Next President Will Have to be a Hawk

I think a president Barack Obama could be good for Canadians. Not because, as received wisdom suggests, he will "restore America's image abroad," end all wars and cause rogue regimes to show their kinder side. I think he will be a good president because he will do the opposite.
The nonsensical notion that Obama – or any other American president – could make America beloved "again" suggests that it was ever beloved. From 1986 to 1996, I lived overseas – first in France, then in Turkey, then in Japan. Trust me, anti-Americanism was as rampant then, and in all those locations, as it is now. In France, it was a particularly virulent pathology. Plus ça change. But it was evident everywhere.

George Bush inspires a personal venom that Bill Clinton never did. I suspect this is a result of Bush's inelegant demeanour compounded by the shock of 9/11. But American strength has always been envied, hated and second-guessed.

Those in power in Washington have always been damned if they did and damned if they didn't, which is perhaps why American presidents often make unilateral decisions. When you cannot please others – and yet are expected to fix every problem across the globe – you may as well do what you think is best.

Under a president Obama, that will not change. It will be a rude awakening for those who have concocted a fantasy history in which U.S. presidents never wielded power without first making sure everyone was good with their plans.

But it will be a much-needed awakening. Many Canadians view Canada as more "tolerant" than the United States. Were our neighbours to elect an African-American whose middle name is Hussein to their highest office, we might have to get over ourselves. The most diverse person we've ever put in our highest elected office is a French-Canadian. Though we do appoint black and Asian females to a powerless, pointless symbolic office on a regular basis.

Many Canadians have also revised our history turning us into limp "peacekeepers" and "honest brokers," two things we have never truly been. Canada has always taken sides – occasionally, petulantly, against the U.S. – and Canadian soldiers, even wearing blue berets, have always killed and been killed. This will continue if Obama – whose rhetoric is toughening – becomes America's 44th president.

He has stated he wants to increase troop levels in Afghanistan. There is, he said, "no greater priority" than defeating the Taliban. Can one honestly believe he will let Canadians shirk our responsibilities? Contrary to what many have come to assert (paging Jack Layton), Afghanistan is not "George Bush's war."

The threat of Islamic jihad is not a fabrication of the Republican party, created to make us cower and obey. Seeing Democrats own the war should wake up those delusional Canadians who think otherwise.

I used to worry that Obama could be Jimmy Carteresque. But the fact that the addled, dupe-of-thugs-everywhere was marginalized this week in Denver tells me the former president's peculiar world view is being cast aside.

The next American president will have to be a hawk and the Democratic nominee must know this. Obama has stated that the United States must be prepared to strike inside Pakistan, even without approval from the Pakistani government. On his vaunted tour of Europe, he expressed a desire to see German troops fighting in Afghanistan. Talk about a rude awakening. If anti-Americanism has become an illness in Europe, so has pacifism.

There is, in short, no logical reason to believe a president Obama would tread any more softly around the globe than has President Bush. Oh, he may talk with dictators. But my guess is he would play hardball with them when the talk came to naught. According to polls, Obama would beat McCain in a landslide if the vote were held here. Obama-loving Canadians should be careful what they wish for. There's a serious mental adjustment ahead.

Multiple Reactions to Morgentaler

I am rarely accused of being wishy-washy, but I can't get worked up – pro or con – about Dr. Henry Morgentaler being honoured with the Order of Canada. Mind you, the topic of abortion brings out what are apparently my multiple personalities.

It brings out the feminist in me. When I hear men talk about why abortion is wrong, why it should be illegal, I get mad. That anger shocks me, because I'm not certain that abortion isn't wrong, though I still believe it should be legal, at least in the early stages of a pregnancy.

It brings out the cynic in me. When I hear men bring forth the importance of a woman's right to choose, touting their own sensitivity and concern for "women's issues," it makes me want to vomit. What they are really concerned about, I can't help but think, is being able to score with women via their faux-Alan Alda posturing, or being able to bail when it comes to their responsibilities.

