What I’ve been saying all along:  Canada is failing science.

But why does no-one get the obvious, that it’s religious belief mixed in with running a government that creates such a situation.  No-one needs science if the world is coming to and end, no-one needs medicine or life extension technologies if we’re all going to heaven.  And why bother worrying about global warming for much the same reasons.

It’s time we punt Harper.  His knuckle dragging on the sciences is just plain stupid if not outright dangerous.

To Mayor and Council,

Last week we had the United Nations International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a day that needs to be remembered not just for the end results, as unconscionable as they were, but for the words that were spoken in the period that led up to this event.  These were words that degraded and de-humanized the Jewish people, a government backed process that gradually modified the consciousness of even naturally humane people so that the populace became indifferent to Jewish suffering.

I’m ashamed to say that this dehumanizing process is also occurring in Canada on a large scale.  As a politician myself I see and hear first-hand the effects in my own community of Richmond and certainly in Vancouver.  The originating oppressor this time is the Chinese Communist Party, the current oppressors are our own Chinese community, and the target is the Falun Gong.  The parallels with pre-war Nazi Germany are consistent and worrying, something that the Jewish community itself has noted, and we need to recognize this as a significant problem within our own society today.

As far as Canada’s relationship with the Chinese government goes, we need to keep strong pressure on them and say, in no uncertain terms, that their attitudes, their actions, and their behaviour is inconsistent with good ethical and moral human behaviour.  That conversation needs to extend also to our own Chinese community as events these last few years, in particular the banning of Falun Gong parade participation by various corporate entities, and the verbal and physical harassment of Falun Gong practitioners, has to end.

I, for one, fully support the existence of the Falun Gong protest site on Granville and I hope City Council sees it within them to provide a suitable permit for them to stay despite a recent Supreme Court ruling – and at least until the Falun Gong can take their case to the BC Court of Appeal.  This site is a visible reminder to all Canadians, if not the world, that we can and do stand up against tyranny, oppression and censorship – something far and away more important than the enforcement of a sidewalk usage bylaw.