The London Free Press, December 31, 2002
By Rory Leishman

For the Catholic church in North America, 2002 has been a veritable annus horribilis. The full dimensions of the disaster began to unfold on Jan. 6, when the Boston Globe reported that a former Catholic priest in Boston, John Geoghan, has been credibly accused of sexually abusing more than 130 young boys over a period of 30 years. In February, Geoghan was sentenced to 10 years in prison for just one of his crimes -- indecently assaulting a 10-year-old boy.

Geoghan's depredations first became know to officials within the office of the Boston Archdiocese in 1980. Over the next 16 years, they repeatedly ordered him to undergo psychiatric treatment, including a stint at the Southdown Institute for troubled priests north of Toronto. Three times, Geoghan was diagnosed as a pedophile, yet it was not until 1996, that he was removed from the active priesthood by Cardinal Bernard Law, the Archbishop of Boston who retired on Dec. 13.

Why took so long to get this rogue priest dismissed? The Boston Globe explains: "Geoghan endured with the help of friendly physicians on whose medical blessings his superiors relied for evidence that he had exorcised the sexual demons that drove him toward his predatory practices."

In this same way, literally hundreds of other North American priests have gotten away with repeated sexual offences. Some like Geoghan are pedophiles. Others like Bishop Raymond Dumais, who resigned his post as the Bishop of Gaspe, Quebec, last year, prefer sexual relations with a woman.

However, the great majority of priestly sexual offenders are not child abusers or womanizers, but homosexuals. In this respect, the case of Archbishop Rembert Weakland is typical. In April, he resigned as Archbishop of Milwaukee after it was revealed that his archdiocese had paid $450,000 in hush money in 1998 to a former seminarian from Montreal with whom he appears to have had a homosexual affair 20 years earlier.

While sexual abuse by clergy has taken on crisis dimensions within the Catholic church of North America, it is important to emphasize that only a small minority of priests -- 1.5 to two per cent at most -- are at fault. The overwhelming majority have remained faithful to their vows of chastity.

Moreover, there is no evidence that the incidence of sexual abuse among Catholic priests is any greater than among members of other professions, including Protestant clergy and school teachers. Still, the question arises: Why has clerical sexual abuse -- Catholic and Protestant -- taken on such scandalous dimensions over the past 40 years?

George Weigel, the renowned church historian and theologian, has addressed this issue in his latest book, The Courage to be Catholic: Crisis, Reform, and the Future of the Church. He pins much of the blame for the crisis on a loss of nerve among Catholic bishops. "That loss of nerve," he says, "has been evident in bishops who approved inadequate catechetical materials, who tolerated liturgical abuses, who were frightened into passivity by theologians who taught falsely, yet demanded to be considered authentically Catholic."

This same loss of nerve has been evident among Protestant leaders. Some have gone so far as themselves to repudiate the historic teaching of the Christian Church on the sinfulness of sexual intercourse outside of marriage. Worse, even those pastors, priests and bishops in North America who remain faithful to theologically orthodox teaching on sexual ethics almost never proclaim these truths from the pulpit.

Is there reason, then, for Christians to despair? Not at all. As Weigel points out, "Betrayal has been part of the Church's reality -- and part of the reality of the priesthood and episcopate -- from the beginning. The men who fled from Gethsemane in a panic of fear were transformed by the Risen Christ and the Holy Spirit into men on fire."

Already, there are signs of another such transformation underway among young Christians in North America. "Living the adventure of orthodoxy is the only answer to the crisis of fidelity that is the crisis of the Catholic Church in the United States," Weigel concludes. "Rediscovering the courage to be Catholic is the way in which all the people of the Church -- bishops, priests, laity -- will transform scandal into reform, and crisis into opportunity."

The London Free Press, December 24, 2002
By Rory Leishman

While many of us have been frantically finishing our Christmas shopping over the past few weeks, traditional Dutch Christians have been relatively relaxed, and for good reason: They don't confuse the celebration of Christmas with an orgy of gift giving.

Are the Dutch even stingier than the Scots? Perish the thought. There is no reason to believe the Dutch, or the Scots, are any less generous than other, lesser mortals.