It brings out the Gen-Xer in me. When I hear boomer women insisting that George Bush somehow wants control over their reproductive organs, or that he is "anti-woman" because he thinks partial-birth abortion is morally dubious, I roll my eyes. Are the '70s not over yet? The idea that it is an affront to women to suggest that there might be a difference between an 8-week-old fetus and a 28-week-old, dare I say, baby, does not strike me as preposterous. And the tendency among certain women to talk about having an abortion as though it were a heroic act strikes me as nauseating.

I recently watched the famous episode of the TV show Maude, where Maude discovers she is pregnant at 47. Her daughter encourages her to have an abortion, in a manner that could best be described as a football cheer. It occurred to me, watching the show, that for women who grew up when abortion was not legal, the battle to make it such was hard-fought. Their inability to contemplate any restrictions on abortion is perhaps understandable.

It brings out the moralist in me. I know several women who have had abortions, all because they were stupid and irresponsible and decided that birth control could be forgone for the sake of spontaneity. None of the oft-presented rape and incest cases we hear about. It is hard for me to hear these women talk about the trauma of having the abortion without wanting to punch them. It is hard for me to feel enthusiastic about what they have done, especially as I watch some of my girlfriends leap through fertility hoops, longing to reproduce. But enthusiasm is not required in order to believe that something should be legal.

It brings out the empathy in me. When I hear pro-life women talking about making a woman carry a baby to term when she does not want to, I think they cannot know what any other woman is going through.

The only thing the topic of abortion doesn't seem to bring out in me is that person who is sure of something. The most I can muster is that Canada should have a law that recognizes the difference between early and later stage pregnancies.

It is not because of Henry Morgentaler that Canada has no such law. It is because of parliamentarians who don't want to wade into the quicksand of this debate. Morgentaler provided a service that was necessary – whether one likes it or not – at a time when few others would. In that regard, he is certainly more deserving of the Order of Canada than say, Kim Campbell, Peter Mansbridge or Randy Bachman (who?), to name three of this year's other appointments.

Bernier: This boob deserved to be busted

When Free Speech Offends Muslims

"Everybody favours free speech in the slack moments when no axes are being ground," 20th-century American journalist Heywood Broun once wrote. The real test of mettle is allowing free speech to thrive while axes aggressively grind. Just ask Canadian publisher Ezra Levant and author Mark Steyn.
In February 2006, Levant's conservative magazine, the now-online-only Western Standard, reprinted the Danish Muhammad cartoons. Shortly thereafter, Syed Soharwardy, the national president of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, filed a Koranic-verse laden complaint against Mr. Levant with the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission, claiming discrimination.

Canada's Human Rights Commissions (HRC) are government agencies, not courts. They were set up, starting in the 1960s, to fight job and housing discrimination – offensive acts, not words. Borne of good intention, some argue they have paved a path to politically correct hell. Those behind the creation of the commissions maintain they were never meant to impede free speech – a right guaranteed under Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms – and that "thought crime" cases represent a fraction of the commissions' work.

As many of those complaints were brought against crackpot anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers, or Christian fundamentalists expressing extreme antigay views, few Canadians wasted a moment worrying about them. Therein lies the cautionary tale. The odious have to be free to speak – provided they are not inciting violence – or none of us are.

With limited exceptions, the aforementioned cases received little attention. Then along came Levant. Even those to whom he is not beloved are waking up to the dangers of a lumbering system in which there are no real rules of procedure, the accused must pay their own way and could ultimately be compelled to pay a fine and apologize, while the complainant relies on taxpayers to protect his or her "human right" to not feel offended.

