Here’s your Canadian Atheist Weekly Update for to .
![[Cover of the 2016 Freedom of Thought report.]](https://www.canadianatheist.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/freedom-of-thought-2016-report-cover-200x283.png)
The 2016 Freedom of Thought report is available as open data.
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[] Edmonton Police Search For Man Who Allegedly Threatened Women In Hijabs With Noose
More and more examples of islamophobia in Canada every week.
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[] Freedom of Thought 2016: Canada
This year, the IHEU has released the report data online in an open data initiative. Canada’s scores are still decidedly mediocre, but I have to wonder if that’s because the data is out of date.
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[] Civil rights pioneer Viola Desmond will appear on new Canadian $10 bill
Viola Desmond is not just the first Canadian woman to appear on our currency, she’s also the first black person. People are calling her “the Canadian Rosa Parks”, but Desmond made her stand (or sit-down) nine years before Parks did, and was ultimately fined almost twice as much, and not pardoned in her lifetime.
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[] “Irrational” by Zack Weinersmith (Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal)
I am so ashamed at myself for laughing at this.
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[] ‘Lock Her Up’ Chant A Very Real Danger To Canadian Democracy
The kind of politics that propelled Trump to power is leaking northward.
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“The kind of politics that propelled Trump to power is leaking northward”
Perhaps the greatest perpetrator is Kellie Leitch and her puppet master Nick Kouvalis. Kouvalis is her campaign manager, the man behind Rob Ford’s rise to power. He is the agent provocateur behind her dismal appeal to the right and the Trump loving elements of our society. She is merely the vehicle for him to play at politics. He reads the tea leaves and bends his candidate to the unexploited whims of a fractured electorate. I suspect he doesn’t even believe 90 per cent of the crap he has his candidates say which makes him unprincipled and dangerous. This guy and his ilk are the cancer in Canadian politics. I’d love to see this guy exposed for the creep he is.
I’m of the opinion that Leitch is given far too much attention. All the noise about her successful fundraising usually ignores the *type* of fundraising she’s done. While people like Bernier have raised roughly the same amount of money, they have done so by soliciting smaller donations over a larger number of people, across a large swath of Canada. Leitch meanwhile has just a handful of donors, but donors who are pumping huge amounts of money into her campaign. That implies that the other leadership candidates have a shot at winning seats across Canada, while Leitch could only hope to win in Conservative strongholds and lose miserably everywhere else. Not only that, most polls I’ve seen put Leitch squarely in the middle of the pack, despite all her fundraising and her celebrity status.
Conservatives aren’t stupid. They have to realize that’s not a formula for winning elections. Add to that that Leitch has no coherent policy proposals or anything else to offer, middling support within the party at best, and nothing even approximating Trump’s adroitness at playing the media (have you ever listened to an interview with her? she’s *terrible* – not the least bit interesting or entertaining, neither intelligent nor pugnacious, just *bad*), and I don’t see her having a ghost of a chance at winning leadership of the party.
Leitch is just a mediocre politician with a handful of very rich assholes backing her. That money is all she’s got going for her, but it won’t be enough. Kouvalis is hailed as a genius, but he had really good source material to work with before; not so much now. Even Ezra Levant can’t polish this turd. Leitch doesn’t have what it takes to tap into the zeitgeist like Trump did, and she doesn’t have the benefit he had of a really shitty alternative – no one liked Clinton, everyone loves Trudeau.
All that isn’t to say that nasty American-style politics isn’t starting to seep across the border. No doubt Kouvalis, Levant, and their ilk *want* to play for a repeat of Trump up here. But it doesn’t follow that Leitch will be able to benefit from that. I’ve argued elsewhere that the soil is ripe for a true fascist, populist leader to pop up in Canada and sweep to power… but i don’t believe it will be Leitch.
“is leaking northward”
Out here in the wide open spaces this is normal. Not just the AM radio evangelizing, that is so frequent on our vehicle radios, but also by way of American Christian Church franchises. There are villages out here where the only large structure is a windowless Kingdom Hall.
It isn’t unusual for the bulk of printed political discourse to be available on church pamphlets. Sometimes hardly anything at all in the newspapers.
It seems to me that the only opposition to this totally captured media space would have to come from a political party which actively discourages religious ideas. Sort of a non-worshipping cult party. A party that encourages membership and group gatherings. The only organizations even approximating this are the religiously affiliated. This may not be possible for exclusively rational people. People can join together because of their shared enjoyment of motorcycles. Perhaps there isn`t such a thing as a shared enjoyment of rationality.
If a reasonable portion of all the existing parties are actively opposed to religion, at some point these people could drop out and form the largest political party on their own. This is what the Green party hoped would work for their special brand of enthusiasts. Many Green party supporters don`t vote for them because they are too unlikely to win. Most likely any political party invested in rational analysis would also be very green.
What percentage of the Green Party are also atheist?
I know that Canadian Atheists are supposed to steer clear of political advocacy. In reality, disabusing people of religion can be the most powerful political action possible. This is exactly what the churches are doing now, only in reverse. Remember, they are not advocating for any political party. They just point out which party is in line with their values. This usually turns out to be something about abortion.
“Viola Desmond is not just the first Canadian woman to appear on our currency”
Indeed, she isn’t first first female PM either. The front of currency should be reserved for Canada’s Heads of Government or State. (For two years in the 1930s we had other royals on the front, but that was the end of that)
If we wanted to put a token on the front, it should have been Kim Campbell. But I guess she’s too white and elected for 2016.
The pandering of this government, and the willingness of Canadians to buy this nonsense instead of paying attention to any real issues, like abandoning our sovereignty, charging people under anti-gay laws, sending people to prison for marijuana, spying on our own citizens, and openly privileging religion over non-religion, is dismaying.
“The kind of politics that propelled Trump to power is leaking northward”
I doubt that. But then again, I also thought Trump would lose.
Nevertheless, it is a great thing if Canadians are becoming more suspicious of political correctness and social “justice”. We need to steer back on course toward liberty and equality, and actual justice, and leave the identity politics behind (that includes aboriginals and Quebec). The first job of any Canadian government must be to implement measures that will bring the country’s citizens together. Inter-provincial trade would be a simple start.
“I have to wonder if that’s because the data is out of date.”
Have a look at what they say about the USA. I have to wonder what planet they’re on, because that country’s description bears no relation to the one I lived in.
By choosing not to track certain things, they make the USA look far more wonderful than it is.