Of course Harper, the 18th-century monarchist, is well on his way to reversing that.
The CanaDoper Café (2012 edition of The great, ongoing Canadian current events and politics thread.)
Kenm, are you suggesting that no Canadian be allowed to accept honours from any foreign government? Or is it only the UK government’s honours you have a problem with?
I note you have so far not have mentioned US honours conferred on Canadians: see, for example, the Congressional Medal of Honor conferred upon Canadians:
And let’s not forget that the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry won a Presidential Unit Citation for actions at Kapyong, during the Korean War.
We also have Nobel Prize winners from Canada: Sir Frederick Banting, for example (1921 medicine); or John Polyani (1986, Chemistry); or Lester B. Pearson (1957, Peace). Should these gentlemen be excluded from consideration because “Canada does not allow foreign honours”? In this case, from the Nobel Foundation, in Sweden (medicine and chemistry) and Norway (peace)? Should these honours be denigrated (or refused) because they are foreign and not Canadian?
Note that all of the above have occurred since the Nickel Resolution in 1919. Are the US and Sweden and Norway okay to accept honours from, being independent republics; but the UK isn’t, being our colonial masters? (Hint: See April 17, 1982, for an answer.)
If–oh, I don’t know–say, Italy, wishes to confer an honour upon a Canadian today, I say, let it. We are independent from the UK, so if the UK wishes confer an honour upon a Canadian, let it. It is a foreign honour, like the US Congressional Medal, or the French Legion d’Honneur. Canadians have accepted these before with no problem from the Canadian government; where’s the problem with an honour from the UK? According to our Constitution, the UK government is a foreign government.
I believe that Black went about it the wrong way. He was impatient, he got on the wrong side of Chretien; and it is my belief that had he not pushed the matter publicly using the media as a tool, things would have been taken care of through diplomatic channels, and resolved somehow. Hell, I’d suggest that if Black had been honoured by the Netherlands, or Switzerland, or Thailand, this wouldn’t be an issue. It’s only because the honour was coming from the UK that there is a problem (horrors! colonialism! we’re not masters in out own house! wake the kids and call the neighbours, the UK still rules Canada!) Knowledgeable and educated Canadians know differently.
In any event, Black sitting in the House of Lords would never affect Canada. See again the Constitution Act, 1982, Schedule B to the Canada Act 1982 (UK), 1982, c 11.
You may not have liked the result of Black v. Chretien, (2001), 54 O.R. (3d) 215, 199 D.L.R. (4th) 228 (C.A.); Kenm, but then, not every Canadian likes the outcome of all court cases. Or what the federal government does in response to those cases. Part of living under our own Constitution and Charter that are immune to changing by the UK, I guess.
No, it hasn’t. Canada has no such power, and the Nickle Resolution doesn’t actually prohibit anything since it’s not even law.
18th-century monarchist? Where did this come from?
From Kenm’s feverish brain, I suspect.
The thought of Harper in one of those massive powdered wigs is too horrible to contemplate …
Yeah. It was John Diefenbaker’s undoing. (Sound abruptly cuts in.)
Whereas Conrad Black made an excellent Cardinal Richelieu…
Black and Amiel as Richelieu and Marie Antoinette? I thought it was supposed to be a costume ball…
It is. He usually dresses as Maurice Duplessis.
The federal Reform probably will put Duplessis on the new $5 bill.
Last penny to be minted today.
I’d just like to mention that the NLL playoffs get underway starting tonight.
Of the eight teams in the playoffs, all three of the Canadian squads are in: the Toronto Rock host the Buffalo Bandits Saturday night (I think the game might be broadcast on TSN or TSN 2) and the Edmonton Rush visit the Calgary Roughnecks Saturday night as well. As with all NLL games, they can be viewed online through NLL’s website.
The top two seeds in the playoffs are Calgary and Toronto, so the smart money at this point is on an all-Canadian Champion’s Cup final, but with the level of parity in the league this year, one good night or one bad night by anyone could swing things in unexpected directions. Should be entertaining stuff for those of us who aren’t all that into watching US-based teams battle for Lord Stanley’s cup.
Let’s hope the Queen does not pass away today as well.
Yay! Lacrosse! 
Translation:
<sticks fingers in ears>
Lalalalalalala I can’t hear you!
Not really. It’s good form to at least include some relevant quoted text in a response, not just link to a bunch of stuff and expect the reader to wade through it and try to postulate what the intent is.