Levant is preternaturally media savvy, and when he made his appearance before the Alberta commission – this January – he had it videotaped, promptly posting the recordings on YouTube. Some 400,000 people have watched his bristly exchanges with the hapless commission representative. Levant, a lawyer, peppered her with questions of his own and reminded her of the freedoms that the HRC was trampling upon:

"For a government bureaucrat to call any publisher or anyone else to an interrogation to be quizzed about his political or religious expression is a violation of 800 years of common law, a Universal Declaration of Rights, a Bill of Rights, and a Charter of Rights. This commission is applying Saudi values, not Canadian values."

The resulting publicity proved too much for Imam Soharwardy. He dropped his complaint after two years and much public money spent, stating his newfound appreciation for the values of his adopted country: "I understand that most Canadians see this as an issue of freedom of speech, that that principle is sacred and holy in our society." Levant still faces a similar complaint from the Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities.

This, in turn, has brought unprecedented scrutiny to complaints against Maclean's, a mainstream magazine that's a mix of Time and US Weekly. Though some call it right-of-center, its main agenda appears to be getting attention. (Last fall, Maclean's ran a cover story critical of the war in Iraq featuring President Bush made to appear as Saddam Hussein.)

In October 2006, Maclean's ran an excerpt from Mark Steyn's book, "America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It." (Mr. Steyn is a Maclean's columnist.) Bothered by the Steyn reprints, four law students (since joined by a fifth) asserted that Maclean's presented an inflammatory view of Islam. The students met with Maclean's editor Kenneth Whyte, and asked him to publish a lengthy response, as though a magazine editor were required to cater content to indignant readers.

Mr. Whyte, quite rightly, refused – 27 letters to the editor regarding Steyn's story had already been published. So the students, with the backing of the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC), filed complaints against the magazine.

If the HRC found Levant's YouTube clips formidable, it won't know what hit it when media mogul Ted Rogers, the owner of Maclean's, fights back – if the case gets that far.

Since January, op-eds supportive of Maclean's and Levant's positions from even left-leaning newspapers have abounded. A motion has been put forth in Canada's parliament to remove the section of the Human Rights Act that prescribes speech. Organizations such as the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and PEN Canada (some of whose members can't abide Levant's and Steyn's politics) have called for similar amendments and for the complaints against Maclean's and Levant to be dropped.

The reverberations don't end there. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation recently did something it was too craven to do two years ago. During a news segment regarding the HRC, Canada's public broadcaster aired – briefly, fleetingly – the Danish cartoons. This is heartening. Much of the Canadian – and Western – left has seemed far too eager in recent years to buckle in the face of, and even sympathize with, Islamist extremism. Let's hope these cases bring about an understanding of what's at stake.

George Soros, Movie Mogul: “Social Justice” Cinema and the Sundance Institute
http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1204311857.pdf

Weighing Choices in by-election

I live in Toronto Centre, the epicentre of the universe. Thanks to our St. Patrick's Day federal by-election, I have been receiving visits and phone calls from the minions of the various candidates, and once, a visit from one of the candidates.
That once was when Don Meredith, the Conservative, showed up at my door. I had to bite my tongue to not greet him with, "Oh yeah, you're the black guy the Tories got to replace that other black guy."

The original black guy was Mark Warner, previously the riding's Tory candidate. I liked him because he was a) a social libertarian and b) my Facebook friend. But I gather he did things Stephen Harper didn't like – not that our Prime Minister has control issues.

So Warner got the boot and the new black guy became the Tory candidate. Maybe the Conservatives hoped no one would notice the change, but they didn't get it past my eagle eye.

Harper is anything but stupid, so he had to know how it would look. I wonder if there wasn't some desire to help Bob Rae, the Liberal candidate and presumptive victor.

With him in the House of Commons, Stéphane Dion will look even more flappable. In other words, Rae doesn't need my vote.

That's a good thing, since he won't get it. He might have had it had he not shown up at a recent gathering in support of U.S. army deserters in Canada. I thought he had left sophomoric foreign policy ideas behind him when he left the NDP. What was I thinking?

Speaking of sophomoric foreign policy ideas, my most aggressive visitors are the operatives of El-Farouk Khaki, the NDP candidate.

