Life in Canada

Be very afraid

Stephen Harper first became Prime Minister in 2006 and has already dramatically transformed the old Canada. But with no election due for four more years, we ain’t seen nothing yet.

It’s in the nature of true believers and ideologues to believe that any means to their sacred ends are justified. This makes them extremely dangerous people. It’s also typical of such people that they’re often motivated by unfathomable resentment and anger, a compulsion not just to better but to destroy their adversaries.

There was never a Trudeauland or Mulroneyland or Chrétienland, but as The Globe’s Lawrence Martin has made us understand, there is already a Harperland whose nature is quite apparent. Like the American conservatives whom the Harperites so envy, our government has concocted a new reality of its own that it is systematically imposing on the Canadian people. The values and moral code of Mr. Harper’s new Canada are clear.

A central tenet of the new reality is the repudiation of the need for anything as irrelevant as evidence, facts or rationality whenever they are inconvenient. As in cancelling the long-form census, without a shred of reason. As when Injustice Minister Nicholson defends his back-to-the-jungle crime bills by reminding us of a Harperland article of faith: “We don’t govern on the basis of statistics.” Or, as we now know, on the basis of the findings of serious experts both in and out of the government.

Jason Kenney can stand as a past master at inventing evidence to serve his unfailingly partisan needs. This is a man, after all, who has shamelessly claimed a dramatic rise in anti-Semitism in Canada contrary to all the facts. Just days ago, Mr. Kenney employed gratuitously inflammatory language when he created a crisis over a handful of women who wear a veil, and who are of course Muslim.

But lying is the very mother’s milk of Harperland morality. When you invent your own reality, you can also invent your defence. Just follow the distinguished careers of ministers Peter MacKay, Peter Kent and Tony Clement. Old joke: How do you know when certain politicians are lying? Their lips are moving.

In Harperland, hitting below the belt is standard equipment, as the dirty tricks used against Montreal Liberal MP Irwin Cotler nicely demonstrate. Straightforward dishonesty as in the Cotler caper is just the Conservative version of free expression, as Government House Leader Van Loan earnestly explained. When the Speaker of the House brands the tactic as “reprehensible,” you know we’re no longer in Kansas, kids.

On the complex aboriginal file, Harperland blames the victims for their own wretched circumstances and blames local NDP MP Charlie Angus for not cluing in the clueless Aboriginal Affairs Minister. The minister’s assertion that the chief of Attawapiskat had accepted the government’s imposition of a ludicrously expensive third-party manager was, of course, immediately contradicted.

Harperland values demand fundamental changes in our governance processes – the outright attacks on trade unions, the unprecedented measures taken to silence critical NGOs, the muzzling of ostensibly independent federal watchdogs.

But the new values also reverse decades of cherished Canadian policies. Look at the contempt the Prime Minister shows for the United Nations, as described in a new paper for the McLeod Group by former Canadian diplomat and senior UN official Carolyn McAskie, “Canada and Multilateralism: Missing In Action”:

The Prime Minister says he has little use for the UN. ... After losing a bid for membership of the Security Council, many government members made disparaging comments about that “corrupt organization” and right wing press commentators referred to it as an organization run by “dictators.” Is this the Canada that played such a front-line role in previous decades? How can we behave in this childish manner, spurning a whole system of organizations critical to world peace, security and development?

Plans to "radically drive up" standards of social care in Canada to protect the elderly must be drawn up and unveiled by the government.

They should include an online "good care guide" to allow family members to rate and review care homes and providers.I suggest more funding to improve the independent regulator.

Purposeful new plans would help to tackle "quality and mistreatment and family abuse". As part of the plans, ratings for care and dignity standards for residential homes and home care providers would be published online, similar to the way websites used for booking holidays do.

It would include the latest information from inspections, plus any record of mistreatment or abuse by staff, as well as feedback from care users and relatives.

It should allow scrutiny teams to visit and speak to residents about their experiences. Committees featuring relatives of care users will also be formed to scrutinise services that do not meet standards.

However any formal inspection would still rest with the province

A system such as the one being looked at in the UK, hope it will provide a "more qualitative assessment" from the point of view of residents and their loved-ones of local care standards and would "empower people as never before" to choose the right care.

A provincial law could be used, be able to oversee duties placed on care homes which contain state-funded residents and to let representatives into their premises for visits. This could apply also to the minority of care homes with private-only residents.
It is well known that Canadian many of the provincial funding system are widely acknowledged to be unfit for purpose and to need urgent and lasting reform.

"What is needed, in my view, is a system for funding care which enables the risk to any one individual to be pooled, through taxation or insurance or, preferably, a mix of them both," he added.

