Pastor Steve Boissoin Appealing HRC Ruling

July 7, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Alberta Pastor Steve Boissoin has filed an appeal to the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal ruling that convicted him of hate speech. The pastor was found guilty last November of having written a letter to the editor in the Red Deer Advocate that was "likely" to expose homosexuals to hatred.

The appeal was filed on June 26 with the Queen's Bench of Alberta.

A hearing has preliminarily been set for September 9, although that date could change during negotiations between the involved parties.

LifeSiteNews spoke with Boissoin's attorney, Gerald Chipeur, who said that he is confident that the court will grant the appeal and overturn the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal's decision.

"We are very optimistic, because the Constitution is so clear," said Chipeur. "We were surprised to have lost before the Tribunal, but we believe that the courts will conclude that there has been a violation of the constitutional rights of our client. We feel very confident in our arguments, and we do expect the courts to intervene and reverse the decision."

Chipeur said his confidence was based on the fact that, "the courts have always seen themselves as the defenders of the oppressed. The context and the experience of the courts will lead them to accept our arguments."

Good. Now the whole shoddy matter will be dealt with by a real court, with due process, presumption of innocence, real rules of evidence, and 1,000 years or so of jurisprudence since Magna Carta. The santimonious, bureacratic, ideological zealots in the Alberta Human Rights Commission are about to see what happens when the law is properly adjudicated. That is God willing and the creek dont rise. (I would put in the apostraphe, but for reasons unknown when I type an apostrophe this strange looking creature appears. (è)

The Attack on Saint George

Behold the ancient cross of Saint George, patron saint of the English, among others. Alas, there is a move afoot among the English clergy to replace Saint George and his cross with that of Saint Alban for fear of offending Muslims.

His dragon-slaying heroics have kept his legend alive through the centuries.

But the Church of England is considering rejecting England's patron saint St George on the grounds that his image is too warlike and may offend Muslims.

Clergy have started a campaign to replace George with St Alban, a Christian martyr in Roman Britain.

The scheme, to be considered by the Church's parliament, the General Synod, has met a cautious but sympathetic response from senior bishops.

But it clashes with the increasing popularity of the saint and his flag in England. The World Cup brought out millions of St George crosses as the symbol became increasingly mainstream and less frequently dismissed as a badge favoured only by far-Right political activists.

If St Alban replaced St George, the red cross on a white background would have to be replaced as England's flag by Alban's symbol, a diagonal yellow cross on a blue background that bears a strong similarity to St Andrew's cross, the flag of Scotland.

Go to the link to read the rest. As a Celt of Irish/Scottish descent my default tendency is to take the micky out of the Sassenach, but even my rather fevered imagination, twisted though it may be, is insufficent to conjure up such insanities, and that is saying something. Total madness is not, it would appear, the sole perogative of this poor writer.

Hat tip to Kathy Shaidle and Rachel Lucas.

Morgentaler

David Warren is always excellent. This is great.

Like many, many, many Canadians, I took the appointment of Henry Morgentaler to membership in the Order of Canada -- proclaimed on “Canada Day” -- as a stick in the eye for everything we believe in. As a gratuitous insult to the memory of three million aborted babies.

It was intended as that. The perpetrators of this hateful deed -- presenting an abortionist as a model for “humanism” and as a champion of women -- knew perfectly well what they were doing. As I had learned even before the event, protocol had been breached in making the appointment. There was no consensus on the appointment committee; the chair, Chief Justice McLachlin, had failed to recuse herself. It was done deceitfully, after the Governor-General’s office had assured outraged callers last February that Morgentaler would not be on the list this year. And last weekend, as the rumour spread, a fresh round of outraged callers were being mocked -- given the phone number of Campaign Life Coalition by the Rideau Hall switchboard.

The announcement was then delayed -- another irregularity -- until after the Parliament Hill celebrations, to prevent a large pro-life demonstration from coalescing there. And, instead of denouncing the appointment, our cynical prime minister had “talking points” distributed to his caucus before the fact.

A very dark thing was done, as such things are always done -- in a very dark way.