Khaki is an extremely nice-looking fellow. When I first saw a picture of him – sporting a high-wattage smile and earrings – I said to my cat, "He must be gay."

He is. And Muslim. Which is wonderful. He certainly opines on matters that are on the minds of every Canadian. For example, in a recent interview he said, "My preference would be that age of consent remain at 14 for anal and vaginal sex with more attention to enforcing the laws we already have."

Hmm. Where does Gilles Duceppe stand on this issue?

Regarding Afghanistan, Khaki believes Canada should go back to our "traditional" (read: fantastical) peacekeeping role. How on earth a gay man can believe this is possible, or desirable, when fighting people who would happily kill him because of his sexual orientation is beyond me. It is reminiscent of the NDP choosing Maher Arar's wife as a candidate in Ottawa South in 2004. She wore a headscarf and was against gay marriage, but somehow the party managed to square that with what it claims to stand for.

On the plus side, Khaki is against "unfair cellphone charges, credit card interest rates and ATM fees." I'm against all those things, too.

After the major parties, there are Chris Tindal of the Green party and Liz White of the Animal Alliance Environment Voters party.

Like Warner, Tindal is my Facebook friend. While his flyer proposes the sensible "creation of a legitimate poppy industry" in Afghanistan, it also threatens a dubiously euphemistic "rebalancing" of our role there.

Which leaves me with White.

She doesn't have many (any?) policy proposals. But she's a friend to the animals and so am I. Goodness knows, there are worse people a Toronto Centre resident could vote for (see above).

Canadian Pettiness is Showing

The "deploy more NATO soldiers to Kandahar or we quit in 2009" threat contained in the Manley report strikes me as a sad reflection on current Canadian attitudes. It isn't that more troops would not be desirable. But what if no NATO country sends us a military "partner"?

According to the report, in spite of the ongoing violence, the Afghan economy has been growing, millions of refugees have returned, more children (of both genders) are in school, child mortality rates are improving and infrastructure is being built.

Are we so small-time and penny ante in our world view as to dismiss the progress made? Do we tell the unprepared Afghan forces and population, "Sorry, you're on your own"? Do we allow Afghanistan to again become a safe haven for Al Qaeda, again a threat to us and others?

I hope not, because another thing we would lose in the process is our reputation. I would argue that it has improved internationally due to our involvement in Afghanistan.

Far from the myth that most of the world used to view us as benign peacekeepers and now view us as pawns of the Great Satan, it is more likely that most of the world either never thought twice about us, or simply viewed us as an extension of the United States.

Now we are included in adult discussions and asked, in return, to behave like adults, responsibly and with integrity.

Instead we – not our soldiers, but citizens and leaders – behave like accountants with calculators in hand, tallying up every percentage, dollar, headline, slight or snub (real or imagined) and counting every sacrifice as a cause for indignation and (more) anti-Americanism, rather than as, well, a sacrifice.

Canadians like to believe they are broad-minded global citizens. But the pettiness on display when we complain about the "disproportionately" large load we are carrying in Afghanistan shows us to be self-absorbed, miserly and ignorant of history.

Venturing into the debate over "disproportionate" contributions is dangerous. A small number of countries (including Canada) carried a disproportionately great burden in defeating Nazism, fascism and the Soviet empire. Should those countries have not done so, crying foul instead?

Washington could point out that our military is disproportionately small, given our population and economy. In fact, for our military to be anywhere near – proportionately – the size of the U.S. military, we would have to double it.

It could also be pointed out that we have given disproportionately little in previous decades, in terms of NATO commitments and international conflicts. During the years leading up to 9/11, our armed forces were effectively defanged, making us unable to contribute proportionately to just about anything.

One of Jack Layton's wishes is that we abandon Afghanistan in favour of "saving Darfur," which, if it could be done, would necessitate doing things (invading, killing, getting killed) Layton objects to when done in Afghanistan. That aside, if we had a military proportionate to our size, we could contribute to both wars.