"But most important is radical and urgent reform to ensure a fair and sustainable care system for the future.. will you do this Canada?

Plans to "radically drive up" standards of social care in Canada to protect the elderly must be drawn up and unveiled by the government.

They should include an online "good care guide" to allow family members to rate and review care homes and providers.I suggest more funding to improve the independent regulator.

Purposeful new plans would help to tackle "quality and mistreatment and family abuse".

As part of the plans, ratings for care and dignity standards for residential homes and home care providers would be published online, similar to the way websites used for booking holidays do.

It would include the latest information from inspections, plus any record of mistreatment or abuse by staff, as well as feedback from care users and relatives.

It should allow scrutiny teams to visit and speak to residents about their experiences. Committees featuring relatives of care users will also be formed to scrutinise services that do not meet standards.

However any formal inspection would still rest with the province

A system such as the one being looked at in the UK, hope it will provide a "more qualitative assessment" from the point of view of residents and their loved-ones of local care standards and would "empower people as never before" to choose the right care.

A provincial law could be used, be able to oversee duties placed on care homes which contain state-funded residents and to let representatives into their premises for visits. This could apply also to the minority of care homes with private-only residents.
It is well known that Canadian many of the provincial funding system are widely acknowledged to be unfit for purpose and to need urgent and lasting reform.

"What is needed in my view,is a system for funding care which enables the risk to any one individual to be pooled, through taxation or insurance or, preferably, a mix of them both," he added.

"But most important is radical and urgent reform to ensure a fair and sustainable care system for the future.. will you do this Canada?

Plans to "radically drive up" standards of social care in Canada to protect the elderly must be drawn up and unveiled by the government.

They should include an online "good care guide" to allow family members to rate and review care homes and providers.I suggest more funding to improve the independent regulator.

Purposeful new plans would help to tackle "quality and mistreatment and family abuse".

As part of the plans, ratings for care and dignity standards for residential homes and home care providers would be published online, similar to the way websites used for booking holidays do.

It would include the latest information from inspections, plus any record of mistreatment or abuse by staff, as well as feedback from care users and relatives.

It should allow scrutiny teams to visit and speak to residents about their experiences. Committees featuring relatives of care users will also be formed to scrutinise services that do not meet standards.

However any formal inspection would still rest with the province

A system such as the one being looked at in the UK, hope it will provide a "more qualitative assessment" from the point of view of residents and their loved-ones of local care standards and would "empower people as never before" to choose the right care.

A provincial law could be used, be able to oversee duties placed on care homes which contain state-funded residents and to let representatives into their premises for visits. This could apply also to the minority of care homes with private-only residents.

Age UK said it did not want to see the proposals detracting from work already being done
Dr Sentamu said: "The current adult care funding system is widely acknowledged to be unfit for purpose and to need urgent and lasting reform.

"What is needed is a system for funding care which enables the risk to any one individual to be pooled, through taxation or insurance or, preferably, a mix of them both," he added.

"Age UK broadly welcomes the care home rating suggestion as a potentially useful addition to the existing system of care quality commission inspections and we have been calling for elements of the proposals for a while," a spokesman said.

"But most important is radical and urgent reform to ensure a fair and sustainable care system for the future, which is why we are calling for a white paper in the spring which embraces the recommendations of the Dilnot Commission."

Plans to "radically drive up" standards of social care in Canada to protect the elderly must be unveiled by the government.

They should include an online "good care guide" to allow family members to rate and review care homes and providers.I suggest more funding to improve the independent regulator.

Purposeful new plans would help to tackle "quality and mistreatment".

As part of the plans, ratings for care and dignity standards for residential homes and home care providers would be published online, similar to the way websites used for booking holidays do.

It would include the latest information from inspections, plus any record of mistreatment or abuse by staff, as well as feedback from care users and relatives.

Under the proposals, local Healthwatch scrutiny teams would visit and speak to residents about their experiences. Committees featuring relatives of care users will also be formed to scrutinise services that do not meet standards.

However any formal inspection would still rest with the province

A system such as the one being looked at in the UK, hope it will provide a "more qualitative assessment" from the point of view of residents and their loved-ones of local care standards and would "empower people as never before" to choose the right care.

A provincial law could be used, be able to oversee duties placed on care homes which contain state-funded residents and to let representatives into their premises for visits. This could apply also to the minority of care homes with private-only residents.

Age UK said it did not want to see the proposals detracting from work already being done
Dr Sentamu said: "The current adult care funding system is widely acknowledged to be unfit for purpose and to need urgent and lasting reform.

