Stephen Harper, Nobel Peace Prize nominee

Not content with awarding Stephen Harper their Gold Medallion human rights award and pledging to create a Stephen Harper Centre for Human Rights, B’nai Brith Canada announced yesterday they will be nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Frank Dimant from their statement :

“Moral clarity has been lost across much of the world, with terror, hatred and antisemitism filling the void,” said Frank Dimant, CEO, B’nai Brith Canada. “Throughout, there has been one leader which has demonstrated international leadership and a clear understanding of the differences between those who would seek to do evil, and their victims." 

Yeah, about victims ... one minute of aerial footage of Al-Shejaiya in Gaza



B'nai Brith was a successful advocate of Canada cutting off funding to UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency - the only UN human relief agency willing to work in Gaza under fire. (Eight of their workers died in this last incursion). Last month B'nai Brith called for the disbanding of UNRWA altogether. Canada is no longer a donor country to UNRWA.

Back to Frank's presser, where he notes that as a 'professor' he is eligible to make a nomination to the Nobel Foundation : 

“In accordance with the rules of the Nobel Foundation it gives me great pleasure to nominate in my capacity as Professor of Modern Israel Studies at Canada Christian College, Prime Minister Stephen Harper for the Nobel Peace Prize in honour of the outstanding moral leadership he has demonstrated.”

Frank Dimant is a professor at Charles McVety's Canada Christian College because Charles McVety awarded him an honorary doctorate there in 2004 at a ceremony attended by Jason Kenney.
Texas millionaire televangelist and Christian Zionist Pastor John Hagee and his Christians United For Israel rents office space from McVety for his Canadian operations at Canada Christian College.

Dimant : "We [Jews] and Israel are not alone because of you and the tremendous leadership of Dr. McVety and Dr. Hagee." Dr. Hagee. Go on, click that last link.

Three years ago in this Christian College video at a Stand With Israel rally, Dimant, Jason Kenney (far left), and McVety (behind Dimant) , along with Nathan Jacobson (to the left of Kenney) shared the podium as Dimant courted his presumably mostly Christian audience. He praised Harper and the Cons as friends of Israel and called on God to protect Israel from the United Nations "as we await the messianic times which are just around the corner." 

In March 2014, in a more intimate setting in a synagogue, Dimant spoke about his relationship to Harper: 

" I happen to know Mr.Harper from the days he was in the opposition and the truth is we were on first name basis because the Jewish community was not in favor of Conservatives  - at that time they were called the Alliance Party and before that the Reform Party.  The Jewish community was traditionally liberals and the Jewish community was very much onside with the Liberal Party of the day.  When Mr. Harper and before him Mr. Stockwell Day wanted to get their message out to our community, all the doors were closed in their face.  It's very difficult to believe when today you see the world's premier friend of Israel - that when he wanted to speak about his attitude towards Israel, that door was shut. 

Only one organization at that time - and I was B'nai Brith and our publication The Jewish Tribune - gave them a forum, gave him a platform, gave them an opportunity to say : 'This is how we really stand on Israel; this is where we stand on anti-Semitism; and this is where we stand on the values that we share with you.'  

I've had the good fortune in my lifetime to work with many governments.  I've gone to Auschwitz with Prime Minister Chretien,  I've gone to Israel with Art Egglington, I've gone to Israel with Jean Chretien, and I went now with our Prime Minister again. [Note : Harper's visit this past January] 

And I saw the difference, saw the difference.  And the difference was that here you had a man like Harper who you can feel - FEEL - the love that he has for the State of Israel, the affection that he feels for the Jewish people. So you may ask why. Why? Good question. 

Mr. Harper is a religious Christian.  He believes. He believes when it says "Blessed are those who bless the Jewish people."  And he says Canada is blessed because we bless the Jewish people. He really deeply believes that. As does Jason Kenney, as do some of the other ministers - they are religious people. So they feel it."

As to the Nobel Peace Prize nomination, I'm blaming Michael Byers. 
Six weeks ago in The Harper Plan for unilateral Canadian disarmament , Byers suggested that despite all his tough military world stage talk, Harper might be eligible for one because he has "reduced defence spending to just 1% of GDP — the lowest level in Canadian history".  

Yeah, I know - you're still stuck back there at the idea of a Stephen Harper Centre for Human Rights.
.
Ed Tanas' petition : Deny the Nomination of PM Stephen Harper for 2014 Nobel Peace Prize 
.

A word from our new Ambassador of Religious Freedom

"Religion, artificially divorced from the public sphere, makes for an impoverished politics at best, and a benighted political class at worst."

