I should be getting into a positive frame of mind for Canada Day. But before that, i need to ventilate over a couple of things that happened in the past week.
Preposterous and outrageous as it was, Stephen Harper became the first Canadian to receive the B’nai Brith International President’s Gold Medallion for human rights! Got that? Human rights and Stephen Harper in the same sentence. Take a man who built his political career on the premise that trampling on minorities is permissive behaviour if it gets you where you want to go, ignore all the other minorities against whom he has discriminated and bribe him with the promise of votes in swing ridings in the next election in return for support for your minority cause and give him a medal. It’s impossible to determine what is more disgusting; Harpers record on human rights or B’nai Brith’s vacuous award.
Stephen Harper consistently has denied the rights of minorities in Canada, he has railed against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and vowed to use the over-ride clause until he chickened out, he continues to deny the constitutional role of the Supreme Court of Canada (and the Senate for that matter) in upholding the Charter and the Constitution of Canada. His government brands internationally recognised human rights advocates such as Louise Arbour a disgrace. He doesn’t even allow members of his own government freedom of speech, for crying out loud. And B’nai Brith thinks this guy is a humanitarian! Shameful. And it’s shameful that the PMO bragged about the award.
It was a sad development for all of North America last week, too, when the United States Supreme Court ruled that every American may own and carry around a gun “for self defence” in an interpretation of the US Constitution that only Charlton Heston and his ilk could appreciate. The 2nd amendment to the Constitution is pretty clear in stating that citizens had the right to bear arms in an organised militia. Legal scholars had analysed this conclusively for decades and for decades the Supreme Court had refused the refute the many gun-happy citizens misinterpreting a constitution they obviously have never read. One expected that the justices, who would ultimately add their interpretation, would have the ability to read the constitution and would have done so. Apparently not.
As a result, more guns will flow into American hands and more victims, many innocent and many not-so-innocent, will be felled and more families will suffer irreparable harm. Canadians will suffer too, because more guns in the USA will mean more are illegally smuggled into Canada, after being stolen or illegally traded in the USA. More Canadians will die as a result of this shameful decision.
It was not a good week for human kind, even without the “re-election” of Robert Mugabe.
