Battle over C-33: continuing thrust towards party dictatorship opens eyes for first time.

The battle over Bill C-33 was fierce, because it involved legalizing a right to a moral disorder. Adding "sexual orientation" to Canada's Human Rights Act meant consolidating the erroneous actions of seven provinces who had been talked into changing their own Human Rights Acts earlier. This required that Prime Minister Jean Chretien had to reverse himself first, after his resolve had been shaken by opposition to the Hate Crimes Bill in the fall. This was done on the advice of his trusted counsellor in his Prime Minister's office, anti-life Eddie Goldenberg who had promised homosexuals in 1994 that he would see to it that the change be made. Chretien's reversal followed the public attack for "delaying" the amendment by Max Yalden, the retiring, anti-family chairman of the Canadian Human Rights Commission. From thereon Justice Minister Allan Rock carried the ball.

Allan Rock

Mr. Rock prepared himself well: he first met for a strategy session with John Fisher, representative of the gay/lesbian Ottawa group Egale. Then on Monday, April 29, the Justice Minister followed through by tabling the amendment. It was accompanied by an extraordinary letter in which Mr. Rock presented himself as an old-time Catholic who loves the dear old religion. (In reality he couldn't care less.) Quoting from the Catholic Catechism he showed that legitimizing homosexual activity was in harmony with Catholic teaching. After all, the Church condemns unjust discrimination, doesn't she?

Nothing could have been more brazen than this deliberate falsification. But brazenness is what Rock is all about. Privately he let it be known that Canada's Catholic bishops were in his back pocket. He was more worried about Liberal MPs.

Resisting MPs

In the fall of 1995 Liberals Roseanne Skoke, Tom Wappel, Dan McTeague and Paul Steckle had fought the addition of "sexual orientation" to the Hate Crimes Bill. For their "insubordination" Mr. Chretien threatened not to sign their nomination papers at the next election. This was in line with his behaviour during the 1993 election when he parachuted pro-abortion candidates into five riggings where pro-life candidates had been nominated. In 1995 the four were removed from all parliamentary committees and duties. They failed to stop the bill. But they did stir moral unrest among fellow Liberals about the next step. That step was now.

Pushing "sexual orientation" called for disguise and deceit. Mr. Chretien, who had opposed a free vote, suddenly announced a free vote, presumably out of "love for democracy." This was for public consumption. The real reason for the change of heart was internal intelligence reporting rank and file resistance. Damage control was applied by quietly ordering Cabinet ministers and parliamentary secretaries, 60 people altogether, to vote in favour. In other words, it wasn't to be a free vote after all. Opponents of the bill were visited by handsome anti-life MPs, or people like Ontario Liberal Party organizer David Smith who hates pro-life MPs, in order to twist arms. If they couldn't be prevailed upon to vote in favour, perhaps they could attend a meeting in New York for a day or two.

Hypocrisy mandated by media

Mr. Chretien himself went into theatrics about being "outraged" at remarks by a Reform MP during a Vancouver radio interview, sentiments which NDP homosexual MP Svend Robinson had carried on tape for two years waiting for the precise date to set the trap for a fresh interview and publicity. The "outrage," then, was carefully orchestrated and executed by the media.

Canada's "objective" and "impartial" news media had gone berserk already. They denounced a free vote. They called opponents of the bill every name under the sun--homophobics, bigots, racists, Troglodites. The print media published editorial after editorial. Between January and May 1,1996, the Toronto Globe published six, the Toronto Star five and the Ottawa Citizen three. Over the four-month period, these three daily papers together published 62 articles, (that is four a week) hailing, promoting, defending the homosexual lifestyle. And that's not counting "simple" news reports which--do we have to explain it?--carry a more hidden pro-homosexual bias by deliberate choice of word, or title, or people interviewed. Despite this, caucus defiance continued to grow.

Government tyranny

Contrary to all evidence of the past ten years, Mr. Rock (and the media) denied and denied again that the alteration of the Act would have any side effects whatever. So, debate was shut off after one day and the vote called on second reading. Approval 178 to 53, of whom 23 were Liberals. As promised, the Bloc Quebecois helped Mr. Chretien by voting in favour in closed ranks. Said Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe: "It's no issue with us. That shows you why we are a distinct society."

That same day Deputy Prime Minister Sheila Copps resigned over the GST and the Liberal executive gave another demonstration of cynicism by announcing an immediate by-election, with the nomination meeting held that same day, without the required notice, for Sheila to be re-nominated. Two days earlier MP John Nunziata had been sacked for daring to speak and vote the truth on the GST.

