Blue Like You

Archive for August 14th, 2007

Cabinet shuffle has taken place.

-Opposition and critics not impressed.

-Elizabeth May in particular is not happy.

As you were.

Mel Lastman has a few suggestions for David Miller:

The 9 per cent salary increase councillors recently voted themselves has got to go, as does the $40 million overhaul of Nathan Phillips Square. Councillors’ annual office budgets also need to be reduced.

“If you don’t bleed yourself, how can you ask the people of Toronto to bleed?” Lastman said.

However,

“You can’t cut necessary services. That’s stupid, completely stupid with four O’s,” Lastman said.

So, that would be ‘Stoooopid’, right Mel?

“They have to cut staff. They can’t continue this way. Their budget has gone up by $1.5 billion since I left,” he said. “Politicians have got to learn … to say: `We can’t afford it.’

Maybe voters should learn how to say no, too.

Lots more suggestions.

Straight talk from a brilliant businessman. Miller would do well to read the whole article and give Lastman’s ideas serious consideration.

At the risk of further type-casting myself as having a ‘bizarre (and even creepy) obsession with polygamy’, I would like to draw your attention to an article in today’s Province by Alan Ferguson, Polygamists should have the same rights and freedoms as other people (H/T National Newswatch).

His premise appears to be that basically, the state has no business meddling in the bedrooms of its citizens as long as all other rights are respected. Actual abuses should be prosecuted separate from the polygamy issue.

He suggests that we should accept the status quo, because:

Oppal has also been advised to ask the courts to rule on the validity of the polygamy law. The risk here is that it might well be overturned, leading to profound changes affecting tax and immigration legislation.

Better to leave well enough alone. The state frequently does no better in the bedrooms of the nation than did the meddling priests of old.

But is that good enough? Should we keep a law on the books that is absolutely untenable and will never be enforced?

Why not decriminalize polygamy and thereby bring it out from under the cover of silence and secrecy into an environment where abuses against women and children will be easier to detect?

When I first heard about the Bailey report in early 2006, I was outraged. But now I’m thinking that perhaps Martha Bailey was just ahead of her time:

A new study for the federal Justice Department says Canada should get rid of its law banning polygamy, and change other legislation to help women and children living in such multiple-spouse relationships.

“Criminalization does not address the harms associated with valid foreign polygamous marriages and plural unions, in particular the harms to women,” says the report, obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.

“The report therefore recommends that this provision be repealed.“

The research paper is part of a controversial $150,000 polygamy project, launched a year ago and paid for by the Justice Department and Status of Women Canada.

The paper by three law professors at Queen’s University in Kingston argues that Sec. 293 of the Criminal Code banning polygamy serves no useful purpose and in any case is rarely prosecuted.

Instead, Canadian laws should be changed to better accommodate the problems of women in polygamous marriages, providing them clearer spousal support and inheritance rights.

Currently, there’s a hodgepodge of legislation across the provinces, some of whom — Ontario, for example — give limited recognition to foreign polygamous marriages for the purposes of spousal support. Some jurisdictions provide no relief at all.

Chief author Martha Bailey says criminalizing polygamy, typically a marriage involving one man and several wives, serves no good purpose and prosecutions could do damage to the women and children in such relationships.

“Why criminalize the behaviour?” she said in an interview. “We don’t criminalize adultery.

“In light of the fact that we have a fairly permissive society . . . why are we singling out that particular form of behaviour for criminalization?”

Maybe I’m turning into a bleeding-heart Liberal. Yikes!

It seems rather curious to me that a city that finds itself in a major financial crisis would continue to pander to the bleeding-heart lefties rather than face the grim reality that their misguided attitudes may very well hit them in the tourism column of their budget.

Today’s National Post discusses the fatal stabbing of 32-year-old Toronto visitor Ross Hammond who was swarmed and attacked by four panhandlers when he had the audacity to refuse to give them their entitlements:

The death of Mr. Hammond is all the more tragic because the crime may well have been prevented if the City of Toronto had laws that clearly outlawed panhandlers, and directed police to keep city streets clear of anyone who harasses passers-by for money.

Instead, many of Toronto’s city councillors seem more anxious about panhandlers’ rights and feelings than those of their victims. (Councillor Howard Moscoe, for example, has declared that “people panhandling make us uncomfortable because they remind us of our failings.”)

A City of Toronto document classifies panhandling as a “manifestation of poverty and need” instead of what it is — an ugly, intimidating and sometimes violent nuisance.

According to the editorial, Vancouver is also afflicted with this ‘myopic’ attitude, and it is hurting business:

Convention contracts for hotels, some worth as much as $500,000, have been lost — according to the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association — because visitors don’t believe Vancouver streets are safe. It’s hard to blame folks for staying away: People won’t visit a city if they are confronted by an army of deadbeats thrusting their hands out for coins.

I have no doubt that some cases of genuine need do exist in large cities, and they should be addressed.

However, tolerating panhandling is not just enabling a lifestyle of begging, but also putting citizens and tourists at risk.

Merchants in Toronto are now talking about a ‘new breed’ of panhandler:

“There was a time when panhandlers were homeless people who were asking for change. Now it’s able-bodied young people who refuse to join the status quo and would rather bully you for change,” said Marcus McLean, project co-ordinator for the West Queen West Business Improvement Area…

Toronto’s response to increasing complaints about panhandlers is to do surveys - the classic left-wing solution to any annoying problem.

Perhaps when tourists start staying away in droves, Mayor Miller and his cheering section of ostriches will finally decide to remove the rose-coloured glasses and actually deal with the problem.

A Toronto Sun reader has no problem zeroing in on the hypocrisy of the politicians:

A young man was stabbed to death last week. A policeman was dragged to his death by thieves. Now a man is killed by pan-handlers, or in reality, armed robbers. Where is the outrage from Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant? Why are there no photo ops with grieving families by David Miller? Mr. Bryant’s idiotic slogan. “No Gun, No Funeral” is sounding kind of empty right now, isn’t it?

Pat Proulx

Almonte

Meanwhile another family prepares to bury a loved one; courtesy of Toronto the Good, while the city continues to ferment and rot.