Our new Ambassador of Religious Freedom, Andrew P. W. Bennett, 2 years a dean of Augustine College,  is passionate about returning religious discourse to public life.
Our "official secular religion", he argues two years ago here, "violates freedom of religious expression." 

Huh.

In April 2011, ImmMin Jason Kenney announced that Canada's religious freedom office "would be modeled after the Office of International Religious Freedom within the US Department of State," whose head is styled as an ambassador. 

Two days ago, in announcing our ambassador for the new Office of Religious Freedom within Foreign Affairs, Harper "denied the office would be modeled after its U.S. counterpart, which has been accused of being biased towards Christians". 

Really?
A closed-door ORF Stakeholders Conference in 2011 chaired by Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird and the following four out of six Christian panelists advised the government 

• Thomas Farr, the State Department's first director of the U.S. Office of International Religious Freedom. Catholic
• Father Raymond De Souza, Roman Catholic priest, NattyPost columnist, and on the Board of Directors at The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs
• Anne Brandner, former policy analyst with the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada., which "promotes Biblical principles on matters of public policy"
• Don Hutchinson, vice-president of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, who yesterday suggested : "A key part of the ambassador’s job should be to help formulate immigration policy."
• Frank Dimant, CEO of B'nai Brith Canada and Chair of the Department of Modern Israel Studies at Charles McVety's Evangelical Canada Christian College .
• Susanne Tamas of the Baha'i Community of Canada.

Our Ambassador of Religious Freedom has a Ph.D in political science and has been a policy research & analysis manager at Natural Resources Canada and senior political risk analyst at Export Development Canada. He is currently working part-time towards a theology degree in Ottawa.

Which of the above credentials do you think will be most useful to him in defending "freedom of religious expression" against our "official secular religion" ?

Update -- DJ : 'Acids of Modernity' at a Christian Finishing School Ha!
.

Steve plugs for Harper Hudak Ford TeaCon trifecta

At a barbecue this summer at Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's house, Steve lays out his hopes for a federal provincial GTA TeaCon sweep :



Flaherty endorses Hudak for premier; the National Post endorses Hudak for premier.

US Tea Party consultant Michael Prell, who bills himself as a "strategist for the Tea Party Patriots," has joined the campaign of Tim Hudak. (h/t Sabina Becker)

So how is Hudak's Ontario election campaign going? Oh, about as you would expect, as this Ontario Cons campaign flyer distributed across greater Toronto this last weekend shows :

Quotes are lifted completely and misleadingly out of context, I'm sure you will not be surprised to learn, from Corporate Television Vehicle and the Toronto District School Board Curriculum Resource Guide. Repeat : Resource Guide.

G&M : "The sex-ed curriculum being taught in schools is the one that has been in place since 1998 when the previous Tory government introduced it, and remains unchanged, the Liberals said in a statement on Monday."

That teeny tiny type at the bottom of the campaign flyer?
Click to enlarge : "Authorized by the C.F.O. for the Ontario PC Party."

Go, Hudak! Go, US Tea Party strategists!
Go, Harper Hudak Ford TeaCon Trifecta!
It's an election! Just make shit up!


Coincidentally, Charles McVety's Institute for Canadian Values(sic) - McVety himself being the very poster child for the need for anti-bullying programs in schools - ran a weirdly disgusting anti-gay anti-trans ad in the National Post on Sept 28 that the Natty Post later apologized for. Yesterday a similar version of the same McVety ad reappeared in the Toronto Sun.
.
Update : Toronto Standard : Fact-checking Hudak's "Homophobic" Flyer
.

McVety wants National Defence investigated

You would think that rapture raptor blowtard Charles McVety would be satisfied with his part in getting DefMin Peter Airshow MacKay to ban Executive Director of the Canadian Islamic Congress Imam Delic from speaking as planned at Defence headquarters yesterday as part of Islamic Heritage/History Month celebrations.
Banned, as Pogge put it, for : "Comments made six years ago by someone else who later apologized for them."

Hell no. McVety still wants Harper to investigate MacKay's National Defence headquarters for boogity boogities. Here he is on CTV :

"We're questioning whether it is a serious security failure. One is the wisdom of our National Defence headquarters having an Islamic Heritage celebration when our men and women are overseas fighting ...."

Um, Charles, did you miss Senator Hugh Segal introducing Imam Delic to speak at the launch of Islamic History Month in Parliament in October 2007? Back to Charles :

"You have to remember this is an internal national defence issue. Is this a security breach that has entered into other places in our government? It's a real surprise to see this happening inside our National Defence headquarters - we're talking about the internal operations of our national defence and intelligence within our defence forces."