Traditional Dutch Christians do not hand out gifts at Christmas, because they lavish presents on their families and friends on Dec. 5. That's "Sinterklaas Avond" -- the eve of the feast day of Saint Nicholas, a fourth century bishop of Myra in Turkey, who survived the dungeons of the Roman Emperor Diocletian and attended the Council of Nicea.

Saint Nicholas was renowned for generosity. Legend has it that he saved three girls in a poor family from a life of prostitution, by giving each a gold coin for a dowry. Wishing to keep the gift anonymous, the saintly bishop threw the three coins through an open window of the girls' home one night. Guess where those coins landed: In stockings the girls had hung up to dry next to the chimney.

Dutch settlers brought Sinterklaas to the New World. Their English-speaking neighbours, habitually disposed to mangle foreign names and customs, dubbed Sinterklaas Santa Claus and conferred gifts in his name on Christmas.

Now, thanks to the Hollywoodization of world culture, the mania for handing out Santa Claus presents on Christmas Day has spread even to The Netherlands. But let us not blame this travesty of Christmas on Yankee corporate tycoons: The Dutch, like us Canadians, are all-too-willing collaborators in the destruction of their culture and traditions.

Nonetheless, many Dutch Christians still commemorate Sinterklaas Dag. Their children are delighted that good little boys and girls get Sinterklaas presents 20 days before Christmas. Envious Canadians might think these Dutch traditionalists are on to a good thing, inasmuch as they seem to celebrate Christmas not once, but twice.

That, however, is a misconception. Sinterklaas Dag is not Christmas. Having dispensed gifts on Dec. 5, Dutch Christians have nearly three weeks for sombre contemplation of what this world would be like without the supreme gift of all -- the birth of Christ.

Not so long ago, all English-speaking peoples celebrated Christmas in much this same way: There was little emphasis on the exchange of presents at Christmas. When Mr. Pickwick, that most open-hearted and benevolent of men, repaired to the farm in Dingley Dell for Christmas, he brought along little more than a big cod fish as a gift for his friends. Even the reformed Ebenezer Scrooge gave the Cratchits just a big turkey as a Christmas present.

Granted, Scrooge was also moved on Christmas Eve to pledge a gift for the needy so generous that a fundraiser whom he had previously scorned, could only gasp: "I don't know what to say to such munificence." In this respect, all of us would do well to emulate Scrooge, by allocating our most generous Christmas gift to the needy. There can be few more apt ways of celebrating the birth of a man who was a champion of the poor, the sick and the oppressed.

Who, though, exactly was this Jesus? Just an exceptionally good, young man who came to a tragic and premature end when he was crucified by the Romans some 2000 years ago?

Christians don't think so. We believe and trust that Jesus is the promised Saviour -- that He was, is and remains the Light of the world that the darkness can never overcome.

In the sublime words of Charles Wesley, we hail, in Jesus, "the heaven-born Prince of Peace!" We hail, in Him, "the Sun of Righteousness!" We firmly and reasonably believe,

"Light and life to all He brings,

Risen with healing in His Wings.

Mild, he lays His glory by,

Born that man no more may die,

Born to raise the sons of earth,

Born to give them second birth.

Hark! The herald angels sing

Glory to the new-born King."

The London Free Press, December 17, 2002
By Rory Leishman

If Parliament were to scrap the existing state-run medicare monopolies mandated by the Canada Health Act in favour of the mixture of public- and private-sector plans available in the United States, most Canadians would surely receive better, more timely and efficient medicare. Nonetheless, Ake Blomqvist, an expert on the economics of health care at the University of Western Ontario and the National University of Singapore, is dead set against any such reform.

In a special lecture to the C. D. Howe Institute entitled Canadian Healthcare in a Global Context: Diagnoses and Prescriptions, Blomqvist stated: "Faced with an all-or-nothing choice, I would choose the Canadian system over the U.S. one hands down. I would much rather live with what we now have in Canada with all its faults rather than accept the fundamental shortcomings of the U.S.-style alternative."

Chief among those shortcomings is lack of affordable medicare insurance for many low-income Americans. While the publicly funded U.S. Medicaid and Medicare plans provide coverage for the poor and the elderly, the great majority of families in the U.S. rely on private medical insurance. In most cases, that's not a problem, because a family member has access to affordable insurance through an employer.

