Just over a week ago, I commented on a post on Joyce Murray’s page (the Liberal MP and candidate in Vancouver Quadra) asking her position on physician assisted dying. She had just attended a panel on the issue and I was curious what her take was.
What I didn’t expect was her to call me back personally.
I’m really impressed she called back personally. Based on the caller ID, I was expecting a generic campaign message but this was nice.
It would have been nice for her to pledge a bit more and to not refer to an issue that 4 in 5 Canadians agree on as “controversial” but the efforts of the Liberals to spur government action months ago are laudable.
If you’re curious where I stand on physician assisted dying, here’s my speech (on behalf of the BC Humanist Association) at last weekend’s Dying With Dignity rally in Vancouver.
There’s links to more info on the current consultations – and the BCHA response – on physician assisted dying on the BCHA blog.
The current UK election cycle seems like much of the past 20 years of Canadian politics is just being played over again. In no particular order, here’s the similarities I can already see, please add your own in the comments.
The rise of regional separtist parties
The Bloc Quebecois swept most of the seats in Quebec for most of the 1990s and 2000s and now the Scottish National Party are set to do the same in Scotland. In both cases, the separatists block the easiest path to a majority government for at least one party (Liberals in Canada, Labour in the UK) and mean minorities are more likely.
National debates about how to structure a TV debate
In both countries, the TV debates are decided by a cabal of broadcasters who dictate based on arbitrary rules what format the national TV debates should be. In Canada, the rule is something like “every party who has an MP gets to be in the debates” except for the Bloc who only get to be in the French debate since they don’t run in English Canada. In the UK, it’s leaning towards a giant debate free-for-all with every regional party taking part in the nationwide debate, potentially followed by a one-one-one between the two largest parties. Meanwhile, Prime Minister David Cameron is still threatening to boycott all the debates unless he gets his way.
I’m fine with replacing Cameron with an empty seat but I would suggest limiting regional parties like the SNP and Plaid Cymru to their regional affiliates (BBC Scotland and Wales respectively).
Fear mongering over coalitions with separatists
In Canada after the 2008 election, the second-place Liberals agreed to replace the Conservative minority government with a coalition with the third-place NDP. They needed the votes from the Bloc to secure a majority though, which the media screamed bloody murder over. Now Labour is facing a potential minority government and is being called on to categorically reject any power-sharing deals with the SNP. Of course, the media is happy to ignore in both cases that the separatists would never become government ministers but would merely agree to vote in favour of confidence matters.
UKIP is the British Reform Party
Want smaller taxes, fewer immigrants and vague notions of greater democracy, but if elected would run from scandal to scandal? See what the Reform Party of the mid-1990s became in the Harper Conservatives to catch a glimpse at what could happen if Cameron’s Conservatives tank and spend a decade in the political wilderness until being forced to merge with UKIP.
In February, Bill C-624 an Act to Amend the National Anthem Act (gender) received second reading in Canada’s House of Commons. This bill, put forward by Liberal MP forOttawa—Vanier Mauril Bélanger, would replace the words “thy sons” with “of us” in Canada’s national anthem.
This would correct the gender imbalance in the anthem but is unlikely to pass. The idea was included in Prime Minister Harper’s 2010 throne speech but was abandoned before the speech was over. Even if Bélanger can muster the votes to get the bill through the House of Commons, it’s unlikely that it will be given further time for debate in the House before the election in October.
Even though the bill seems doomed, perhaps someone could propose an amendment to the bill to change a couple more words. Notably the penultimate line, “God keep our land” could be reverted to the religiously-neutral 1908 version of O Canada. Something I suggested in 2010. It would at least be a sign that politicians were willing to consider the importance of secularism and non-religious voters (who make up a quarter to a third of Canadians).
In 2007, I helped found the University of Alberta Atheists and Agnostics. That student group that is still running today. A rare accomplishment as many student groups, particularly those for the non-religious, struggle to survive for more than a few years as the students who established the group graduate, move aaway and lose touch.
In the hopes of making sure groups like UAAA are able to continue and be supported, and at a time when the US-based Secular Student Alliance began withdrawing their support to international groups (as they had limited resources), I registered SecularStudents.ca. I spoke with people at SSA and sought to establish a Canadian Secular Student Alliance.
Unfortunately, I’ve never really had the time or focus to build the website into anything and every 12 months I get a reminder to renew the domain. It’s now that time of year again and I need to decide what to do with the domain.
For now, I’m happy to cover the $10 or so it costs to renew the registration and can even host a simple website off the same server this site is on. But I want to see something happen with it.
So if you have the time, interest or even just some good ideas for the site, email me at [email protected].
It could be something as simple as maintaining a list of active non-reliigious student groups in Canada or a new blog or a full resource centre. The site currently has mediawiki but I’m happy to change that to anything else. I just really want to see something happen with it.
Last month, an undercover CBC investigation exposed that a number of spas and health clinicas around Metro Vancouver were offering botox injections illegally. Botox in Canada can only be administered by a physician and these clinics didn’t have any doctors on staff.
Today, Health Canada announced that it has seized unlabeled botox jars from Art Nails, a Vancouver spa.
The store owner claimed the product was Botox that had been administered to consumers. Potential risks associated with injecting an unauthorized version of a health product such as Botox, can range from mild local paralysis to death.
While the shop remains open, and none of the shops mentioned in the CBC exposé have been closed, it’s good to see Health Canada intervene.
After I complained earlier this week about SFU’s postal outlet closing next week it looks like things have turned around. From SFU Public and Media Relations:
You may have heard that the Canada Post outlet on the Burnaby campus (now located in the SFU Microstore) is closing down shortly. Here’s the good news: The postal outlet is in fact remaining OPEN, with all services as usual until a new location at UniverCity is confirmed in next few months.
So either this is a coincidence or else SFU administrators read this blog and take me very seriously. If the latter is true, I shall use my new-found powers wisely.