"What is needed is a system for funding care which enables the risk to any one individual to be pooled, through taxation or insurance or, preferably, a mix of them both," he added.

"Age UK broadly welcomes the care home rating suggestion as a potentially useful addition to the existing system of care quality commission inspections and we have been calling for elements of the proposals for a while," a spokesman said.

"But most important is radical and urgent reform to ensure a fair and sustainable care system for the future, which is why we are calling for a white paper in the spring which embraces the recommendations of the Dilnot Commission."

The lessons of bullying
As Facebook and other "social media" have reminded us, there are many ways to bully, and technology is improving them every day. Plain, direct, physical bullying is just a point of departure, the most elementary form. And even that is contextual. There are such things as necessary evils, and I take it few readers would deny the police the right to "bully" a freshlyarrested felon into a squad car. The law itself requires bullying; which is what makes unnecessary laws such an evil.

One mentions the self-evident because we have come to a time when it is fading from view. On the subject of bullying alone, I have read recently many statements in the media, "pushing the envelope" for a very political cause, that would not bear up to the slightest scrutiny.

Suddenly bullying in schools, which has been with us for as long as there have been schools, has been elevated to a "crisis." When this happens, people who were not born yesterday look for the agenda. And we find it written in large capital letters, in a scheme to impose "gay-straight alliances" on unwilling Catholic and private Christian schools, and otherwise extend the reach of "LGBT" propaganda into places where it is especially unwelcome. ("lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender")

This political method is in my humble opinion itself a ripe example of bullying. Victim-hood status is declared on behalf of a favoured group, emotionally-loaded examples of apparent victimizing are publicized, and the "crisis" is declared. Powers are sought by activists on behalf of such victims.

Those who resist their power grab are demonized. This is the way every "progressive" cause is advanced. It works, because no one could want to be publicly tarred.

It takes some courage to stand up to bullying, and there is not much available today, in places like the (now nominally) Catholic separate school system. Indeed,My limited research shows very few people who work in there themselves uphold Christian teaching on sexual morality.

And it is perhaps worth reminding that plain teaching on chastity - specifically, no sex outside marriage - was common to all Protestant denominations, to the Orthodox, the Eastern churches, to all Jewish congregations, to all streams of Islam, and throughout Hindu, Buddhist, and other religious traditions.

What these faithful so long considered to be moral aberrations - to be confidently discouraged among the young, unformed, and potentially confused - is now upheld in law as an identity issue. A "right to choose" one's sexual identity, and the presumptive sexual practices that go with it, is now codified. Which means, the jackboot of coercion is on the other foot: for those who uphold received religious teaching may now be convicted under left wing "hate laws."

The moral universe was thus turned upside down, within the space of my own lifetime. It is religious freedom that is now under attack.

And note, the issue here is hardly restricted to propensities encompassed by the "LGBT" coalitions. For traditional moral instruction was intended for everyone. The very idea that children should have sex lives - homosexual, heterosexual, onanist, bestial, or any other - was abhorrent.

That humans have sexual desires was universally understood. That these may run in wild and unpredictable directions, was also generally understood. But the taming and restriction of these desires to their right end was a universally accepted requirement of civilization. Children must be taught "what is right," and confusion over this was itself a source of moral horror.

Whether certain forms of "moral aberration" should be legally tolerated, even sometimes winked at, is another question. "Toleration" does not mean approval. It means putting up with things one does not approve, where intolerance would lead to worse evils. Unfortunately the word has been appropriated in "Newspeak," and is now used in the opposite of its original sense.

"Tolerance" here means, compelling people to publicly approve and support what they believe in good conscience to be moral aberrations.

But behind that overt bullying is a more fundamental subversion, of the ability of a society to establish moral norms, which in turn are ultimately necessary to survival. For those without moral norms die out.

I was not born yesterday, myself, and have the richest memories of schoolyard bullying, in schools I attended through my childhood, in quite diverse places. Though I would love to bore my reader with emotive anecdotes - I was myself a natural target of schoolyard bullies throughout my childhood - it should not be necessary to make my clinching point.

It is that the character of a child nay an adult, is forged in his own responses to bullying. He will encounter it throughout his life; he must be taught how to stand up to it.

Bullying is as universal to human nature as sexual desire. (Sometimes they overlap.) The containment and redirection of bullying impulses - turning something bad into something good - is at the root of all education. The impulses can never be "eradicated," for they are part of the raw material upon which educators must work.

Parents and teachers might, individually, succeed or fail, but to intervene in their task with ham-handed central government directives, dictated by political activists and social engineers, is to make their task impossible.