Nonetheless, many Americans who have low-incomes, but are not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid, cannot afford comprehensive medical insurance. In the event of a catastrophic illness, these people will still have ready access to excellent medical care, but at a financially crippling cost.

What, then, should Canadians do -- simply pour more taxpayers' money into the existing Canadian medicare system as recommended, in essence, by the Romanow Commission? Blomqvist doesn't think so. In his opinion, the federal and provincial governments cannot spend enough to provide all the medical services that the public would like at no cost to the patient. He warns: "Our only options are rationing in some form or requiring patients to pay part of the cost of at least some of the health care they use."

Many European countries have adopted the latter approach. In Sweden, for example, the national government has undertaken to discourage the frivolous use of medicare services, by requiring patients to pay the Canadian equivalent of $15 to $20 for a visit to a family physician, perhaps twice that for a specialist, and $12 per day for hospital stays. To make sure all patients can well afford these user fees, the total annual amount is strictly tied to income.

Opponents of medicare user fees in Canada argue that if all but low-income patients were charged even a nominal amount for services at a hospital emergency clinic, some people would risk their health rather than pay the charge. Experience in the United States and elsewhere has not born out these fears.

Still, it might be prudent for one province to experiment with minimal fees for medicare services to determine if there are any adverse effects, before all provinces take the same approach. However, under the straitjacket imposed on the provinces by the Canada Health Act, provincial experiments with copayments for medicare are not permitted.

Of even greater concern to Blomqvist is the unwillingness of the Chretien government to permit any of the provinces to provide consumers with a choice among competing, strictly regulated, public- and private-sector medicare insurance plans. The Netherlands has taken this approach to enhancing the efficiency of the Dutch health care system, while assuring that everyone has adequate medicare insurance.

Blomqvist is persuaded something like this same approach is essential to improving the quality of medicare in Canada. "In principle," he says, "I favour a system of universal coverage in which all citizens are automatically covered by a basic public plan but those who so desire may substitute some form of approved private coverage and receive some form of tax or premium rebate from the province."

Romanow and other supporters of a state-run medicare monopoly for Canada emphatically reject this approach which they deride as two-tier medicine. So long as most Canadians are taken in by this socialist shibboleth, it's certain that Parliament will not allow any province to experiment with the kind of fundamental reforms that are essential to provide Canada's aging population with quality medicare.

The London Free Press, December 10, 2002
By Rory Leishman

(Note: This column was censored. London Free Press Editor Larry Cornies refused to publish it, because he felt I had already adequately covered this issue in the columns reproduced below on Sept. 10 and Oct. 1, 2002.)

On Nov. 30, some 350 London Muslims, Christians and Jews, including the mayor, the deputy mayor and every city MP and MPP, gathered for a meal at London's Islamic Centre. "This is important, not just for our community, but in light of world events," said centre president Faisal Joseph. "Jews, Christians and Muslims all want the same things -- peace, security and a safe haven for our children."

That statement is undoubtedly correct. Regardless of religion, all peoples prefer peace to war, security to insecurity, and safety to danger for their children.

Nonetheless, there is alarming disagreement over resort to terrorism as a weapon of war. While many Muslims condone the murder of Israeli civilians by Palestinian suicide bombers, the great majority of Christians and Jews unequivocally condemn all deliberate armed attacks on civilians, no matter what the provocation or who the perpetrators might be.

This is not to deny that some Christians and Jews have perpetrated terrorist atrocities such as the 1982 massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps near Beirut, Lebanon. In this dreadful war crime, members of the Lebanese Christian militia murdered an estimated 700 to 800 people, including several dozen women and children.

Six years earlier, thousands of Palestinian fighters had taken part in the slaughter of several hundred Christian civilians in the Lebanese town of Damour. Could this or any of the many other atrocities inflicted upon Christians in the Lebanese civil war have served in any way to justify the Sabra and Shatila massacre? Not at all. Virtually all Christian and Jewish leaders would agree that the Sabra and Shatila atrocity was wholly unjustified and inexcusable.