In reference to our earlier discussion about the Gideon’s - Jeffrey Miller had an interesting piece about studying the bible in the Globe and Mail. It’s a very sensitive issue, and I understand how people of religion don’t want secular humanist/atheist people like me teaching the bible, but I fundamentally agree. I don’t see how one is supposed to understand anything of Western literature without a thorough knowledge of the bible, whether we’re talking about Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky or ‘The Matrix’.
His very first paragraph is ridiculous, though - “atheists should be thrilled about the Gideons handing out Bibles…”
That isn’t the issue at all. You know as well as I do that no one studies a bible that was handed to them in the hallway between Math and Phys Ed. Kids getting a bible in this manner won’t learn a thing more about art, history, world religions or any other topic.
Atheists are, in general, fine with the bible being taught as a work of literature, complete with criticism, questioning, pointing out inconsitencies and falsehoods, discussing sexism or paternalism or whatever the hell themes you want. It’s the religious people who don’t want that, because it exposes the bible for what it is: a random book of fairy tales, fables, allegories and weird stories from the past, written by several men, over a large period of time and full of inconsistencies, biases and ideas that aren’t valid or applicable today.
Just try teaching that to fifth graders. Heck, try teaching that to students at any primary or secondary level of schooling and just watch the religious-types go apeshit with rage, spouting nonsense about “freedom of religion.”
Jeffrey Miller wants to appease the religious masses, he doesn’t want to further the literary knowledge of fifth-graders. This is a man who took university-level literature classes, then read the bible and started making parallels to things he’s read before and since. The man teaches law and literature at Western. How many fifth-graders know Shakespeare, Milton, Blake, Picasso, Charlie Parker? It just isn’t the same situation whatsoever and he comes off as a pretentious twat because of it.
The bible has no place in schools unless in a literary context which is the one context bible-thumpers cannot accept. So remove the thing altogether and leave it to university to teach it: as was the case for Jeffrey Miller, and he turned out ok (well, other than writing pretentious twatitudes for the Globe and Mail, that is)
It is important to study any number of things rather than be them. The hitch with Gideons is not that the Bible will be read, but rather that it is used to proselytize and is presented as truth. The primary goal of Gideons is to introduce people to Jesus Christ as the true god. It is not to teach the history of English literature, or the history of religions, or western cultural studies, or any number of other fields in which the Bible has had profound importance. It is to introduce people to Jesus Christ as the true god.
Miller speaks of Frye, under whom he studied. Note that although Frye was a minister, when he taught on the Bible and literature related to the Bible, he placed the bible and religion in context, rather than presenting them as truth with a view to making converts. He was able to use his biblical knowledge, but at the same time distance himself enough from his faith that he was also able to look at the Bible and religion from the outside. He was able to put the bible and religion in context with respect to literature and culture, rather than see literature and culture through the glasses of someone filled with the word of Jesus.
Back when I was reading texts such as the Bible under Frye, I was also reading The Communist Manifesto, Mein Kamph, and many other culturally important texts, but it was not in the context of becoming a Christian, a communist or a fascist. To learn about what we are, we must learn about how such texts have helped form our culture, so to ignore them is to be willfully ignorant.
But just as knowledge of the Bible is important for understanding English literature, it is also important to not be such an adherent to the Bible as to let it stand in the way of critical analysis. That’s where true believers usually fall down, for in accepting and promoting the one true word of god, they tend to turn a blind eye to the simple fact that the Bible is one, albeit the primary one, text of many that collectively have been central to our literary culture and it’s development over many hundreds of years.
Frye used his knowledge, but was not overridden by his faith, when he developed his theories on literary criticism. For someone to teach the Bible in a literary context, I submit that although it is obviously necessary for that person to know the Bible, it is equally important for that person to be intellectually distant enough from the closed system mindset of true believers, such as Gideons, to be able to put the bible and it’s influence into context. It is simple (long and arduous, but simple) for a person to learn the Bible. It is not so simple for a true believer to put his or her profound personal belief into a box, and put the box away in a drawer, for the duration of his or her intellectual pursuit that touches on the Bible as a literary and cultural keystone of English literature and western culture.
When I come across people who are resistant to learning about the Bible or religion from non-believers, I have to wonder if it is that in fact what they want is to hear a reflection and augmentation of their beliefs, rather than an intellectual examination and discussion of how English literature and western culture has been influenced by the Bible and various aspects of Christianity.
In short, if one wants to learn about the Bible’s role in English literature and the development of western culture, one would do better to study under a secular humanist or an atheist rather than someone who has been saved through the word of god to the degree that an intellectual distancing is no longer possible.