Thin Skinned Conservatives

It seems that our Gnu Government is unusually thin-skinned for a bunch of lizards.

Last week, Lawrence Martin wrote of the latest thin skinned stupidity coming from our Conservative Party of Canada led government.

It seems that Senator LeBreton has demanded that an academic apologize for something that they wrote in an opinion piece in The Ottawa Citizen last November:

His article, which appeared in the Ottawa Citizen on Nov. 25, was highly critical of the Liberals, as well as the Harper Conservatives. It said Mr. Harper's decision to allow Quebec to have "nation" status would ultimately undermine national unity. In the offending paragraph, he added, "And you can bet the bank that Mr. Mulroney had a lot do with Harper's decision to make his move now. Mr. Mulroney and Conservative Senator Marjory LeBreton are now bragging about how they helped Mr. Harper pull off the coup."

This is hardly a significant slam of any sort. It is, in fact, the perfectly reasonable speculation of the backroom dealings that we all suspect go on in the rarified atmosphere of Ottawa's dustier corridors.

While some kind of apology was apparently printed by the newspaper, LeBreton still has her knickers in a twist, and is demanding some kind of disciplinary action be taken by the professor's employer - the University of Ottawa.

Apparently, Ms. LeBreton has written to the Chancellor of the University:

Senator LeBreton has gone so far as to write a toughly worded letter asking that the University of Ottawa have one of its professors, Michael Behiels, issue an apology for a newspaper analysis lambasting the government's position on Quebec. ...
The Citizen ran a small correction the next day saying Mr. Mulroney and Ms. LeBreton did not claim any credit for the Quebec nation motion and the paper said it "regrets the error." But Ms. LeBreton wanted more redress and fired off the missive to chancellor Labelle, who once worked in the Prime Minister's Office under Mr. Mulroney.

"I would ask you to ensure that one [an apology] is forthcoming from Professor Behiels." Referring to the professor's words, she wrote, "The claim is offensive and false but the fact that he wrote this clearly exposes his bias."

She continued: "Since he is identified as someone who is attached to the University of Ottawa, I believe it is incumbent upon you [the chancellor] to ensure that the University is not unfairly implicated by the writings of one of its professors." In an interview yesterday, Ms. LeBreton said she was in no way trying to interfere with freedom of speech, which she said she totally believes in.

Yes, Ms. LeBreton, you "believe" in freedom of speech, unless it becomes inconvenient to you and your political kin's grip on power. God forbid if someone should speculate on your involvement in various conversations. (Which, given the shrieking protest, I suspect is far too close to the truth - even if you can deny it)

In my view, this whole stupid incident is nothing more than a demonstration of how unsuited the current CPoC government is to holding power. Not only are they unable to deal with dissenting opinion, they seem to feel it is their right to demand retribution when someone speaks out critically of them.

Perhaps Ms. LeBreton should review and contemplate the following clause of Section 2 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms:

b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;