On Feb. 25, 1994, Dr. Baruch Goldstein, a Jewish immigrant from New York, opened fire with a machine gun on Muslim worshippers in a mosque in Hebron, murdering 29. Former Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin did not seek to mitigate the crime, by citing the number of Jews in the Hebron area who had been murdered by Islamist terrorists. Instead, he lambasted Goldstein as a "degenerate murderer."

"You are not part of the community of Israel," pronounced an infuriated Rabin. "You are a foreign implant. You are an errant weed. Sensible Judaism spits you out. You placed yourself outside the wall of Jewish law. You are a shame on Zionism and an embarrassment to Judaism."

Likewise, Benjamin Netanyahu, then Leader of the Opposition, denounced Goldstein's "despicable crime" as an inexcusable violation of Jewish values. Former Israeli President Ezer Weizman declared: "There is no understanding, no forgiveness, and no atonement for this horrible act."

Over the past two years, so-called martyr bombers acting in the name of Allah have murdered more than 400 Israeli civilians and injured more than 2,000 others. In a recent report, Human Rights Watch noted: "The scale and systematic nature of these attacks in 2001 and 2002 meet the definition of a crime against humanity … Human Rights Watch unreservedly condemns these atrocities."

But do most Palestinian Muslims regard these terrorist attacks as despicable crimes and inexcusable violations of Islamic law? Evidently not. According to opinion poll data cited by Human Rights Watch, a clear majority of Palestinians have consistently supported deliberate attacks on Israeli civilians by Palestinian suicide bombers.

Some Muslim leaders try to justify the atrocities, by citing the number of Palestinian civilians killed by the Israeli military. All such rationales are despicable.

In the words of Human Rights Watch, "The arguments put forward to justify or excuse suicide bombings and other Palestinian attacks on civilians are without foundation. There can be no doubt that such attacks are grave crimes. In most, if not all cases, they are crimes against humanity. International law defines those who perpetrate these atrocities as criminals. So are those who incite, plan, and assist them. They should be brought to justice."

The Canadian Islamic Congress would do well also to publish such a forthright denunciation of all terrorist attacks on civilians. As it is, apart from Sept. 11, most leaders of Muslim organizations in Canada, as elsewhere, have issued no more than equivocal expressions of regret mingled with abuse excuses for the atrocities committed by Islamist terrorists.

The London Free Press, December 3, 2002
By Rory Leishman

According to the Fraser Institute, the time Canadians have to wait for access to health care services has increased on the whole by about 69 per cent since 1993. Left-wing critics scoff at this estimate: They insist there is no evidence to support the perception of longer medicare waiting times.

What does the Romanow Commission on Health Care have to say? "The problem is not just one of perception," it concedes. "There is evidence to suggest that there are problems in waiting times for some services but not in others."

To illustrate the point, the Commission cites the testimony of a British Columbia woman, Carolyn Attridge: "I am one of that great cadre called 'elective' patients. We are not seen as emergencies … I have recently had a hip replacement; I was waiting for that replacement for almost two years … The word 'elective' is offensive; it isn't as though we're going to the store to buy some shrimp versus some liver; we have no choice about using the health care system."

That's not the worst of it. The problem of excessive delays even applies to life-saving treatments. "There still are instances in some provinces when individuals have to be transferred outside the country to receive care for life-threatening conditions," the Romanow Commission admits. "This cannot and should not be allowed to continue."

However, the Commission could not disclose the length of overall waiting times for health care, because of a lack of information. That's typical. "Unfortunately," the Commission acknowledges: "we lack the basic and critical information needed to measure the results, assess performance, and judge the quality of the health care system."

How can that be? In 1992, the federal and provincial ministers of health jointly established the Canadian Institute for Health Information with a mandate to, "identify and promote national health indicators." Over the past eight years, this outfit has cost Canadian taxpayers $190 million. Why has it not yet compiled even basic and critical information about waiting times for the full range of medical services in each province?

While the Romanow Commission has not addressed this crucial question, it's a focal point of a tract by the Atlantic Institute of Market Studies (AIMS) entitled, Definitely Not the Romanow Report: Achieving Equity, Sustainability, Accountability and Consumer Empowerment in Canadian Health Care. The authors Brian Lee Crowley, Brian Ferguson, Dr. David Zitner and Brett J. Skinner point out: "The underlying problem with the system is that it operates essentially as an unregulated tax-financed, pay-as-you-go monopoly."

