George Smitherman seeks special treatment for "gays".

Toronto -- On May 11, 2006, Ontario Minister of Health George Smitherman chose to reveal he had been addicted to "party drugs" for five years in the early 1990s. He claimed that, thanks to a great effort on his part and appropriate help, he has now been clean for ten years. He made his revelation in a way to elicit sympathy as a "victim," by linking his habit to his father's illness and death.

Smitherman is a homosexual activist. He is now 42 years old and was therefore in his thirties at the time of his drug addiction. At the height of his addiction, Smitherman was executive assistant to (former) Toronto feminist mayor Barbara Hall. Later, he hired her as a senior bureaucrat at the Ministry of Health. Today, Hall heads the Ontario Human Rights Commission.

Both Hall and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty claim they were unaware of Smitherman's drug use. McGuinty commended him for "coming clean," lauding his courage. Similar praise came from other supporters of "gay equality" such as Ontario Progressive Conservative party leader John Tory, and the Toronto Star and Globe and Mail.

Smitherman confirms that alcoholism, drug abuse, depression and HIV/AIDS are more common among people with alternative "sexual orientations." Many aspects of these disorders are behavioural in nature. That means, he indicated, that the "gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgendered communities" require a special health care system (address to the Rainbow Health Coalition's Health and Wellness conference in Halifax, Nov. 3, 2005, as reported on Canada.com, Nov. 4, 2005).

His words have prompted the Family Coalition Party of Ontario to charge that Smitherman and his government intend to introduce discrimination into Ontario's healthcare system to favour those with different sexual practices, to the detriment of everyone else. "This is the same government that promotes the (homosexual) lifestyle, knowing full well that it is not a healthy lifestyle," said FCP executive member Lynne Scime (Impact, Winter 2005).

Impact also noted that at a shareholders meeting of the Royal Bank in Toronto on February 22, 2002, Smitherman encouraged the bank to curtail service to those who oppose "gay equality." More recently, at a meeting in Montreal, he spoke in favour of actively recruiting "gay" and lesbian doctors to immigrate to Ontario.