From McVety's letter to Stephen Harper (Guess he finally got over being pissed at Steve for being a one-worlder commie):

"Circumstances surrounding this failure raise questions about our Defence headquarters’ internal security at a time when experts warn of the risk of infiltration of our security organizations. Was the Delic invitation facilitated by associates of the Canadian Islamic Congress or other radical Muslim elements operating from within National Defence headquarters itself?
Something has gone wrong, and we ask fair-minded Canadians to call upon Prime Minister Stephen Harper to fully investigate this serious security failure."

Wear it, Airshow. It's all yours. Looks good on ya.
.
See also Dave, Boris, Dawg, Pogge, Balbulican, and Cathie

And here is the text of Imam Delic's cancelled speech.
.

G20 : Faith and Business Edition

Kady snagged this pic of the Inscribe the Bible bus parked outside Charles McVety's Canada Christian College at Karl Rove's speech for the G20 Faith and Business session on Friday.

Inscribe the Bible Canada is sponsored by B'nai Brith Canada and Texas millionaire televangelist Pastor John Hagee's Christians United For Israel. John Hagee Ministries rents office space from McVety for his Canadian operations at Canada Christian College, and McVety in turn is chair of CUFI Canada. B'nai Brith VP Frank Dimant chairs a department on Israel at McVety's college, where his appointment was attended by Jason Kenney. McVety, Hagee, and Dimant have all shared the podium at CUFI bunfests. End times are cozy times.

Anyway back to that bus and Inscribe the Bible.ca. According to the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who originally launched the project :

"People of the World Inscribe the Bible" is a project in which anyone can inscribe a verse from the Bible in his native tongue and in his own handwriting.

The project was launched recently in Ottawa, Canada. [December 16, 2008] A day prior to the launching ceremony, Prime Minister of Canada, Mr. Harper, inscribed the first verse."

Naturally there is a Canadian website with a bold if confusing graphic at the top :

Inscribe The Bilble informs us that all these hand-written bibles from all over the world will eventually be housed in the House of the Bible in the Bible Valley in Israel, where a full scale replica of biblical times with re-enactments of biblical stories and life 2000+ years ago is planned for a 15 mile valley.

Bible Valley :

"The Bible and Peace House will be the jewel in the crown of Bible Valley. The Bible Valley Project intends to develop an area of 25,000 acres adjacent to Jerusalem.

The Bible Valley Project will be composed of several sub-projects. Foremost will be the handwriting of 100 copies of the Bible in various languages by two million Bible lovers from around the world. This will be done in cooperation with the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Bible House is one of the elements in Bible Valley dedicated to bringing the Bible back to Israeli society and Israeli society back to the Bible.

Bring Israeli society back to the Bible? Develop 25,000 acres adjacent to Jerusalem to look like biblical times? Rapture outreach tourism? Take it away, Max ...

Next CUFI bunfest is in a month in Washington DC.
.

Karl Rove Charles McVety bunfest this Friday

Charles McVety will be hosting Karl Rove at his own wee G20 Summit in Toronto on Friday. As McVety describes Rove on his G20.ca website, having purchased the URL two years ago :

Master architect of 75 presidential, senatorial, and gubernatorial campaigns with an almost perfect winning record

but just in case you've never heard of 'Bush's brain', McVety adds that he is "seen daily on television."

Nice line-up of sponsors there : B'Nai Brith Canada, Canada Family Action Coalition, Conservative Values of Canada, Institute For Canadian Values.

But all is not well in Valuesworld. Charles is pissed with Harper, who he refers to as "Chairman", for supporting "one-world government" and embracing that well known commie John Maynard Keynes. As McVety explains in his essay on the site:

Keynes was well known for agreeing with Vladimir Lennon on how to bring down free market based societies

presumably in conjunction with other noted communist world leader/songwriters.

And, in case you'd forgotten, Charles also tells us that "CO2 is a natural necessary part of air", Hitler was a "Socialist" and "Iran is building nuclear weapons and threatening to "wipe Israel off the map". More from B'Nai Brith's Frank Dimant about that in the Sunday session.

"Mr. Rove's common-sense approach is a voice that leaders should take heed" says Charles.

Steve must be so proud.

.