Private-sector monopolies are bad enough: Public-sector monopolies are worse, because the government that runs a public-sector monopoly cannot be counted upon to regulate it effectively. Medicare is no exception. As the AIMS report observes: "The regulatory and oversight function government should play is frustrated by its conflict of interest as the ultimate provider of many health care services."

Nonetheless, let us suppose the new Health Council of Canada proposed by the Romanow Commission will somehow provide Canadians with clear information about the basic performance of the health system. Could this reform lead to a reduction in long waiting lists and lack of service?

Not at all. The underlying weaknesses of Canada's medicare monopoly would remain. The key to efficiency and consumer choice in the provision of medicare, no less than in the production and distribution of food, clothing and all other material necessities, is private-sector competition.

Roy Romanow never tires of pointing out the gross deficiencies of private-sector medical insurance in the United States. Yet the Swiss, the Dutch, the Swedes and many others have proven it's not beyond the ingenuity of humankind to combine private-sector competition in the delivery of health care services with a public-sector guarantee of comprehensive medicare insurance for everyone.

But alas, Roy Romanow is blind to the advantages of private-sector competition. Like all socialists, and most liberals, he seeks to extend the medicare status quo. He cannot see that there can be no fundamental improvement in the quality of medicare in Canada so long as Canadians have no choice, but a veritable public-sector health care monopoly.

The London Free Press, November 26, 2002
By Rory Leishman

Is the determination of Prime Minister Jean Chretien to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change a sound policy initiative? Or might it prove to be one of the most ill-considered and costly blunders of his error-riddled legacy?

Last week, Gord Miller, the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario, weighed in on this debate with a report to the Ontario Legislature entitled, Climate Change: Is the Science Sound? Miller observes: "Recently, there have been numerous assertions in the media that there is little scientific evidence for climate change, and that a 'go slow' or even a business-as-usual approach is therefore appropriate."

Miller scorns the ignorant hacks who are spreading these wrongheaded notions. "I’m convinced, after our review, that climate change is occurring," he says, "and that it’s due to the increase in greenhouse gases coming from human activities such as burning fossil fuels."

Miller holds a masters of science degree in plant ecology from the University of Guelph. His certainty that the world is caught up in a crisis of global warming is based on a blind faith in scientists working for the United Nations. As he acknowledges, his report, "focuses very much on the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in their Third Assessment Report, published in 2001."

Yet it's the findings of this very UN report that are in hot scientific dispute. Ontario taxpayers might well wonder why the floundering government of Premier Ernie Eves has allowed Miller to waste tens of thousands of dollars on the preparation of a report that essentially summarizes an UN report that already comes with an executive summary.

Take just one aspect of the scientific controversy: Do global warming fear mongers have reason to suggest that rising sea levels brought on by man-made global warming could inundate Halifax, London, New York and other ports?

Miller claims the 2001 IPCC Report affirms: "The average rate of sea level rise during the 20^th century has been higher than that of the 19^th century." That is incorrect. In fact, the IPCC report clearly concedes: "There is no evidence for any acceleration of sea level rise in data from the 20^th century alone." To the contrary, "Mediterranean records show decelerations, and even decreases in sea level in the latter part of the 20^th century."

Essex and McKitrick aptly comment: "It turns out any 'acceleration' of sea level rise was in the 19^th century, but stopped during the 20^th century, contrary to model predictions" of human-induced global climate warming.

In sum, Essex and McKitrick persuasively argue that scientists have yet to come up with any theory or model for accurately forecasting the so-called global average temperature over the next three months, let alone 100 years.

What about the economic aspects of the Kyoto Protocol? Environment Minister David Anderson purports that full implementation would slow economic growth by little more than 0.4 per cent over the next eight years. McKitrick is not so optimistic: He estimates that by 2010, compliance with Kyoto would reduce the annual real household income of Canadian families by 5.5 per cent or $2,700 yearly.

Who bears most of the blame for this costly blunder? It's not the politicians, not the journalists, and certainly not the thousands of scientists like Essex who have the courage to oppose the global warming hysteria. Rather it's the great number of other scientists who fully understand there is no sound theoretical basis for reliably predicting global climate change, yet are reluctant to speak out against the conventional wisdom for fear of hurting their careers.

