When You Can't Get Your Way...

I see that Canada's religious wingnuts have decided to go after Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin's day job for having anything at all to do with Dr. Morgentaler's Order of Canada.

Of course, as usual, they are dead wrong, and the good judge had very little to do with the nomination.

But, that isn't the interesting bit. Not only is this complaint being organized by CFAC, but a suspicious number of the organizations who have "signed" have rather direct connections to one Charles McVety - including CFAC, I might add.

Just scanning through the list, we find:

Canadian Christian College - McVety's own little private college.
Canadian College of Christian Counsellors - which mysteriously shares both address and telephone with the "Canadian Christian College" above.
Evangelical Association of Canada - Similarly shares both address and telephone with Mr. McVety's college.
Institute for Canadian Values - Again, shares resources with McVety's college.
Christians United For Israel - Which McVety is the chair of the Canadian arm.
Niagra Chapter of CFAC - I think it's safe to say who controls that group...

That makes six of the organizations who signed this letter directly associated with McVety. Smells like astroturf to me. I suspect that it wouldn't be terribly difficult to draw connections between McVety and a good number of the other signatories with a little digging. At the very least I suspect the executives of the various boards are well known to each other.

Personally, I don't think it would be a bad thing for Justice McLachlin to sue these clowns for attempting to impugn her character and professionalism.

Dear Wingnuts: Get Over Yourselves

On CBC this morning, I had the dubious pleasure of listening to Gwen Landolt whinging on about how the Order of Canada has "become a bastion of left-wing politics" in this country, and it isn't "right wing enough" to suit her standards.

I don't exactly consider Landolt representative of anything except Canada's right-wingnut faction, certainly far from representing the majority of Canadians (or I certainly hope she doesn't)

Then there was this story in the Globe and Mail:

Edmonton's Catholic Archbishop, Richard Smith, has written to Governor-General Michaëlle Jean to ask that the honour not be allowed to stand. In a brief statement, he said that naming Dr. Morgentaler to the Order of Canada “devalues” the honour and “offends all Canadians who recognize and treasure the precious gift of human life in the womb.”

One Order of Canada recipient has already returned his award in protest at Dr. Morgentaler's appointment. Father Lucien Larre, a Catholic priest in Coquitlam, B.C., who was named to the order 25 years ago after founding a group of homes for troubled youth, said yesterday that he was “trying to make a point that we have to be careful who we give this to,” since it should be “reserved for people who can be models or be inspiring for a majority of Canadians.”

Father Larre is no stranger to controversy himself. In 1992 he was convicted of the common assault of a resident of one of his youth homes and jailed for one day, and acquitted of nine other charges.

Talk about double standards here. Of course, these are the same pretentious twits who scream blue murder over anything to do with sexuality - including condom use. I don't know when Father Larre got his OC, but I don't much care - if he wants to get on his moralizing high horse about someone else's award, then the first question I'm going to have to ask is what a convicted criminal is doing holding an OC? Unlike Morgentaler who was convicted of a crime, but through persistence and exercise of due process, convinced the courts that the laws of the day were plain wrong, Larre was convicted of assault - and as far as I know hasn't exactly provided much reason why the statutes in question would be wrong or inapplicable in his case.

As for Ms. Landolt's claim that the OC is "too left wing", it strikes me that compassion for others has long ago been lost in ideology. In short, I doubt that anyone like Landolt will ever receive an OC because doing something that recognizes and respects other people is a value that they've long ago forgotten.

TheoCons: Getting The Facts Wrong

Over at Lifesite, we find the locals getting their knickers in a twist over one of the recipients of an Order of Canada award:

OTTAWA, Ontario, July 3, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Rev. Brent Hawkes of the Metropolitan Community Church in Toronto, the same man who flouted Canadian law by illegally "marrying" a homosexual couple in 2001, and who subsequently pushed homosexual "marriage" on Canada through the back-door of the judicial system, has now been awarded the highest honor that can be given to a Canadian civilian.
...The award given under the Conservative Government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper has come as a shock to social conservatives and Catholics since Hawkes, in addition to flouting the law on marriage has attacked the Vatican. In an affidavit before the Supreme Court of Canada Hawkes bashed a Vatican document on homosexual unions and statements by Catholic bishops on the same as "expressions of hatred that should not be tolerated in our society."

Okay, I can get that the people behind Lifesite are TheoCons, and probably don't think too highly of anyone who supports equality rights.

But, you think this bunch of thick-witted fools could actually get their facts straight. First of all, the Order of Canada award is not a "political" award per se - that is to say, the PMO has little or no say in the matter. On the nominations page for the Order of Canada, we find reference to an Advisory Council. While the Governor General's website is somewhat oblique about who is on that council, a bit more digging turns up a rather nice list on Wikipedia:

The task of the Advisory Council is to evaluate the nominations of people to the Order and see if the nominated people are worthy enough to be accepted into the Order. The Governor General of Canada makes the appointments to the Order based on recommendations from the Advisory Council. The Secretary General to the Advisory Council announces the decision of the Advisory Council to the Canada Gazette and to the public about any appointments and dismissals from the Order.

The Advisory Council, which is chaired by the Chief Justice of Canada, includes the Clerk of the Privy Council, the Deputy Minister of the Department of Canadian Heritage, the Chairperson of the Canada Council for the Arts, the President of the Royal Society of Canada, and the Chairperson of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada. As well, five members of the Order are part of the Council for a maximum three-year term. If the nomination involves a non-Canadian, the Deputy Minister of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade will be invited by the Advisory Council to evaluate the nomination.

The current members of the Advisory Council are:

1. The Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin, P.C., Chief Justice of Canada (Chair)
2. Dr. Patricia Baird, O.C., O.B.C.
3. Dr. Patricia A. Demers, President, the Royal Society of Canada
4. Mr. Tom Jackson, O.C.
5. Ms. Karen Kain, C.C., Chair, the Canada Council for the Arts
6. Ms. Judith A. LaRocque, C.V.O., FRHSC (hon) Deputy Minister of Canadian Heritage
7. Dr. Daurene E. Lewis, C.M.
8. Mr. Kevin G. Lynch, Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to the Cabinet
9. M. L. Jacques Ménard, O.C.
10. Mr. J.E. (Ted) Newall, O.C.
11. Ms. Bonnie M. Patterson, Chairman of the Board, Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada

Looking at this list, one might imagine that although the politicians have some influence in the process, it's fairly limited. It's highly unlikely that Harper's minions had much to do with Rev. Hawkes' nomination in the first place, and by the looks of the structure of the advisory council, would have had a hard time squashing it on the basis of whatever petty partisan arguments they might have.

If there is a fundamental point to be made, it is that the Order of Canada is not, and should not become a vehicle for partisan politics at any time. It is external to the topics of daily political squabbles, and to drag it into the realm of the 'House of Commons' politics is somewhere in the realm of offensive to the very idea of the Order itself.