Citizens Centre Report Magazine articles from June 2003

Citizens Centre Report Magazine archives from June 2003

Letter from the publisher: In Canada, the courts overrule the people. In Switzerland, the people govern the courts.
June 1, 2003... By: Link Byfield In the blizzard of media stories about the homosexual-marriage question these past two months, one very important point has been overlooked. The focus has been this: should Parliament grant gays the right to marry before...

Up Front.
June 1, 2003... By: Colby Cosh Turmoil behind the touchpad Like an angry parent who has had quite enough nonsense, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commmission (CRTC) has put its foot down in the ongoing squabble between the two...

Letters to the editor.(Letter to the Editor)
June 1, 2003... Segregation causes division Re: "Ottawa funds more bilingualism," (Democracy, April 14). New Brunswick, the only bilingual province in Canada, has descended into racism by buying 21 new buses (probably made by Bombardier) to protect its...

Opening Shots: The courts' contempt for fundamental rights is reflected in a teacher's free-speech case.
June 1, 2003... By: Terry O'Neill Most Canadians point proudly to the fact they live in a country where human rights and civil liberties are held in high esteem and are vigorously defended. They cite the country's democratic traditions, its human-rights...

WHERE THERE'S: A WILL... Materialistic baby boomers have a dangerous tendency to fight over inheritances unless parents make their wishes very clear.
June 1, 2003... BY MYRIAM L'ABBEE Visitors to Les Kotzer's website, www.familyfight.com, are invited to leave cautionary testimonies of their own experiences to enlighten others. Here are a few excerpts: I am the youngest of four kids who really...

Trudeaumania's: boom, bust and echo Sheila Copps proposes a statue on Parliament Hill to memorialize her hero.
June 1, 2003... ' BY KEVIN STEEL Fifteen bronze statues grace Parliament Hill in Ottawa, including life-sized likenesses of Queen Elizabeth, Queen Victoria, Canadian founding fathers George Brown and Thomas D'Arcy McGee, and prime ministers John...

MISBEHAVIN': FREE OF CHARGE Unlike breaking a business contract, there are no penalties for a spouse who breaks up a marriage, even by adultery or abuse.
June 1, 2003... BY KEVIN STEEL April 10 of this year was one of the worst days of Wally Glimm's life. After listening that afternoon to a judge rule on his divorce settlement with his estranged wife, Bobi Zadow, the 53-year-old farmer from Leduc, Alta.,...

Grande Prairie horsemen protest a bylaw that disallows riding within city limits.
June 1, 2003... By: Kevin Steel They were the outlaw posse of 2003. Twenty-two cowboys on horseback riding into town on a cold and snowy day in Grande Prairie, Alta., determined to defy authority. In loose formation, they kept to the side of the highway,...

Democracy.(brief items)
June 1, 2003... By: Peter Stock Devout Jews defend their sukkahs in court Orthodox Jews from a Montreal condominium complex are defending their right to celebrate the 3,000-year-old festival of shelters remembering the 40 years of wandering in the...

The Right Eye: From UFO Land to the Inferno.
June 1, 2003... By: Ian Hunter Roman Catholics (indeed any Christian) privileged to be granted an audience with Pope John Paul II would address him as "Your Holiness." Journalists seeking an interview with the founder and high priest of the Raelian cult,...

The Drive for Freedom: Westerners renew the push to develop their own economy and values--inside or outside of Confederation.
June 1, 2003... BY ELI BYFIELD On May 5, five Albertans accosted shoppers amid gusting flurries in Edmonton's west-end commercial strip to get them to sign a petition. The issue: a request for a provincial referendum on Alberta's secession from...

Editor's Analysis: West-Fed: political lessons from a failed movement.( Western Canada Federation)(Editorial)
June 1, 2003... By: Mike Byfield In early 1981, I became the Calgary communications director for an outfit called the Western Canada Federation, or West-Fed. This organization--I use that term loosely--emerged with explosive speed from Alberta's rage...

Casualties of the: Newspaper Wars With its editor-in-chief out the door, will the conservative National Post survive its new bosses?
June 1, 2003... BY RIC DOLPHIN THE ENGLISH LOVE GOD was taking things in his stride when reached at his comfortable Toronto home a few days after the long knives had been applied. "It was just a bloody job," said Martin Newland, the athletic 41-year-old...

Inside Straight: Farewell to the Post, one Canadian paper that delivered.
June 1, 2003... By: Paul Bunner If you have been a reader of this magazine for any length of time, you will have established a "relationship" with it. Like a lover, it will have made you angry, sad, amused, amazed or perplexed. Some writers you will have...