Many Canadians seem to have forgotten two things about Afghanistan. The first is that the 9/11 attacks were attacks on the West. Osama bin Laden himself said as much. This is our battle.

The second is that our military presence in Afghanistan has been authorized under international laws we purport to respect. The Manley report reminds us of this. It also offers a realistic assessment of what it calls a noble mission. Not rosy, not hopeless, but one that requires our continued and valuable (be it disproportionate or not) presence.

Bob Rae, Why Couldn't you Resist this Cause?

Clinton Fits Feminists' Victim Mould

Journalist Andrew Sullivan recently wrote that there were "Gloria Steinem women" and "Camille Paglia women." The former, he said, support Hillary Clinton, while the latter prefer Barack Obama. There is much truth to that generalization. I would add that the Paglia women who may not support Obama still, to put it mildly, don't like Clinton.

On the 10th anniversary of the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal – all of that hell broke loose in the latter half of January 1998 – it is worth examining why so many women, left and right, have an aversion to Hillary Clinton. Should we not be thrilled that a woman is close to becoming the leader of the free world? Er, no.

There are ideological disparities, of course. Though many Steinem women are boomers and older (the same age group that consistently polls pro-Clinton) the differences have little to do with age. I know women in their 20s who fit the Steinem mould – convinced that every problem a woman faces is because of gender, convinced the solution is a social program, affirmative action or some other form of government intervention (Status of Women Canada, anyone?). They are so stubbornly mired in 1970s attitudes one is tempted to call them "libbers."

Paglia women tend toward a more libertarian approach, wanting equal opportunity, but not assuming that the natural aftermath of equal opportunities will be equal outcomes. As it never is among men, why would or should it be where women are concerned?

But there is more about Clinton that irritates. The received wisdom says that she will stand up for women and our "issues" – I'd be willing to debate exactly what those are, but that would take another column – and on the surface, this is true. She says the right things. But her actions tell a different story. Over the years, she has displayed an inspired – though, I believe, wholly transparent – blend of victim and aggressor, each role brilliantly selected for when it will best help increase approval ratings. It came artfully to the fore after her defeat in Iowa, as it did years ago when Lewinskygate forged its ugly way into our lives. Remember that vast right-wing conspiracy?

I could not care less that Bill Clinton cheated on his wife. The problem was abuse of power. Monica Lewinsky was an intern and he was the president. Surely a great feminist like Hillary Clinton (don't even mention her myriad of mainstream feminist supporters) should have been outraged at that. If Clarence Thomas talking about pubic hair and porn movies in front of Anita Hill (who was in a far more advantageous position than the curvaceous intern) was worth the furor that followed those revelations, why the dismissive tittering about Lewinsky?

I have nothing against the kind of ambition Clinton embodies. But when it comes at the price of personal dignity, one wonders whether it could be worth it. Clinton fits all too well into the world of victimology women have created for themselves. Steinem women love her, perhaps, for that very reason.

I probably agree with Clinton on policy matters the majority of the time. She's an impressive hawk, no matter what she says on the 2008 campaign trail. I have no doubt she would keep my wishy-washy country protected. But the thought of another Clinton presidency is enough to make this Paglia woman (and fan of Rudy Giuliani and John McCain) send every good vibe to Barack Obama.

Pet Peeves About Cruel Politicians

My mother cannot hear the name Lyndon Johnson without mentioning – in disgust – that he lifted up one of his beagles by the ears. She is right to remember the cruelty. I think voters would be wise to look at how political candidates treat their pets. It speaks to their character in a very different way than their relationship with their wife or husband. Cheating on one's spouse is a betrayal of trust, but your spouse is your equal, an adult who can choose to walk away or stay. A pet, like a child, is a dependant that counts on your goodwill. Abusing that relationship is an abuse of trust and power, like ... hmm ... messing around with a White House intern, say.