Again, in their "love for democracy" the government decided to allow "hearings", that is, one day of them, on May 2. They couldn't do with less because of legal requirements. The last to be heard were staff members of the CCCB. The Catholic bishops, these people said, supported the legislation, but on condition of amendments. The CCCB document--like earlier ones--was politically inept, confirming Rock's analysis. Committee member Svend Robinson read from the 1992 letter from the Vatican opposed to legitimizing deviant behaviour, and from a pastoral letter just issued by the Archbishop of Vancouver stating that the Bill must be opposed unless three basic guarantees were agreed upon: 1) a definition of sexual orientation; 2) no marital status for homosexuals; 3) protection for freedom of speech. Robinson asked the staff their opinion. Bewildered, they replied that they could speak for the CCCB only, not for others.

Struggle for the Christian conscience

But there was a new development. For the first time since Vatican II, Canadian bishops by-passed their CCCB. At least ten of them issued statements opposing Bill C-33 before the crucial May 5 Sunday, the last date before the vote on which they could reach their faithful: Vancouver (Archb. Exner), Kamloops (Bp. Sabatini); Thunder Bay and London (Bps. Henry and Sherlock); Toronto and Ottawa (Archb's. Ambrozic and Gervais); Cornwall (Bp. LaRocque); Timmins (Bp. Cazabon), Yarmouth (Bp. Wingle) and Antigonish (Bp. Campbell).

Bishop Wingle of Yarmouth, NS, for example, started his one-page pastoral letter with, "My dear people. I appeal to you urgently to act immediately to prevent a terrible erosion of the sanctity of marriage and the family." He followed this up with debunking Justice Minister Allan Rock's spurious claims. Unfortunately, in some dioceses such as Toronto and Ottawa this last-hour action only reached parishioners in a handful of parishes.

By the weekend of May 5 opponents of the legislation were working overtime. Strategy meetings, phone calls, faxes to MPs offices were the order of the hour. Individual MPs, Campaign Life Coalition, the Catholic Civil Rights League, United Church Renewal, Evangelical groups, and many, many others kept the phone lines humming. A week earlier even Catholic Insight had faxed its May editorial to 106 Liberals who, it thought, might benefit from it. On Tuesday May 7 a full page advertisement, in the Globe and Mail, at $40,000, exploded five myths promoted by the homosexual lobby.

Yet all this barely touched the surface of people's awareness, because for information they depend on the news media. These turn the flow of news on and off at will: days of propaganda and calls of shame about so-called intolerance, followed by days of silence while opponents of Bill C-33 spoke in the House. Reform MP Art Hanger's revelation of a March office memo in the Justice Department showing Mr. Rock knew full well that there will be side effects was stonewalled by a media committed to hammering so-called Reform intolerance.

On May 8 and 9 some 20 amendments were introduced, mainly putting the Justice Minister's denials into legal texts so as to make certain that same-sex marriages, censorship, etc., would not come to pass. Some were sponsored by Reform MPs, others by Liberals. Once again Liberal party dictatorship denied a free vote on the very amendments bishops and others had been asking for. And so, defeated they were.

Reform MP Mike Scott concluded his May 9 speech in the Commons with the observation that "Politics in Canada in 1996 is a dirty, rotten, slimy business." Seemingly to prove it, the vote on May 9, Thursday, 6 p.m., was 153 to 76.

Yet, wasn't there also a silver lining in the cloud? Twenty-nine Liberal Members voted their conscience and rejected the immoral legislation. They did this in defiance of what may be described as a growing liberal-fascism in party and press. Their defiance was a first in post-1960 Canada. Could it be that eyes are finally being opened and that after many bad people, now some good people are coming out of the closet? But will these people now band together and act accordingly?

Conclusion

The immediate rumour following the vote was that Chretien may now rush the legalization of euthanasia. To me, this seems unlikely but with this crowd one doesn't know. As for Bill C-33, hardly was the vote taken when MP Svend Robinson, NDP-homosexual, was seen on TV saying that Reform had been "absolutely right" all along to argue that the legislation will lead to new benefits for homosexuals, and Justice Minister Rock "wrong" in denying it. (This quote went unreported by leading papers the next day except for the chain of Sun newspapers). May 11, 1996

School battles

Newfoundland

The province's request to the federal government to facilitate a constitutional change for the expropriation of denominational schools is not faring well in Ottawa's current climate of Liberal revolts. The Hate Crimes Bill controversy led four Liberals to revolt; the Gun Control Bill, eight. The sexual orientation amendment revealed public opposition of 23 Liberals on second reading, May 1, and 28 on third reading. The Newfoundland request would do worse.

On the other side, however, the Bloc Quebecois now plays the nefarious role of backing the anti-Christian, anti-Catholic group within the Liberal Party, voting as a party in favour of their policies. The silence of the bishops in Quebec on both moral and school issues further undermines resistance to the Bloc's policies and that of their Liberal Quebec colleagues. Quebec, too, wants to abolish Catholic schools. It remains to be seen whether that government will even ask federal or constitutional permission to do so.

Meanwhile Newfoundland's new Premier, Brian Tobin, says he still intends to seek a Constitutional amendment. An official in the Prime Minister's office, Lesley Swartman, confirmed that the constitutional amendment is still considered a priority. She couldn't say if it will be dealt with before the summer recess.