The London Free Press, November 19, 2002
By Rory Leishman

Following a meeting last week with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham lauded the resolution adopted by the United Nations Security Council that subjects Iraq to rigorous inspections for weapons of mass destruction. By this means, opined Graham, the Security Council has given the international community a way, "to deal with Iraq without having to go to conflict."

That judgment is dead wrong. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has made clear that his evil regime will remain a threat to world peace so long as he retains his grip on power.

Granted, Saddam might well comply with the latest UN resolution governing Iraq. He would be crazy not to so long as the United States and Britain are mobilizing 265,000 troops to invade his country with overwhelming force.

However, time is on Saddam's side. In a well-informed book The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq, Kenneth Pollack, a former director for (Persian) Gulf affairs at the National Security Council during the Clinton administration, points out that the deployment of a quarter-million U.S. troops along the borders of Iraq would require, "huge call-ups" from the reserves and compel all of the services to, "postpone normal leaves, retirements, training, maintenance and replacements." Pollack estimates that the U.S. could not afford to maintain such a massive force in place in the Gulf region for more than six months to a year at most.

Saddam is no fool. He understands this point well. Just as he did in 1991, he can be counted upon to bide his time over the next six months to a year, waiting for the United States to scale back its deployment in the Gulf region, before openly flouting once again the disarmament and weapons-inspections commitments Iraq has made to the UN.

While other dictators have acquired weapons of mass destruction, Saddam is unique: He alone has demonstrated no compunction about using these weapons on his own people. On March 15, 1988, he authorized an attack with a variety of chemical weapons on the Kurdish town of Halabja in northern Iraq, killing at least 5,000 men, women and children.

Still, the most lethal chemical and biological weapons are far less devastating than the most primitive nuclear bombs. Pollack explains: "A successful attack with VX (a nerve gas) could kill thousands; with a BW (biological warfare) agent, tens of thousands; and with a nuclear weapon, hundreds of thousands or even millions."

Proponents of deterrence argue that Saddam would not dare to launch a nuclear missile at Tehran or Tel Aviv, because he would know he would be killed in return. But who can say that a megalomaniac like Saddam would not order a nuclear attack on his enemies as a suicidal last act of vengeance?

In addition, there are the risks of a nuclear war by miscalculation in the Middle East. Judging from Saddam's reckless past behaviour, Pollack projects that if Iraq were to acquire just one or two primitive nuclear bombs, Saddam might well gamble that he could get away with seizing the oilfields of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the entire Gulf, because the United States would no longer dare to intervene for fear of becoming embroiled in a nuclear conflict.

As it is, more than a million Arabs, Kurds and Persians have already died in the various internal and external wars initiated by Saddam. Pollack warns that millions more could die, if this evil tyrant succeeds in his plans to obtain nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Meanwhile, opponents of a preventive war of liberation in Iraq insist Saddam poses no imminent and dire threat to world peace. Perhaps so, but as Pollack observes: "It is the relative weakness of Iraq's current weapons of mass destruction that makes an invasion feasible. Given that Saddam's motives are well established, and that every other multilateral or unilateral approach to stopping him has failed, it would be madness to wait until he has developed the capabilities to cause grievous damage to us and to the region before we decided to take action against him."

What will it take to persuade the Chretien Liberals to get serious about the war on international terrorism? When will they finally get around to placing a total ban on Canadian support for Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah?

In a commendably forthright statement in the Commons on Thursday, Liberal MP Irwin Cotler pointed out that these three terrorist networks share a common purpose: "Each seeks, by its own acknowledgment and assertion, the destruction of Israel and the killing of Jews everywhere. Each partakes of a culture of incitement, the teaching of contempt and the demonizing of the Jew, that is the most proximate cause of terror in the Middle East and beyond."

Cotler also pointed out that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service has established that each of these terrorist organizations operates in Canada. "Astonishingly enough," he concluded, "none has yet to be named to Canada's list of terrorist entities, while the political wing of Hezbollah terror is sanitized. It is past time for Canada to do the right thing, to name terrorist networks as terrorist entities, as mandated by our undertakings under UN Security Council resolutions and domestic law."