In the current issue of The Atlantic, Caitlin Flanagan reminds us that Hillary Clinton, new soft image be damned, pawned off Socks the cat to Betty Currie in 2000, when kitty was no longer needed for presidential photo ops. I wrote about this in the Star seven years ago. I found it deeply revelatory of the Clintonian cold-heartedness, political expediency and lack of moral responsibility. The excuses the Clintons made at the time were that a) Socks and Buddy, the Clintons' new dog, clashed and, b) Socks was Chelsea's cat, and Chelsea was off to college.

Lame excuses, if ever there were any. If a new pet doesn't hit it off with an established one, would you not make some effort, by talking to veterinarians, for example, to make the new relationship, if not loving, then at least civil? But this would require focusing on something other than your soul-crushing political ambition, an effort clearly beyond both Clintons.

As for Socks being "Chelsea's cat," this, again, is deeply revelatory. If you share a home, for years, with a living creature, surely you will develop some normal emotional attachment to said creature. What does it say about either Clinton that after eight years Socks meant about the same thing to them as a piece of furniture? And it certainly reflects more negatively on Hillary than Rudy Giuliani's angry teen-agers reflect on him. All teenagers hate their parents.

And what of Mitt Romney, dog torturer? Were I American, and faced with voting for Romney or Dennis Kucinich, I, a pro-free market hawk, would have to cast my ballot for the Keebler elf doppelgänger. From an article in Time magazine: "Romney strapped a dog carrier – with the family dog Seamus, an Irish Setter, in it – to the roof of the family station wagon for a 12-hour drive ... which the family apparently completed, despite Seamus's rather visceral protest." Poor Seamus lost control of his bowels while up there, and Romney, rather than allow the dog to join the family inside the car, merely hosed down the dog and the car and continued on his psychopathic journey. I don't give a hoot that Romney may have polygamist ancestors, but his lack of empathy worries me immensely. The man has a chip missing.

Hillary Clinton is often compared to Richard Nixon. Nixon, like Hillary, couldn't stand to be out of the limelight, was paranoid and rationalized away his own dishonesty. But when it came to returning Checkers, the dog he admitted was a gift from a political supporter, Nixon refused, saying "the kids, like all kids, love the dog and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we're gonna keep it." It's a pretty sorry statement about any candidate that Richard Nixon outshines them in the basic decency department.

Sad to Lose a Wee Bit of Diversity

I am personally fond of Ezra Levant. I play a game where I try to imagine what cartoon character people most resemble – for example, Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson is Foghorn Leghorn. Ezra, without a doubt, is the Tasmanian devil – forever in motion, incomprehensible to others though clearly focused on his own goals, scary from a distance, but up close, just a cute little devil.

So I was sorry to hear last Friday that the Western Standard, of which Ezra was publisher, has ceased publication after 3 1/2 years. (Personal interest note: I occasionally post on the magazine's blog, the unfortunately named "Shotgun," which will keep operating.)

Though I subscribed to the Western Standard, I found the magazine uneven. In its early days it featured two female columnists (one of whom was Stockwell Day's daughter-in-law) writing almost exclusively about child rearing. The one who wasn't named "Day" actually could be quite refreshing, but there seemed to be something rather knuckle-dragging about the fact that the magazine positively teemed with men writing political analysis, while the women wrote about the fruit of their wombs.

True, there were female news writers responsible for some interesting stories. And there was a regular feature where a female libertarian engaged in an email exchange with a male theocon, but that never quite worked.

When the columns of Pierre Lemieux, a prominent Quebec economist and libertarian, were cut from the magazine last year, I heard the death knell sounding. They were, I thought, the best part of the magazine. Different from what Canadian media orthodoxy generally offers, they also stood apart from the theocon orthodoxy usually found in conservative publications.

It matters little, though, whether one agreed with the Western Standard's editorial stance or not. I found the theocon fixation on gay marriage and its alleged dangers to the future of humankind simultaneously disturbing and laughable. But the magazine, at its best, represented a wee bit of diversity for Canadian readers.

