Christian Conservative Christian "Independent"

I'm an evangelical Christian, member of the CPC, but presently & unjustly exiled to wander the political wilderness.
All opinions expressed here are solely my own.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

CBC following Frank Graves advice, seeking to start a "culture war" for the Liberals?

It seems that the CBC has decided to follow EKOS pollster Frank Graves' advice, and has launched a disgusting anti-Charter attack on freedom of religion on behalf of their masters, the Liberal Party of Canada.

In an "in depth" report last night, the CBC went on the attack, attacking members of Parliament for the "thought crime" of being members of their local faith communities!

Funny... I thought we had a Liberal Prime Minister named Trudeau who fought to have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms that explicitly protected that right? Must be my mistake.

Here's the irony though... I can name a number of members of the Liberal Party of Canada who are also members of various Evangelical churches... I can think of Dan McTeague, Paul Szabo, and Frank Valeriote right off the top of my head.

And people wonder why there's a large "Shut Down the CBC" contingent within the Conservative Party of Canada... if they keep this garbage up, I might join myself...
CBC Fuels Faith War

Do you recall CBC's claim that it had nothing to do with the advice by CBC pollster Frank Graves, that the Liberal Party should incite a “culture war” to divide Canadians?

Funny, then, that the CBC is using its position as Canada's public broadcaster to foment religious division as the next step in its ongoing campaign against the Conservative Party.

Last night's dominant CBC story -- a full eight minutes in length -- featured an attack on the religious affiliation of some Government members and supporters. . Apparently the CBC thinks it newsworthy that some Conservative Ministers and MPs practise their faith. . Even more scandalous, some members of the Prime Minister's Office go to church!

Is it just coincidence that the CBC news coverage advances the strategy that pollster Frank Graves gave to the Liberal Party? . "I told them [Ignatieff’s Liberals] that they should invoke a culture war... securalism versus moralism," he bragged.

Seems to us that following the Frank Graves strategy was exactly what the CBC was doing last night.

CBC executives have yet to explain why.

Perhaps Canada's tax-funded broadcaster needs a lesson in freedom of religion.

Under the Charter of Rights, neither religious affiliation nor lack of religious affiliation is grounds to deny participation in the democratic life of the country.

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posted by Christian Conservative @ 1:00 p.m.  

13 Comments:

  • At Wed May 12, 02:25:00 p.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    CBC violates its own policies both on the National and on the Current.

    There is a valid complaint about the thrust of both pieces.

    The Current's Findlay was criticized by the National Post's Charles Lewis for participating in the intolerant episode.

    CBC offered no balance to the authour's statements. In fact Wendy Mesley aided in the attacks.

    CBC has no openly Evangelical personality out of its 1000's of on-air personalities. If as the piece suggests that 12% of Canada is Evangelical, then CBC is willfully ostracizing and marginalizing a large segment of Canadians.

    In fact, it would merit a Human Rights complaint if the HRC's themselves weren't so bigoted.

    At the very least however, it merits a CRTC complaint.

     

  • At Wed May 12, 02:37:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger Jerome Bastien said…

    I generally agree with your point, but if you're going to have a large segment of text from somewhere else you should link to its source and you should at the very least cite the source.

     

  • At Wed May 12, 02:37:00 p.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    The fact that Joe Conservative goes to church isn't the issue, its when he tries to twist the constitution, charter of rights and freedoms and parliamentary decrees to fit his/her belief system to the detriment of others. That is when CBC, Libs and Canadians in general need to stand up and make noise. The level of intollerance associated with the Cons is what makes this a news story. What happens when the religious right takes over? Gee haven't we seen examples in Bosnia, Somalia, Afghanistan... Calling attention to the underlying motives of some of these MPs is probably a good thing.

     

  • At Wed May 12, 02:46:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger Christian Conservative said…

    This comment has been removed by the author.

     

  • At Wed May 12, 02:46:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger Christian Conservative said…

    Jerome, waiting for the links to go live... I got an e-mail of a news release that hasn't been posted elsewhere yet.

    Anonymous, you do realize that you just accused millions of Canadians who support the CPC of harbouring genocidal tendencies, right? Guess you must be a Liberal after all... falling back on the old "Fear & Smear" and "Hidden Agenda" mantras whenever you have nothing of substance to offer to the Canadian voter.

     

  • At Wed May 12, 03:41:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger Patrick Ross said…

    Don't forget Tommy Douglas. Baptists are Evangelicals, too.

     

  • At Wed May 12, 03:45:00 p.m. EDT, Anonymous Rajiv said…

    Anonymous said…
    "its when he tries to twist the constitution, charter of rights and freedoms and parliamentary decrees to fit his/her belief system to the detriment of others. ."