More central control: Chretien's campaign finance bill further erodes public influence in federal politics.
June 1, 2003... BY JOANNE BYFIELD Former U. S. vice-president Hubert Humphrey complained that fundraising for elections was a dirty, disgusting business. Whether he meant it was demeaning to grovel for cash from business buddies and colleagues, or whether...

A LADY WHO COUNTS: Auditor General Sheila Fraser transforms a rural upbringing into national integrity.
June 1, 2003... BY PETER STOCK Sheila Fraser must have seemed like a natural choice for auditor general when she got the job courtesy of Jean Chretien on May 31, 2001. She grew up in an Anglo-Liberal family whose roots in Quebec date back to 1820. She is...

OVERSHADOWING PARLIAMENT: The federal auditor general is a more effective critic of government than the official Opposition.
June 1, 2003... BY PETER STOCK Garry Breitkreuz has been a tireless critic of waste and mismanagement at the federal firearms registry since the program was launched in 1997. The Canadian Alliance MP has placed an unprecedented 300-plus...

Special Report: Citizens Centre for Freedom and Democracy.
June 1, 2003... CANADA IS BROKEN, AND THE CITIZENS CENTRE FOR FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY WANTS TO HELP FIX IT. But the Citizens Centre, the country's newest and fastest-growing public-interest movement, doesn't only want to look to the past to recapture the pride...

Private healthcare fills crucial gaps: Vancouver's for-profit surgical centres offer treatment-for-pay in place of waiting months or years in public queues.
June 1, 2003... BY CANDIS MCLEAN One month before his wedding last September, 26-year-old warehouse manager Shawn Coldwell of Vancouver became very ill. He lost his sense of smell and taste and lived in a perpetual fog of exhaustion. Finally, he could no...

REDISCOVERING: THE RIGHT AGENDA The Alliance must commit to ideals and ideas, not vague decision-making processes. After years of strategic drift, Harper positions the Alliance as an equal partnership of social and economic conservatism. This article is based on his remarks at the Civitas meeting in Toronto on April 25, 2003.
June 1, 2003... By: Stephen Harper The Canadian Alliance wrapped up its leadership race a little over one year ago. At the time, the chattering classes told us the race was about the so-called "unity" issue--the question of whether we should have one...

Business Digest.
June 1, 2003... By: Murray Lytle Car-repair charges can be grotesquely high The Automobile Protection Association has published its latest car-repair survey, and the results are not reassuring. Its survey procedure involves carefully servicing a car,...

Healthwise: Treating all patients with medicine and surgery alone is not scientifically reasonable.
June 1, 2003... By: Dr. Stephen Genuis A recent article published in the February 2002 edition of the Canadian Medical Association Journal suggests that "Patients want their physicians to respect their spiritual beliefs and they feel better cared for when...

Paleoclimate research suggests the 'normal' long-term weather of the: prairies is much more drought-prone than the past century was.
June 1, 2003... BY COLBY COSH The last thing anybody who lives on the broad North Saskatchewan River worries about is waking up one morning and having the river not be there. Edmontonians worry more about flooding, if anything; in 1915, the water level...

Science & Technology.
June 1, 2003... By: Colby Cosh OH, THOSE RUSSIANS Whatever else happened to the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse-gas emissions--signed in 1997 but still not in force--the Russian Federation was supposed to be securely on board. And a good thing, too, for...

Orthodoxy: The bishop of Oxford wants to tone down Jesus' language. How odd that Jesus did not.
June 1, 2003... By: Ted and Virginia Byfield Touchstone magazine reports in a recent issue on a London Times interview with the Anglican bishop of Oxford. The bishop thinks Christians should tone down some of the things that Jesus said because they might...

Numbers.(Statistics )
June 1, 2003... By: Myriam L'Abbee SOCIETY J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, is now richer than Queen Elizabeth II, according to an annual Sunday Times survey of Britain's wealthiest people. The 37-year-old former welfare recipient has...

Brave New World.
June 1, 2003... By: Celeste McGovern So many ways to make a baby, and more all the time Imagine the fertility doctors chatting it up at the pub after a day's work in the clinic. "How many ways can you think of to make a baby? Well, not including...

The Record.(Obituary)
June 1, 2003... COMPILED BY VICTOR OLIVIER AND RICK HIEBERT DIED: Philanthropist and businessman Cecil H. Green, 102; in his sleep, in La Jolla, California, April 12. Born in Whitefield, England, he immigrated to Vancouver in 1906 with his family. Educated...

Westview: Lessons from a by-election: success starts by getting the Alliance out of Ontario.
June 1, 2003... By: Ted Byfield Surely the time is long overdue when the Canadian Alliance party should face up to an unpleasant reality. It is never going to get elected in Ontario. Is any other conclusion possible from the by-election result last month...