Through its relative independence it was also able to have some fun. The famous "Libranos" logo, created in the wake of the sponsorship scandal, blended an image of the Liberal party leadership with the television crime family, and showed up on T-shirts across the land. In July of 2005, I was on a media trip to Israel with, among others, Ezra. At a café in Jaffa, he sported a Libranos shirt. We met several Canadian tourists that afternoon, who, after giggling and pointing at the shirt, came over and asked where they could buy one. Ezra, true to form, tried to sell them magazine subscriptions.

And of course, the Western Standard was famously willing to do something only one mainstream Canadian newspaper (Le Devoir) was willing to do – publish the Danish Muhammad cartoons. Was it an attention grab?

In part, perhaps. But I am certain it was also done on principle. Whether the motivations were entirely pure, it was the right thing to do. Ezra and the magazine took legal heat and, undoubtedly, financial losses.

But that is not why the Western Standard is calling it quits. Starting up a political magazine (of any persuasion) in a market as small as Canada is next to impossible. That is, unless you have government subsidies keeping you afloat.

The left side of the blogosphere has been brimming over with gloating and gleeful "the free market has spoken" posts since Friday's announcement. Yes, I suppose it has spoken. Now I'd like to see that same free market get an opportunity to speak on the CBC.

Tax Funds for all Religious Schools?

As election issues go, few would seem less sexy than the issue of school funding. Yet in the Canadian province of Ontario, where an election will be held Oct. 10, the issue of public funding for religious schools, or "faith-based funding," is the hot topic.
Few would say it out loud, but many worry about what would be taught in some Muslim or Christian schools – anti-Semitism? Creationism?

The debates over how to accommodate Canada's binational origins go back to the British North America Act, which entailed the creation of Canada in 1867. As a nod to the English and French Canada of the day, the decision was made to fund two school boards – Protestant and Catholic – up until what was then the end of "common" schools (usually the eighth grade).

The Protestant board has since morphed into the public system, and the Catholic board, while remaining Catholic, has also changed, sharing much curriculum with the public system. In the 1980s, then-premier of Ontario Bill Davis extended public funding of Ontario's Catholic schools to the end of high school. The policy has since been criticized as "discriminatory" by the UN Human Rights Committee.

Canada is no longer merely Catholic and Protestant, of course. And while some Canadian provinces have chosen to publicly fund, in varying degrees, other religious schools, Ontario – now made up of virtually every religious and ethnic group the world has to offer – remains true to the 1867 dictates. And Ontario's Muslims, Jews, Evangelicals – and other groups – are asking, "What about us?"

They have a champion in Ontario's Conservative Party leader John Tory, who has made government funding faith-based schools part of his platform. But he probably didn't count on it becoming – as it has – the focus of his campaign, and he may well regret it come election day. About 3 in 5 Ontarians oppose the measure, according to an Ipsos Reid poll taken this month.

For Mr. Tory, school funding is a way to distinguish himself from his main opponent, Liberal Party leader and Premier of Ontario Dalton McGuinty. Apart from school funding, the two men are not far apart politically. Mr. McGuinty, recognizing which way the wind is blowing, has grabbed hold of the issue and pushed it front and center, presenting himself as a defender of Canadian traditions.

The only plus for Tory is that the funding issue may help him in vote-rich Toronto, traditionally a Liberal strong-hold. Canada's most populous city is home to a large number of immigrants, many of whom support extending school funding. And therein lies the unspoken worry. Polite, diversity-loving Ontarians may be loath to admit it, but people are concerned about what would be taught in Muslim schools. Would they be funding madrassahs? Subsidizing Holocaust denial? And what about fundamentalist Christian schools? Would they be supporting the teaching of creationism as science?

