Monday, June 22, 2009

It's Time To Replace "Progressive" with "Regressive"

... In Alberta at least.

Another Alberta MLA has been opening his yap and showing us the ugly side of a party that has been in power for far too long.

Today's specimen is a relative unknown by the name of Doug Elniski.

Doug's gotten himself into trouble for a couple of things recently. First up are some comments he left on his blog (since consigned to the memory hole - but then that's what internet caching is for!).

Google Cache copy of his blog



That's just the preamble - and it's sufficiently sexist to be generally offensive in a dozen dimensions, but perhaps the grand prize winner is this:

Ladies, always smile when you walk into a room, there is nothing a man wants less than a woman scowling because he thinks he is going to get shit for something and has no idea what. Men are attracted to smiles, so smile don't give me that "treated equal" stuff, if you want equal it comes in little packages at Starbucks.


I see. So in Mr. Elniski's fantasy world, there's no need for women's rights and equality? Beyond falling into the ancient and irritating trope that women are purely ornamental, Elniski's comments are simply reflective of a man whose attitudes are straight out of some antediluvian era where women where treated as nothing more than chattels.

The provincial NDP is demanding that Elniski apologize for his recently memory-holed remarks. This is good, but there's more to the picture.

It turns out that Elniski was sent by Stelmach to show his face at the Edmonton Pride parade. Okay, fair enough. Then there's what he posted to his Twitter feed during the parade.



Put in perspective with a bunch of other things to come out of various members of the current Alberta government caucus, it becomes more and more clear that anything resembling progressive in this government is long gone. The wingnut opinions are getting more voice, and in their usual fashion it is snide, condescending and disrespectful of their targets.

So, the tally so far this spring?:

Liepert - Delists gender reassignment surgery to make political points
Blackett - Undermines recognition of sexual identity in the human rights code by providing a bogus escape rights for parents whose faith is offended.
Evans - Denies reality for so many Alberta families it's not even funny by slamming everybody who does not / cannot afford to do the stay at home parenting routine.
Elniski - Shows us that he's just about as snide and sneering as the rest, the only difference is that he isn't in cabinet yet.

Who's next?

2 comments:

VĂ©ro B said...

(Sound of jaw dropping)

This guy is not only blatantly sexist. If his writing is anything to go by, he is stupid as well. A man like this should not be giving speeches at institutions of learning, not when he clearly snoozed through his own time there. Or maybe was too buys driving a "cool pick up."

MgS said...

... and we wonder how it is that Alberta has a reputation for being "hickville"?

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