    I don't know where to start. Anonymous's comments are too logically fallacious to be worthy of any reasonable response. First of all, the "religious right" has little to no influence on Christians in Canada.I think there also needs to be differentiation between the "Religious right" and evangelicalism which is a term that has nothing to do with politics. Secondly, I believe faith as the underlying reason why a person wants to get involved in politics is a good thing. We have too many examples politicians without any moral compass whatsoever (ie. Adam Giambrione). Thirdly, the conservative party is a coalition-based party with a social conservative wing consisting of Christians, Sikhs, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Confucians, secular conservatives, agnostics etc., all of whom can hardly be characterized as the religious right, but all of whom share socially conservative values based on universal idea that family and traditional values are important.

    There is not a single policy advocated by the CPC nor people within the party that seeks to impose one religion on the public. All sentiments within the party, including those on gay marriage, abortion, and euthanasia are policies that transcend religions, ethnicities and culture. Its laughable that the Liberals would accuse this party of intolerance; it shows that they are still stuck in the 60s. I think the left-wing media needs to start paying attention to the fact that new Canadians from all backgrounds are joining the Conservative Party in droves while the Liberal Party harps about multiculturalism yet does very little to be sensitive to the values of the voters it seeks to attract.

     

  • At Wed May 12, 03:54:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger ridenrain said…

    If one must choose a side, I'd like to hear that list of Liberals and Dippers who were pushing for Shari law in Canada.

     

  • At Wed May 12, 04:14:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger Anon1152 said…

    I watched the CBC piece you mention here. I don't think it was nearly as bad as you say. Though I need to watch it again. I'm also going to see about getting a copy of the book. I'd like to know more about what you think.

    What bothers me isn't so much that there are religious people in government, or that policy decisions are being made on the basis of religious beliefs and convictions; rather, I worry that decisions are being made for these reasons, without anyone talking about it. That's not healthy. It isn't particularly honest, either.

    Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any space within which the secular and the religious can communicate with each other. A common language of some sort is missing. What might look like communication tends to be each side talking to itself (with the other side in earshot).

    Perhaps such a common language never existed... but dialogue seems to be harder now than ever before (or at least, harder now than in recent memory--the 16 and 17th centuries were pretty rough).

    People who I would normally consider my allies [at least, I consider them more ally than enemy] don't make this easier. Consider Warren Kinsella's Barney Dinosaur during the 2000 campaign.

    *

    I'm working on a doctoral thesis proposal. I'm also about to start a summer job doing an index for a professor's book about religion and politics. (He's been working on it for nearly 20 years, and it covers a good 500 years of history).

    I am thinking about focusing on this topic [religion/politics]... Perhaps to ensure that I'm never invited to a family dinner or cocktail party ever again...

     

  • At Wed May 12, 04:20:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger Christian Conservative said…

    HEAR HEAR Rajiv!!!

     

  • At Wed May 12, 04:25:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger Anon1152 said…

    "Don't forget Tommy Douglas. Baptists are Evangelicals, too."

    Good point.

    I tend to disagree with the so-called religious right. But most opposition to the religious right in the USA and Canada is, in my opinion, counter productive and wrongheaded.

    The best way to oppose the religious right is through the religious left.

    Sometimes, you need to fight [hell]fire with [hell]fire. So to speak.

     

  • At Wed May 12, 04:46:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger Anon1152 said…

    ridenrain said:
    "If one must choose a side, I'd like to hear that list of Liberals and Dippers who were pushing for Shari law in Canada."

    Dear Mr(s) Rain:

    I think you are mischaracterizing the issue to which you refer. "Sharia law" was legal in Ontario, insofar as Sharia law principles could be used in out-of-court family arbitration. It had been that way since the early 1990s. A law was passed which was not designed to accommodate religion at all, but allowed for private arbitration (to take pressure off the court system).

    Religious groups did use the law. Jews. Ismaili Muslims. And some Christians, if I recall correctly. There was only controversy around 2005 or so, when a conservative Imam said he was going to start using the law. After the controversy, McGuinty appointed former Ontario Attorney General and famous feminist Marion Boyd to look into the matter. She did, and she made a bunch of recommendations. She recommended keeping the law in place, but making various changes to better-protect women.

    Then suddenly, on September 11th, the government announced that they would get rid of the law. I can't help but think that the date had something to do with it. It also fit with McGuinty's "one law" story, part of which was his position on the public funding of religious schools. If you recall his campaign against John Tory.

    But I digress.

    My point is that, contrary to what you suggest:

    - "Sharia law" was allowed in Ontario.
    - It was not allowed as law per se, nor did it have the force of law; nothing about the system that existed allowed for anything that contradicted or violated Canadian law.
    - The practice was ended by the McGuinty government.

    By the way, there were Jewish groups fighting to keep the law. (And Muslim groups fighting to change it).

    I'm saying all of this from memory. It's been a while since I researched it in any depth. But the Boyd Report is here, if anyone is interested:

    http://www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca/english/about/pubs/boyd/

     

  • At Wed May 12, 09:40:00 p.m. EDT, Anonymous Kelly said…

    Funny, I can't think of one single piece of legislation passed in parliament since the CPC gained power that looks even remotely "religious" or religiously motivated.

     

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