Cotler is a distinguished former professor of law at McGill who is knowledgeable about the Middle East. Other conscientious Liberal MPs should join with him and like-minded members of the opposition who are pressing the government to ban all support for manifestly terrorist organizations within Canada.

As for Hezbollah, the Chretien government has cut off funding for its military arm, but still allows donations to its political and humanitarian operations. Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham explains: "We don't believe it would be appropriate to label as terrorists innocent doctors, teachers and other people who are seeking to do charitable and other good works in their communities."

What poppycock. By this reasoning, the Mackenzie King Liberals should have cut off support for Hitler's storm troopers in the 1930s, while allowing Nazi sympathizers to go on making donations to the Nazi Party in the hope that some of the funds might be used to help German youngsters enjoy healthy outdoor exercise with the Hitler Youth.

Hezbollah is not a peace-loving organization. In a recent two-part series in The New Yorker, Jeffrey Goldberg has characterized this self-styled Party of Allah as, "the most successful terrorist organization in modern history." Likewise, Richard Armitage, Deputy Secretary of the U.S. State Department recently denounced Hezbollah as the "A-team" of terrorism and Al Qaeda as the "B-team."

Hezbollah has been implicated in numerous terrorist attacks over the past 20 years, including the 1994 bombing of a Jewish Community Centre in Buenos Aires, Argentina, that killed 29 altogether innocent civilians. Yet Graham insists: "Our policy on Hezbollah is clear. We condemn its military wing as terrorists and we engage in dialogue with those with whom we wish to gain peace."

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is the secretary general of Hezbollah as a whole. He is hell bent on destroying Israel. He has no interest in peaceful dialogue with Graham or anyone else. He made that clear in a speech in Tehran last year, when he declaimed: "If some want to make use of the Intifada to strengthen their positions on the negotiating table, I say to them you are committing a big mistake … Our (Arab) nation has now a historic opportunity to wipe out the cancerous Israeli project."

After two murder bombers affiliated with Islamic Jihad blew up a civilian bus within Israel on October 21, killing 16 people and severely wounding five others, including a two-year-old girl, Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat affirmed in a statement that the Palestinian leadership, "is opposed to attacks against Palestinian and Israeli civilians. We reject such attacks against civilians."

In shocking contrast, Nasrallah lauded the atrocity. Despite the fact that the murder bombing had occurred well within the 1948 borders of Israel, he said: "The martyrdom operation that happened yesterday in occupied Palestine is clear proof that the Palestinian people will not be defeated."

That Graham hopes to conduct a peaceful dialogue with such a terrorist is not just naïve: It's disgusting.

In marked contrast to more than a few prime ministers, Stanfield and Manning are both honest and highly intelligent. But as a strategic thinker and policy maker, Stanfield was decidedly inferior to Manning.

As Leader of the Opposition, Stanfield tried to appease Quebec separatists, by adopting a divisive, two-nations concept of Canada. And in an attempt to curb double-digit inflation, he advocated wage and price controls. Pierre Trudeau mocked this latter proposal during the 1974 election campaign, only later to adopt it and find it could not work.

Consider, in comparison, the fundamentally sound fiscal and constitutional policies advocated by Manning. In his engaging and informative memoir, Think Big: My Adventures in Life and Politics, Manning recalls how Canada became embroiled in a major fiscal crisis, thanks to years of reckless deficit spending by the Trudeau Liberals and Mulroney Conservatives that had boosted the national debt to $460 billion in 1993, up from just $11.3 billion in 1968.

Manning understood how the huge interest payments and crushing tax rates required to service this monumental debt were sapping the vitality of the national economy, undermining the value of the Canadian dollar and driving living standards ever lower in Canada relative to the United States. As leader of the Reform party during the 1993 election, he proposed a bold "zero-in-three" plan for eliminating the federal deficit within the next three years.

Alas, the Liberals won that election. Under the feckless leadership of Prime Minister Jean Chretien, they continued on a deficit-spending spree over the next three years that elevated the national debt to $583 billion, before they finally managed to balance the books. Meanwhile, Chretien has given us Shawinigate -- a scandal that would not have happened under a Manning government if only because Manning has consistently opposed handouts to businesses, including failing enterprises run by cronies of the prime minister.

