What a Load

Via Canadian Cynic:

Adam Daifallah's latest piece of drivel is busy trumpeting how the Conservatives are the "party of human rights" - making references to a variety of human rights actions that various parties holding the "Conservative" name have made in the past, and referring to Harper's stance with regards to a Canadian muslim being imprisoned in China. I'll come to that in a minute.

Let's put the Conservative party on human rights in more current terms - what have you done for me lately?

Lessee:

- An amazing amount of screeching about gays getting married. Complete down to a dishonest push-poll.

- A series of spending cuts that disproportionately affect minorities and women.

- A party that bitches and whines incessantly about the Charter of Rights and Freedoms - especially when it's applied to someone other than a WASP. Anyone else remember the Conservatives running around with It's the Stupid Charter buttons last year? (One of Ezra Lerant's more farcicle maneuvers).

Oh yes, and before you go thinking that Harper's playing some nuanced game here, remember that this is the case of Mr. Celil, who was imprisoned in the spring and the Conservative Government ignored until August, in spite of pleas from his family who live in Ontario.

Oh yes, and in case you thought the "Defense of Religions Act" might be a positive step in human rights, I'll point you to Ted Morton's Bill 208 - the obvious model for DoRA. And one last reminder - the man who made the most radical human rights moves in Canada in my lifetime was Pierre Elliott Trudeau - he decriminalized homosexuality, and was the driving political force behind the current Charter of Rights and Freedoms in our Constitution...he was a Liberal. (in both the "big-L" and "small-l" senses)

Yes, Mr. Harper's Conservatives are such a model for "human rights" - if you happen to be a male WASP.

What various incarnations of the Conservative party may have done in the past do not constitute the C.V. of the current party.