Read the rest.

General Rick Hillier

"We're not the public service of Canada, we're not just another department. We are the Canadian Forces, and our job is to be able to kill people."

General Rick hillier C.M.M., M.S.C., CD

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Gen. Rick Hillier has officially retired as the leader of Canada's military, handing over the reins to Gen. Walter Natynczyk in a ceremony Wednesday in Ottawa.

Soldiers marched and Snowbird planes flew overhead moments before Hillier passed a ceremonial flag to Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean, who handed it over to Natynczyk.

"It has been my privilege to have served you as your chief of defence staff, and to have had the opportunity to represent you across our country and around the world," Hillier said, addressing the soldiers participating in the ceremony directly.

"I leave as chief of defence staff awed by you, awed by all our troops, who in my view are absolute national treasures, Canada's sons and daughters, and heroes to all."

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Bravo Zulu General Hillier. I salute you, sir!.

John the Mad CD Major (Ret'd)

Another appointment to the Order of Canada

www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=80945

Rideau Hall announced today that Her Excellency the Governor General is following up her exciting appointment of Doctor Henry Morgentaler to the Order of Canada, by appointing at the same time, Morgentaler's old friend and colleague, best known to the general public as the Second Horseman of the Apocalypse (see depiction above -third from the right) .

"This newest appointment is consistent with the transgressive and progressive style for which Her Excellency and her Advisory Committee is striving," said a Rideau Hall staff toady who asked to remain nameless.

John the Mad, can report that at considerable expense of buying rounds of expensive single malt, he has ferreted out the "behind the scenes" deliberations of the Order of Canada Advisory Committee.

"The Second Horseman, will be inducted into the highest level of the Order, that of Companion," hiccuped the nameless toady, who added that, "Her Excellency's Advisory Committee, Chaired by the Chief Justice of Canada, certainly engaged in vigorous debate and a thorough review of the equine candidate's qualifications before reaching a consensus on this recommendation."

"Why we had to send His Excellency Jean-Daniel Lafond to the Prime Minister's residence at 22 Sussex Drive to obtain a copy of the Bible, after a frantic search of Rideau Hall proved fruitless. It seems that Rideau Hall library possesses several copies of Das Capital and a dog eared copy of the annotated history of the French communist party in his library, but no Bible."

It is rumoured that most members of the Committee were at first opposed to this appointment because it is supposed to go to someone who has demonstrated, "... a lifetime of outstanding achievement and merit of the highest degree, especially in service to Canada or to humanity at large."

Judy Laroque, Deputy Minister of Canadian Heritage, led the initial objection by reading out the following passage of scripture from the Book of Revelations.

And there went out another horse [the second] that was red: and to him that sat thereon, it was given that he should take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another, and a great sword was given to him.

Ms Laroque was of the view that the Second Horseman, whatever his merits, appeared to be rather more focused on some sort of Divine effort at ending human existence on planet Earth, rather than providing a service to Canada or humanity at large. She stated that, in her view, ending peace and killing one another was definitely not consistent with the primary Canadian values of peacekeeping and supporting equal pay for work of equal value.

The President of the Royal Society of Canada, Doctor Yvan Guindon CM. nodded his head in agreement and added that another meritorious factor is that, "the second apocalyptic horse is red and that is one of Canada's official colours!" Thomas Traves Ph.D., Chair of the Board of Directors of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada was very enthusiastic about this point, slurred my anonymous bean spiller.

The Clerk of the Privy Council, Kevin Lynch, then sagely rebutted these arguments by pointing out that Canadian values may have been operative under the Liberals but that the current Conservative government appeared more fond of Albertan values of making war and killing one another. Values change he said and the Advisory Committee must change with the government, .... er times. Everyone seemed to think that notion was hilarious.

Once they stopped guffawing, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, the Right Honourable Beverley McLaughlin PC, rose to her feet - her Crimson robes casting a scarlet and fetching reflected glow to her judicious complexion.