KAIROS - The new anti-Semitism vs the churches of Canada

Former American Enterprise Institute alumnus and currently director of communications for Immigration Minister Jason Kenney Alykhan Velshi explained the government decision to cut off funding for the Christian aid group KAIROS by "citing several non-government sources of information on Middle East political issues going back to 2006 that were critical of KAIROS's activities":

Kenney’s office pointed to critical comments made by an Israel-based group. The NGO Monitor said KAIROS is a “main supporter of the anti-Israel divestment movement in Canada.”

"Kenney’s office also pointed to a 2006 press release from B’nai Brith and Canadian Christian College president Charles McVety calling on CIDA to stop funding KAIROS."

Speaking at a forum in Israel, Kenney cited the decision to cut funding to KAIROS as an example of one of the steps the Conservative government has taken to fight anti-Semitism.

Members of the KAIROS aid group - the United Church of Canada, the Anglican Church of Canada, the Presbyterian Church in Canada, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Mennonite Central Committee - are understandably pissed :

"It's a horrible charge to make, and to do it with so little thought cheapens the reality of anti-Semitism in the world and diminishes the very careful attention that it deserves," said United Church spokesperson Bruce Gregersen.

"The policies of KAIROS have all been approved by the collective board of KAIROS, so in a sense what Mr. Kenney is doing is accusing Canadian churches of being anti-Semitic and I think that's really unfortunate," Gregersen said in an interview.

"Minister Kenney's charge against KAIROS is false."

You guys haven't being paying attention, have you?
Sending aid to Palestine is criticism of Israel. Criticism of Israel is the new anti-Semitism.
.
Kenney made his ridiculous fawning speech announcing the reason for the funding cut to KAIROS from the Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism in Jerusalem, where he was accompanied by Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism co-chairs Lib MP Mario Silva and Con MP ScottReid, along with IACCA founding member, Lib MP Irwin Cotler.

The chair of the conference, Israel's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Avigdor Lieberman, laid it out in his opening remarks : "Being anti-Israel is the new anti-Semitism".
.
From KAIROS : Seven ways to support KAIROS, including a petition.
.

Middle-aged People Effing Up

Our story so far...
Bill C-10, aka McVety's 'Young People Effing' Bill, the film tax-credit legislation to block government funding of any film which might offend the delicate sensibilities of Canadian Heritage officials, sails through the House because no one really reads these effing things apparently. Off it goes to the Senate where someone who actually does read these things says, "Eff me! Hang on a sec" and proposes an amendment. The amendment causes it to go back to the House for a confidence vote because it's about money, whereupon the Libs have to vote to pass it rather than risk precipitating an election which would feature Con campaign ads like this :

"Stephane Dion wants to spend your hard-earned tax dollars on movies like Young People Effing. Is this how you want your government to spend your hard-earned tax dollars?"

causing voters right across Canada to turn to one another and ask, "What the fuck is "effing"?
G&M link

Paging Charles McVety to the white evangelical courtesy phone

Tory bill could lead to abortion ban: Que. doctors

"Quebec's medical specialists say a private member's bill that would make harming a fetus a crime is likely to outlaw abortions.
Gaetan Barrette, who heads the province's association of specialist doctors, criticized Bill C-484 for opening the door to recognizing the rights of a fetus.
The bill, tabled by Conservative MP Ken Epp, would amend the Criminal Code to allow separate charges to be laid in the death or injury of an unborn child when a pregnant woman is attacked.
It passed first reading last month with support from both Conservative and Liberal MPs.
Barrette, whose association rarely weighs in on policy debates, pointed out that the bill's supporters are already eyeing a court challenge to Canada's abortion laws.
He says the association wants to protect abortion doctors from possible lawsuits and avoid a return to back-alley abortions."

Meanwhile, evangelist Charles McVety has been doing yeoman's work inadvertantly scuttling Bill C-10, the bill to deny government tax credits to tv shows and movies the SoCons don't like, by boasting he'd personally been the guiding hand behind the bill all along.

Hey Chuck, what about Bill C-484? Don't be shy. Surely you and the Canada Family Action Coalition had at least a little influence on writing up this one, huh? C'mon, Chuck, help us out over here - tell the Canadian people you're the force behind C-484 too.

Canadian Gothic : McVety and Day

Impolitical reports that blowface evangelical crusader Charles McVety, president of the Canada Family Action Coalition, is claiming credit for Bill C-10, an omnibus bill now before the Senate that would allow the federal government to deny tax credits for films that are "offensive or not in the public interest".

Or as McVety puts it : "films promoting homosexuality, graphic sex or violence"

So I guess a Canadian remake of that conservative values homo-erotic snuff film classic, "The Passion of the Christ" would be completely out then, would it?

