I have said it before and I will say it again, if we are going to win the culture war that is going on in Canada then we need to know our history, we need to know our constitution.

Today I went down to the legislative hearings for a controversial bill and I asked a few questions of our politicians, the esteemed elected leaders that we put in place.

All I can say is wow. Either we elected some dim bulbs or we elected liars. It’s one or the other. Now I’m not new to this game, I know politicians are full of it and I mean politicians on all sides. But I actually heard a member of Ontario’s legislature say that we had to pass a bill to protect Charter rights and then when questioned on the constitutionality of the bill said he wasn’t there to talk about the constitution.

I mean sure that whole charter thing is part of the constitution but the rest of the document – meh.

I’ll get back to that in a moment.

First off the Bill they were studying was Bill 13, this is the McGuinty government’s anti-bullying legislation. Now we’re all against bullying right – everyone is – well except the bullies – but is that the real mission of this bill?

No, this bill is about an agenda.

The bill will force every school to set up and let students run clubs on their own – meaning without the teachers – and the purpose of these clubs, even if it is not in the name is to have gay straight alliances. As several presenters have pointed out, homosexuality is not the main cause of bullying in schools, not by a long shot – that would be body image. But this bill is about a political agenda.

One of the presenters, Dr. Tim Lau, a psychiatrist, raised many valid points about the bill including the fact that as student led clubs – which the legislation calls for – who will be responsible for what goes on. The legislation says the clubs must be student led.

Now Dr. Lau pointed to some of the material that is out there and promoted on the websites that back the creation of these gay straight alliance clubs. Here’s a website called MyGSA.CA which is supported by among others the teachers unions across Ontario – it’s looking for young men to get stoned and have sex.

That’s not a student support group, that’s a hook-up service for stoners.

Will this sort of thing be supervised properly in these clubs? I doubt it. Another presenter this morning was Alan Hubley. You likely remember Alan, he’s been on this show before, he’s a hard working city councillor here in Ottawa and a good guy. Alan and his family lost their son Jamie last year. Jamie, who had mental health problems, had been struggling with many issues including his sexuality, committed suicide.

Jamie’s name has been used to push these clubs, which once they hit Ontario will spread. Well, Alan told the committee again today to back away from forcing gay straight alliances on all schools and just focus on stopping bullying for all kids.

I think Alan has a point even if the Liberals and NDP are too ideological driven to hear it.

What the activists behind this bill and this movement have made clear is that they want to use this issue to take down Ontario’s Catholic School system by forcing them to accept secular doctrine that goes against their religion. And here’s where the constitution comes in.

You don’t need to be Catholic to be bothered by this, this should be bothersome on many levels.

Catholic schools are being told they have to accept that which goes against their faith in order to stop discrimination even though that itself is a form of discrimination. That doesn’t bother Liberal MPP Yasir Naqvi who was hold court with the media today. It also doesn’t bother Naqvi that this bill likely violates section 93 of the constitution which states that:

93 (1) Nothing in any such Law shall prejudicially affect any Right or Privilege with respect to Denominational Schools which any Class of Persons have by Law in the Province at the Union

This will be a violation of that section of the constitution. What does Naqvi say?

This man had just finished saying this is about protecting human rights, the ones laid out in the Charter, which is part of the constitution and then he says he’s not here to talk about the constitution? This goes to my point that progressives, be they liberals or new democrats or even those progressives inside conservative ranks, love the charter but hate the constitution.

The fact is that they are hoping this bill gets challenged and heads to court. Progressive Conservative MPP Lisa McLeod says the Liberals are making that clear.

Now I want you to take away two things from this. McGuinty’s move here is not about stopping bullying. There are five previous laws passed to stop bullying and more laws won’t stop kids from being mean to each other. And if it were about just stopping bullying then there is another bill which doesn’t mention gay straight alliance clubs or violate religious rights.

This bill is about pushing a sexual political agenda and smashing any opposition in the way using the courts and legislature and overturning the constitution if they have to. Right now the main opposition is the Catholic school system and that makes them the target.

Whether you are Catholic or not, support those schools or not, this story should bother you. It is agenda politics at its worst and its using our children as pawns.

And that’s the Byline.

I’m drinking an IPA or an India Pale Ale in honour of our late queen: the woman who did so much to make Canada the country it is today. Why drink an IPA for Victoria though? Well, because I like this kind of beer and in fact I’m still upset at Labatt for stopping production of their IPA back in the 90s. Thankfully I have other choices now.

But India Pale Ale has connections to Queen Victoria just as she has connections to Canada and it’s those connections I want to highlight once again because I think it’s important that we know about our history and these connections.

Progressives don’t like history, I mean sure if you’re talking about Trudeau or Kennedy then history is great and Woodstock was just groovy man but history beyond that…meh, they don’t care.

So back to my beer.

India Pale Ale didn’t originate in Queen Victoria’s time, it is believed to have started a bit before that but it became highly popular during the early part of her reign and stay that way until after she had passed on.

The legend it that IPAs were brewed with more hops and with a higher alcohol level to survive the trip to India from Britain. That’s probably not true but it’s a great story.

Anyway, IPA came to Canada due to trading and it became popular here, in fact it was the top beer for Labatt for about a century. There was a lot of trading going on back in Queen Victoria’s time just as there is now. There’s another fallacy that the left would have you believe, global trade is a new thing that is out to destroy workers. No, it’s been with us for centuries and is a big part of the reason we’re here.

But enough about beer and trade, I’m supposed to be talking about Queen Victoria. Well I should say that I want to talk about Queen Victoria because I’m sure if I asked the gate keepers of our society they would tell me that I shouldn’t talk about her and that we shouldn’t mark this day.

I’m sure they’d rather call it the May 24 or the May long weekend. Part of the argument you hear is, let’s not upset Quebec or new Canadians. I say let’s upset them, if they don’t like democracy and responsible government then too bad.

Queen Victoria brought responsible government to Canada and eventually she agreed to confederation. Read more…