Supporters of faith-based funding say that since Ontario's publicly funded schools are required to incorporate much of Ontario's public school curriculum, problems of extremism won't arise. The Ministry of Education will keep an eye on things. But expecting government funding to be the cure-all for problems concerning integration is painfully naive. With faith-based funding, every religion that has a school will have a pressure group behind it. The latter is a highly unpalatable scenario. Imagine how far it might go: Why not Wiccan schools? Rosicrucian schools?

With the inherent inequity in the existing model, the appropriate response would be to remove funding from the Catholic schools and amalgamate the school boards. If funding one faith is wrong, then funding many is wrong multiplied. If people want religious educations for their kids, they can pay for private religious schools. Many secular Ontarians, tired of what they view as a left-leaning, politically correct public school system, already pay out of their own pockets to provide an alternative for their children.

But as the saying goes, good luck with that. One hundred and forty years of history and a guarantee in the Constitution are hard walls to come up against. Not to mention that the Catholic School Board is responsible for 30 percent of Ontario's students. Few politicians would have the spine necessary to even suggest scrapping the current system. Intellectually, it makes no sense to me that in 2007, the government should fund one religion. But for the time being, the lesser of two flawed options is to keep the status quo.

The Politics of Women's Health

You can't win with women's health issues.

People claim that either not enough attention is paid, not enough money spent, or that there is too much of both. And whether it's not enough or too much, pharmaceutical companies and health agencies always seem to be accused of being guilty of some permutation of sexism.

Decades ago, breast cancer became the poster illness for women, even though it was not – and is not – the Number 1 killer of women. Women's illnesses, it was asserted, were chronically underfunded because the male medical establishment didn't mind if women suffered. But no more. Breast cancer now receives money and attention disproportionate to the threat it poses. And according to statistics kept by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, gender specific medical research has been tilted toward women for the past 15 years.

Yet people aren't happy. Just ask the folks at Merck Frosst Canada Ltd., a research-driven pharmaceutical company, who have brought Canadians Gardasil, the vaccine it says protects against infection by four strains of human papillomavirus (HPV), two of which are responsible for 70 per cent of cervical cancers. (The other two strains in the vaccine protect against genital warts.)

The vaccine is being attacked on several fronts. Macleans magazine ran a cover story managing to cram the words "our girls" and "guinea pigs" into the same alarming headline. The article argued that inoculation programs, which will soon begin in several provinces, amount to little more than a test of Gardasil's safety. Merck responded that Gardasil had undergone extensive research and testing.

Another argument – one I heard on TVO's The Agenda – is that vaccinating girls will discourage them from getting pap smears which could protect them from other strains of the virus. That's a fair concern, but is it not a parent's or young woman's job to educate themselves in this regard? Should a vaccine that prevents only certain strains of a sickness be withheld? Imagine for a moment that Gardasil were being withheld, and news of its existence leaked out. The outrage would be that "our girls" were considered inconsequential.

Ads promoting Gardasil – featuring differently coloured and coiffed girls doing "empowering" things like working out and studying and laughing – run regularly on American television. (Regulations here don't allow such advertising.) The cover-girl sell makes it easy (and breezy) enough to be cynical and suspicious, but the reaction to Gardasil has been over-the-top.

I'm not suggesting we should blithely accept what we are told, without asking questions. Only that one would think that a vaccine that could prevent many cases of cancer among women would be welcome news, yes? Risks are inherent with any medical discovery. Vaccines and antibiotics that have been deemed safe for decades can have adverse affects on individuals in 2007 and beyond.

Possibly the most amusing – in a plus ça change sort of way – objection I have heard to the HPV vaccine is that protecting young women against an STD will cause them to be more sexually active. Amusing, because I am a fan of the television show Mad Men. In the first episode of the set-in-1960 series, a wide-eyed young woman named Peggy goes to the gynecologist to get herself some of them newfangled birth control pills. The doctor, speculum poised, tells Peggy – I'm paraphrasing here – "I'll prescribe these pills to you Peggy. But permit me to say I do so with a heavy heart, because I fear they'll turn all you girls into big sluts."

We've come a long way, baby.

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