Way to go, Chuck. Get that message out there before it clears the Senate!

McVety said "his lobbying efforts included discussions with Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day and Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, and "numerous" meetings with officials in the Prime Minister's Office", and "a number of Conservative backbench members that do a lot of this work behind the scenes."

Seems the amendment was tucked into a finance bill and no one who works 'front of House' had read it.

But now, thanks to the grotesque vanity and eternal grandstanding of Charles "The bible interprets itself" McVety, we will have time to contact our MPs and ask whether they are part of McVety's little support group, and if not, just what the hell they are prepared to do about it.

"Films promoting homosexuality" indeed.

Bloggers and friends, start your letters.

Update : Nice to see that letter writing still works.

From Dead Things ON Sticks an as yet unconfirmed report that C-10 may already be limping its way back to committee.

Couldn't have done it without your blowtard help, McVety!

NAWL goes down

This is the Victoria BC office of the Status of Women Action Group. As you can see, it is a 7x7 foot storage locker. While they do have the use of a donated voice mail, they no longer have any federal funding. No swag for SWAG.

H/T to F-email Fightback who blogged about this back in July.

One year ago the federal Conservative government announced it would no longer fund women's groups that do polling, advocacy, lobbying or general research. Perhaps the most drastic change to the mandate and operation of Status of Women Canada was also dropping the word "equality'' from the agency's goals.

So it wasn't much of a surprise this week to learn that NAWL, the National Association for Women and the Law, an advocacy group promoting equal rights, pay equity, legal access and education, is closing its doors due to those very changes to the criteria for funding. Like the two women in the storage locker in Victoria, they will continue their work, but as volunteers.

At the time of the budget cuts, Gwen Landolt of REAL Women, the traditional-values group which has spent the last 25 years fighting against equal rights for women, explained that groups (like SWAG) are no longer needed because "women are equal now". I somehow doubt this line of reasoning would much impress the woman in the wheelchair working at the storage locker, given that a woman working full-time makes 73 cents as compared to the dollar made by a man in the same job. I also suspect this leaves little free time for advocacy but Gwen is unfazed : "If a group can't support itself and its lobbying activities across the country, then it just isn't a grassroots organization and shouldn't be funded by the taxpayer."

She is inordinately proud of the fact that REAL Women does not receive a single penny in federal funding and professes not to see why anyone else should, neglecting to mention that REAL Women has in fact applied for federal funding, but was delisted in 1999 for not having any actual programs that furthered the main objective of Status of Women Canada, which, as you will recall, used to consist of programs and advocacy for women. Gay bashing and anti-abortion propaganda evidently did not count as credits.

Gwen was interviewed on CBC's The Current yesterday.

Anna Maria Tremonti asked her if she didn't think that pay equity, paid maternity leave, and a national daycare plan were things that Canadian women wanted. Landolt explained that women were different from men and that if women had wanted a national daycare plan, they wouldn't have voted for Harper.

I do hope, women of Canada, that you are taking notes. You will recall that in an effort to appear to have outgrown his a nutty Reform roots, Harper campaigned on a promise not to attack funding for women. Nonetheless, Landolt, along with Charles McVety, met with Harper his very first day in office.

Landolt was also very exercised about Canada having been censured by the UN group CIDA for not having done enough to promote women's rights. CIDA attacked Harper, she explained, because of what the feminists told CIDA about him.
Do you really think that was what turned them off, Gwen? Or do you think it might have been that the office of your associate at REAL Women, Sharon Hayes, a Reform MP and also a board member of Focus on the Family, circulated a press release claiming that the Chinese perform ritual abortions in order to eat the fetuses? Just a guess here.

Josee Verner was also on The Current but mercifully the sound of her going round and round in circles blended so well with the sound of the washing machine that I only caught a couple of her cycles.
Roughly paraphrased :
JV : NAWL didn't get funding because they didn't apply for it.
AMT : What, given the new mandate, could they have applied for?
JV : Well they didn't apply. That's why they didn't get funding.
AMT, brightening up : So if they do apply now, could their funding be restored?
JV : Murmer, murmer. At just that point, Josee's spin cycle clicked in so I didn't hear a satisfactory answer.

Gosh, she's so nice though, isn't she? Really, it would be churlish to ask anything more from her.

Go listen to both of them, along with two NAWL advocates, here.
Heather Mallick on the value of SWC & LEAF, the perfidy of REAL Women
F-email Fightback : Amnesty International on NAWL closure
Also : Impolitical, and JJ, and Hope and Onions