Roundup: Lunney and his martyrdom

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Surprising news on Parliament Hill yesterday was that Conservative MP James Lunney decided he’s going to quit caucus and sit as an independent because his freedom of religion is being suppressed at the senior levels, citing the group of Christian “leaders” who held a press conference on Parliament Hill last week to decry that they are being denied professional and economic opportunity in law, medicine and academia. What that tends to be code for is the fact that they don’t like the that Law Societies around the country don’t want to accredit Trinity Western University’s law school for its homophobic code of conduct, that doctors have to refer people for birth control, and one presumes with academia it’s about things like creationism or “intelligent design.” Lunney went so far in his press release to bemoan the social media firestorm when he defended an Ontario PC MPP who felt that schools should teach creationism. Lunney himself has questioned the science of climate change and given credence to discredited theories like vaccines being linked to autism. And while he has already announced that he won’t run again, what I find most disconcerting is that Lunney is martyring himself for this supposed cause of religious freedom when it’s not that at all. While the Ottawa Citizen editorial put it best, that religious freedom is about not having the state tell you what to believe, it also makes the point that it doesn’t mean your beliefs can’t be questioned or even mocked or satirized. What is most problematic is that this false notion of religious freedom that Lunney and the Charles McVety crowd was moaning about last week is the very same justification for those blatantly anti-gay laws being passed in places like Indiana, where “freedom of religion” is being used as the statutory means to discriminate against gays and lesbians. And in fact, it’s insulting to those who are actually suffering from religious prosecution. I’m not saying they have the numbers here to try and agitate for those kinds of laws, and it would never pass the Charter test regardless, but that mentality remains alarming.

Good reads:

  • Bill C-51 has now passed committee with a mere three government amendments – none of which were apparently connected to the process – and zero from the opposition, while ministers continue to ignore concerns about the bill.
  • The government tabled their Plans and Priorities reports yesterday, but the budgets for the Iraq and NATO reassurance missions are classified, thus stonewalling accountability even more.
  • Ten years later, the government is finally restarting the programme to replace aging search-and-rescue aircraft, but the election will likely delay it further.
  • The RCMP have filed a new ITO looking for more information on Pamela Wallin, and the new information looks all the more damning.
  • While Stephen Gordon argues against a sovereign wealth fund for Alberta, Colby Cosh takes on the phenomenon of “Norwailing.”

Odds and ends:

The Information Commissioner tabled her special report on reforming the Access to Information Act. I expect the government to get right to that. Oh, wait…

The Navy League Cadet programme (note: not Sea Cadets) will cease using non-firing replica rifles in their programmes because of the perception of kids carrying guns.

We still don’t have a budget date, but Joe Oliver is going to address the Economic Club of Canada next week anyway. Maybe he’ll drop them a hint?