legislation designed to permit the recreational use of marijuana throughout the country by July 2018, fulfilling an election promise by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The bill, inspired in part by the experiences of cannabis regimes in Colorado and Washington state, goes well beyond the U.S. situation, where marijuana remains prohibited at the federal level. In Canada, the federal government will change criminal law nationally and will license growers and set product standards while leaving it up to the provinces to handle distribution and manage retail sale.
Canada will become the first large industrialized nation with a broad system permitting recreational as well as medical use of marijuana. At present, only Uruguay has a national legal regime permitting widespread use of cannabis.”
*sigh* – Oh, Canada. :/
Well, nearly quoted the whole damn article, but so very important. Go to the national observer for the rest.
“In Wednesday’s House of Commons debate on Bill C-16, also known as the Transgender Rights Bill, Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould, who introduced the legislation back in May, explained:
“Gender identity is a person’s internal or individual experience of their gender. It is a deeply felt experience of being a man, a woman, or being somewhere along the gender spectrum. Gender expression is how a person publicly presents their gender. It is an external or outward presentation through aspects such as dress, hair, makeup, body language, or voice.”
But these statements show a deep misunderstanding of what gender is and how it works. Gender is a product of patriarchy. Ideas around masculinity and femininity exist to naturalize men’s domination and women’s subordination. In the past, women were said to be too irrational, emotional, sensitive, and weak to engage in politics and public life. Men were (and often still are) said to be inherently violent, which meant things like marital rape and domestic abuse were accepted as unavoidable facts of life. “Boys will be boys,” is the old saying that continues to be applied to excuse the predatory, violent, or otherwise sexist behaviour of males.
The feminist movement began back in the late 1800s in protest of these ideas, and continues today on that basis. The idea that gender is something internal, innate, or chosen — expressed through superficial and stereotypical means like hairstyles, clothing, or body language — is deeply regressive.
Beyond misguided language there is the fact that we are very quickly pushing through legislation that conflicts with already established rights and protections for women and girls.
Women’s spaces — including homeless shelters, transition houses, washrooms, and change rooms — exist to offer women protection from men. It isn’t men who fear that women might enter their locker rooms and flash, harass, assault, abuse, photograph, or kill them… This reality is often left unaddressed in conversations around gender identity. This reality is sex-based, not identity-based. Men cannot identify their way out of the oppressor class so easily, neither can women simply choose to identify their way out of vulnerability to male violence.”
[…]
As unpopular as this fact has become, a man or boy who wishes to identify as a woman or girl, perhaps taking on stereotypically feminine body language, hairstyles, and clothing, is still male. He still has male sex organs, which means girls and women will continue to see him as a threat and feel uncomfortable with his presence in, say, change rooms. Is it now the responsibility of women and girls to leave their own spaces if they feel unsafe? Are teenage girls obligated to overcome material reality lest they be accused of bigotry? Is the onus on women to suddenly forget everything they know and have experienced with regard to sexual violence, sexual harassment, and the male gaze simply because one individual wishes to have access to the female change room? Because one boy claims he “feels like a girl on the inside?” And what does that mean, anyway?
Generally, the claim that one “feels” like the opposite sex “on the inside” is connected to a list of sexist gender stereotypes: a boy likes dolls and dresses, a girl plays with trucks and cuts her hair short, a man enjoys wearing pantyhose and getting manicures, etc… There is no scientific foundation for the idea that sex is defined by a “feeling” or by superficial choices. One cannot, in fact, “feel” like a man or a woman “on the inside,” because sex is something that simply exists. It is a neutral fact. Aside from having a mental condition like body dysmorphic disorder, the only reason one could claim not to “feel” like the sex they are, biologically, is because they identify with the gender roles assigned to the opposite sex. Key word: assigned.
It is unlikely any of us feel comfortable with the restrictive roles we are socialized into as men or women. Certainly those who step out of those roles are punished viciously, and that includes trans identified people. But that problem is a social one, and the solution is not to reinforce sexist ideas about gender, but to push back against the idea of gender itself – that is to say, the idea that males and females have innate behaviours and preferences they are born with. As feminists and progressives, we should challenge the idea that superficial things like clothing, toys, makeup, or mannerisms define us.
We live in a time when women and girls are killed every day, across the globe, by men. Things like rape, domestic abuse, and the murder of Indigenous women and girls in Canada are still not considered hate crimes. Yet we have managed to push through legislation that may very well equate “misgendering” to hate speech.
Women are protected under the human rights code on the basis that we are, as a group, discriminated against on account of our biology. Employers still choose not to hire women based on the assumption that they will become pregnant. Women are still fighting to have access to women-only spaces (including washrooms and locker rooms) in male-dominated workplaces like fire departments, in order to escape sexual harassment and assault.
Legislation and policies that protect “gender identity and expression” unfortunately set up a clash between women’s rights and those who identify as transgender. There are solutions. It was not always the norm, for example, that public buildings had to be accessible for people with disabilities. It is perfectly reasonable to expect public buildings to install private gender-neutral washrooms and change rooms for people who don’t wish to use either the women’s or the men’s room. We can effect change and ensure people have access to the services and support they need without imposing on already established and still very much needed rights of women and girls.
Women are socialized, from the time they are born, to prioritize the feelings and comfort of everyone else but themselves. We learn that our boundaries will not be respected by men, as we are talked over, leered at, cat called, groped, and raped. Girls’ images are constantly being shared electronically by boys and men alike, against their will. There is a real fear that images of our bodies will be put online in order to exploit and degrade us.