"Ladies and gentlemen of this August advisory committee," she astutely opined. "You miss the point. Because you are not Supreme Court Justices, I can hardly fault you for your errors in judgment, but errors they are. Why are we spending time perusing this old book for celestial precedence anyway? "Values and governments do indeed change, but we are the vanguard of the new Canada. On the Court we Supreme Ones deliberate matters afresh and so must you. In the Morgentaler decision we took our inspiration from the living tree of the Charter, not some retro prophesy enshrined in moldy Holy Writ. Get with the spirit of the age people. What is our end game here?"

According to my inebriated toady, a member of the Committee (just who, my informant could not remember) then spoke up and spluttered, "Crikey, I tell you that we have just buggered up the Morgentaler appointment and now have millions of Canadians PO'd at us. The Governor General and newspaper editors are being deluged with emails and phone calls from outraged churchgoing anti-choicers. Catholic bishops and Evangelical pastors are denouncing us from the pulpits. Fortunately the United Church has taken time out of its theological struggle against bottled water to support us, but that accounts for only 300 churchgoers in the country. We gotta do something. I warned you this would happen."

Justice McLaughlin smiled serenely and replied, "Of course we have to do something and we are. We are going to recommend to the GG that she appoint this Second Horseman fellow as a Companion of the Order of Canada. All those upset priest ridden, anti-choice, protesters are going to be blind sided by our being sensitivity to their deepest concerns. We will deliver, for Her Excellency's consideration, one nihilist abortionist and one venerated New Testament figure. We get spokewymen from the Canadian Abortion Rights Action Council to protest the Second Horseman appointment as an unwarranted intrusion of religion into a secular honours system. The media will applaud our balanced approach and the public feeding frenzy will abate.

"But the Second Horseman's entire purpose is to bring death and destruction to the planet," muttered the anonymous Committee member.

"Indeed," opined the Chief Justice, "but this is also true of Henry Morgentaler. We must be entirely consistent in our principles must we not?"

And now you know the rest of the story.

Doctor Death Gets the Snowflake

The insignia depicted above is that awarded to inductee members of the Order of Canada. The constitution of the Order limits the number of recipients of this gong to 136 Canadians per year out of a population of some 33 million souls. It is intended to be a great honour bestowed on those Canadians who have demonstrated, "a lifetime of distinguished service in or to a particular community, group or field of activity."

Sometime in the very near future a man named Henry Morgentaler will be inducted as a member of this order. It was so announced on the 141st anniversary of this nation's founding. Morgentaler's presence among the members of the Order will debase, as it already has the Hippocratic oath of the medical profession, all who wear the insignia of the Order of Canada and deeply wound the system of honours maintained by Canadians to honour achievement by its citizens.

As a nation we are about to grant our highest honour to a man responsible (as a good friend of mine says) for the deaths of more Canadians than the German army in two world wars. His lifetime achievement is to have snuffed out the lives of children growing in their mother's wombs - children entirely innocent and helpless before this champion of what Pope John Paul the Great correctly called the culture of death.

I loathe the very sight and name of Henry Morgentaler, for though his followers and fellow travellers are legion, it was he who led the way for the general acceptance of the idea that it is acceptable for physicians and mothers to kill babies in the womb. The Canadian judiciary, members of parliament, the respective provincial legislatures and the medical profession have all have played their perfidious parts, but Morgentaler is the central actor and symbol of the unrelenting struggle to unleash the beast. And unleash it he has.

A generation of innocent Canadians have been subjected to murder most foul and the leading high priest of the Canadian coven for the fetal holocaust is now to be feted and lauded at Government House by Her Excellency, the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, Governor-General of Canada. She accepted the advice of the advisory committee established for the purpose of nominating new members to the Order. It is a distinguished panel led by the Right Honourable Beverley McLaughlin, PC, Chief Justice of Canada. I'd be embarrassed by the title Right Honourable if I were them.

In a macabre way, Morgentaler's appointment to the Order of Canada is entirely fitting. The debasement of the Order merely reflects the corruption of our country's noble ideals by the poltroons we allow to lead us.

Alas, I fear it will get worse before it gets better.