I have read with interest two articles in the public media by Den Tandt
in the last few days. The first was a “celebratory back patting” for Canada’s
arrival as a just society. “Across this country, from coast to coast to coast,
there is now a nearly unanimous view that the old divisive, angry debates about
matters of individual faith and morals are over.”
He considers that discrimination based on race, gender or sexual
orientation are finished also. Likewise, the debate over abortion. For all these
issues he quotes Geoff Norquay, a conservative strategist, “I recognize you may
hold personal views at odds with the majority, but we’re not going back there.”
With regard to abortion, Tandt says that “We now have a consensus, a
national one, that Canada is a socially progressive nation and will remain so.”
So the slaughter of human life in the womb is progressive? The fact that this
subject, like other politically unacceptable discussions, has been repressed
amounts to a consensus?
This strikes me as odd when Trudeau’s Charter was specifically designed
to uphold the rights of minorities, that they could not be discriminated against.
In fact, the gay society has been freed from discrimination largely on the
basis of the Charter. But the way in which the Charter is applied is itself
discriminatory.
Den Tandt’s second article shows surprise that 19 year old William
Swinimer was suspended from school for wearing his T-shirt saying “Life is
wasted without Jesus.” Apparently, some students were offended by it. Fortunately,
the foolish bias of the school board’s action has been reversed, William can
return to school wearing his Jesus T-shirt.
Yet the discriminatory way in which Christian belief—and particularly
expression of that belief—is penalised by authorities like human rights
tribunals, school boards, city councils and other pseudo-government bodies, led
to this debacle.
Attempts to silence opposition by some vocal groups now makes any comment
that offends hate speech. The line between offence and incitement to hatred has
been lost, reinforced by rulings of the notorious human rights tribunals, and has
become so engrained in the collective conscience it has led to the whining
versus acquiescent society Tandt grandly trumpets as just and progressive.
Truth can only be arrived at by open and free discussion, not by
censorship. That’s why freedom of expression is the cornerstone of democracy.
Tandt’s Canada is going in the opposite direction.