Our fears of men are justified, proven over and over again to be (sadly) rational, not irrational. That is something that needs to be respected, not treated as bigoted or hysterical. Society has disregarded women’s feelings, concerns, and safety for long enough.
Listening the radio, I heard this interview and appreciated the revisiting of colourful part of Canadian political history. Thankfully the Current on CBC radio one now fully transcribes their episodes, so I can share the highlights of the interview here.
“AMT: Remind us, what did the Liberal sponsorship scandal involve?
DANIEL LEBLANC: Well, it was kind of—officially, it was national unity program to increase the visibility of Canadian symbols, Canadian signs in Quebec. And let’s remember, this is after the 1995 referendum which was a squeaker, the “no” side won by about 50,000 votes. And Jean Chrétien, the prime minister of the day wanted to make Canada relevant to Quebecers. It was a very simple idea to put up flags and you know there was hot air balloons in the form, in the shape of maple leaf for example, and a bunch of cultural events and sporting events were sponsored by this program in exchange for putting up Canada banners at their event sites. But ultimately, it became embroiled in scandal. There was the advertising firms that were the intermediaries between the government and the events, some of them kickbacked money to the Liberal Party. There were some fraud and some of the events as well were quite close to the Liberal Party of the day. So it became known as a slush fund scandal and you know it kind of became bigger and bigger as time wore on. And you know it led ultimately to the Gomery inquiry in 2004, 2005, which created massive problems for the Liberal Party, especially in Quebec where they lost most of their seats after, during the 2004 election. So it’s kind of a scandal that was about you know more than a decade ago, but it did have a huge impact on Canadian politics of the day.
[…]
CHANTAL HÉBERT: Canadians or Quebecers, I think, would take from that sentence the word past rather than the wrestling of chains because so much happened to the Liberal Party over the post-sponsorship decade that Justin Trudeau’s party—in Quebec in particular—certainly bears little resemblance to the party that Jean Chrétien or even Paul Martin led in so many ways. You know when I think about—in hindsight, because now that all these years have gone by—the sponsorship scandal probably was over time a good thing for the Liberal Party. It forced it to renew itself at the time when it desperately needed to do so. Think of it like a brush fire, a really bad one and what grows after the fire is extinguished. That’s literally what just happened to the Liberal party in Quebec and possibly Justin Trudeau’s victory in Quebec—he did win the majority of the seats—would not have happened if the Liberal Party had just gone on and on, on the path that it was set when Jean Chrétien retired.
AMT: Well, tell me a little bit more about that, Chantal. What happened to the Liberal Party insiders in Quebec who then were caught up in this scandal? How did they—what happened after the brush fire?
CHANTAL HÉBERT: Okay. So let’s first go back to that time when Jean Chrétien leaves and Paul Martin comes. The sponsorship has not yet hit the party in the way that it will hit. And at that point, on this week before the sponsorship report from the auditor general comes out, the polls show the Liberals in Quebec at 55 per cent under Paul Martin and the Liberals have been riding very high on Quebec at the tail end of the [unintelligible] era, on the basis of Chrétien’s last decisions and particularly the decision not to sign up for the war in Iraq. But the internal workings of the party were already broken. This is a party that been ongoing a civil war between two factions: Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin. And if you want to go back even further, between John Turner and Jean Chrétien as of 1984. By the time Paul Martin becomes prime minister, he sets up the Gomery commission thinking that there is distance between him and the sponsorship stuff because there is really two parties, two warring factions within the party and because it’s two main characters. Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin are from Quebec. Quebec is a battleground where people are gunning for the other faction and the sponsorship affair takes place in the middle of that and that kind of forces everybody off the ice. Within a couple of years, there is no Liberal left that is elected in ridings where the vast majority of voters are Francophones in Quebec. They are pushed back to the west end of Montreal. After the Orange wave, there is not even a seat left in the [unintelligible] region, which is a highly Federalist region. So by the time Justin Trudeau becomes leader, there is no Liberal party.”
Listen to, or read the full transcript at the link below.
Canadians are watching closely to see if their new government is going to stick to the promises made during the recent election campaign. One of the most important promises was to reform the electoral system and get rid of our current First Past the Post system. I was browsing about and found an interesting article (?) on the National Post’s website (!!) about possible changes and how they might effect Canada’s political parties. I was struck by the word choice in this part:
“Clearly, there is no upside for the Liberals in pursuing PR. But the introduction of a ranked ballot system would take the Liberal heels off the Conservatives’ chest and thrust it hard into the party’s wind-pipe.
As one clear-eyed senior Conservative put it, adoption of preferential balloting would force the Tories to “water down” their agenda to become the second choice of more people.
“The reality is, if the Liberals do this, the Conservative movement is going to have to increase its appeal. We won’t be able to afford to be the 35-40% party,” he said.
The NDP would face a similar dilemma, ensuring the centre ground of Canadian politics becomes a very crowded space indeed.
The question remains, how aggressive are the Liberals likely to be in pursuing the reforms signalled in the throne speech?”
Is John Ivison’s article accurate, maybe? Does it deliciously tickle my partisan happy neurons, you bet it does. :)
[Source:National Post – Canada’s other Conservative Paper that isn’t written at a Grade 4 level.]
The Conservatives are without their Uncle Joe now – who is next big Conservative Leader to be? Rick Mercer’s advice, don’t be the first one… :)
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