HYPOCRISY CANADIAN STYLE

These are truly strange and confusing times.

We tell inmates that there is a zero tolerance policy on drugs and then we
give them bleach to clean their needles. The needles they are not allowed
to possess.

We claim to want offenders to successfully reintegrate into society and
take great pains to minimize any stigmatization associated with
incarceration. So what do we do? We open up onsite tattoo parlors in
federal penitentiaries so inmates can go about reinforcing one of the
disturbing images most citizens have about people who have been incarcerated.

We open up a legal shooting gallery a couple blocks from the police station
in Canada's third largest city so addicts, who have just broken into your
home or car and left you traumatized, have a nice, warm and comfortable
setting to use their heroin. The heroin they just bought thanks to helping
themselves to your possessions.

And now, we're going a step further with a trial program that will simply
supply addicts with a daily inventory of heroin. Possession of heroin is a
criminal offence in this country by the way. But never mind that bit of
trivia. I like the message this sends out. Refuse to abide by the laws and
values of society and we'll give you whatever you want. I guess that means
if I refuse to pay my taxes I don't have to file income tax forms anymore?

We say that in the interests of public safety, every Canadian must register
his firearm. If this saves even one life, so the story goes, it will have
been well worth the billions of dollars it continues to suck up. Yet we
continue to release even the most dangerous offenders back into the
community prior to the expiration of their sentences. Why? Because it costs
more to keep someone in custody than to assign them to a halfway house.

Liberals are always demanding offenders be given the least restrictive
sentence. They argue against custody for even the most violent offenders.
Then when the killer of a gay man in Stanley Park gets six years (a
particularly harsh sentence by contemporary standards), they're whining
that it isn't tough enough.

But hey, there are lots of other wonderful and innovative initiatives
taking place across the land. Marijuana possession is about to be
decriminalized at the same time as French fries and potato chips are being
banned from school grounds.

The county spends millions on multicultural programs to promote tolerance
and diversity in schools while post-secondary institutions are awash in
anti-Israeli and anti-American curriculum and hatred. All of which is
defended, naturally, as academic freedom.

An inquiry is underway exposing the criminality and corruption of the most
crooked government since confederation and all the national media can do is
giggle about how effectively Jean Chretien mocked and ridiculed the judge.

The old Reform Party was consistently chastised and criticized for being
too old, white and male. Today the NDP is the oldest, whitest and most
male-dominated of all the federal parties and all of the sudden that sort
of thing isn't an issue anymore.

Similarly, the Conservative Party has the highest proportion of visible
minorities in its caucus. But once again, the media has decided that
minority representation isn't important now that it's the Liberals, Bloc
and NDP that aren't doing their part in the field of political diversity.
Funny. It was sure was important a few years ago when Preston Manning's
caucus was the offending party.

And of course the good old CBC is up to its usual blatant, partisan
posturing. The corpse is furious that religious groups from the U.S. are
entering into the debate over same-sex marriages in this country. Foreign
interests have no business meddling in Canada's affairs, say the mindless
talking heads on the National. Yet the CBC was ecstatic when noted glutton
and buffoon, Michael Moore, came up here to plead with Canadians to vote
for the Liberals.

Hypocrisy may not yet be a Canadian value. But it certainly is a Liberal one.