Prior to the 1995 Quebec referendum on independence, Manning repeatedly urged the Chretien Liberals to warn Quebecers about the potentially disastrous costs of separatism. Again, his sound advice was rejected. Only after the separatists came within one-half of a percentage point of winning that referendum did the shaken Liberals follow Manning's counsel and take the steps necessary to discredit separatism.

These are just a few of Manning's striking achievements. He has advocated visionary and fundamentally sound policies in a number of other areas including health-care, the judicial subversion of democracy and the urgent need to safeguard the sanctity of all human life.

Did Manning not make mistakes as a leader of the opposition? Of course. For example, he acknowledges in his memoir that he blundered in the way he opposed the gold-plated Parliamentary pension plan, "In our zeal to 'lead by example' on the issue of fiscal responsibility," he notes, "our MPs ended up, years later, in the untenable situation of having to choose between the Liberal pension plan and no pension security at all for themselves and their families. This is something I should never have allowed to happen."

If Manning is such a sound strategic thinker, it might be wondered, how could he have lost the leadership of the Canadian Alliance? Manning attributes this disaster, in part, to the failure of "due diligence" by hack journalists like me that allowed the manifest weaknesses of Stockwell Day to go unexposed during the leadership campaign.

There is a lot to be said for this argument. Who in his right mind would still argue that Day was better qualified than Manning to lead the Canadian Alliance?

As it is, Manning plans to continue as an academic to offer strategic advice on key questions of public policy. That's reassuring: The country as a whole, and the party that he founded, remain sorely in need of his wise counsel.

I have no recollection of what happened. Ed and Helga Baxter who observed the whole thing while out for a stroll with their family in Springbank Park tell me that I was going over a diagonal ridge that separates the bicycle path from a roadway, when my bicycle suddenly slipped on the wet pavement. I keeled over to the left, and slammed my shoulder and head into the pavement with such force that I was knocked out cold for a good two or three minutes.

It was exceedingly fortunate for me that the Baxters were on the scene. They immediately took charge, phoned an ambulance, contacted my wife, Caroline, and went so far as to walk my bicycle back to their own home. Caroline and I are most grateful to the Baxters for their exemplary impersonations of The Good Samaritan.

I was taken by ambulance to Victoria hospital, where Caroline found me exclaiming to one and all: "I am perfectly lucid now." Coming from me, this declaration evinced more than the usual skepticism, because I kept repeating this refrain over and over again, except that when addressing Caroline, I added: "I want you to remember that I love you dearly."

After I kept this up for a while, Caroline overheard one of the nurses observe: "Sounds like they're on their honeymoon." That nurse was right: I am pleased to report that this honeymoon has been ongoing for close to 15 years.

Meanwhile, Dr. Jonathan Dreyer and his emergency room staff put me through x-rays, a CAT scan and a battery of neurological tests. After concluding that I was in stable condition after having suffered no more than a concussion and a cracked glenoid socket in my left shoulder, Dreyer made the sensible decision to send me home in the care of my eminently competent wife, after having given her clear instructions about what to look for in case my condition should take an unexpected turn for the worse.

At five o'clock the following morning, I finally drifted off to sleep, only to wake up a couple of hours later, still exclaiming, "I am perfectly lucid now." But shortly thereafter, I started vaguely to remember what I had said five minutes earlier. Reason, at last, began to return to its throne.

That return might never have occurred but for one crucial factor: At the time of the accident, I was wearing a well fitting, CSA-approved, bicycle helmet.

Among experienced cyclists, the vital importance of wearing a helmet is well known. Thus, the London Cycling Club makes helmet-wearing mandatory for its outings.

Still, too many adults have not got the message. While being driven to the hospital for another CAT scan late one evening last week, I spotted not one, but two, cyclists riding through the darkened streets with neither lights nor a helmet. Do these people have a death wish?

Riding a bicycle can be reasonably safe, provided the rider exercises common sense in accordance with some basic rules:

1. Be vigilant and cautious at all times. (This is a maxim I don't think I will soon neglect.)

2. Obey the rules of the road.

3. If you are not riding in broad daylight, wear reflective clothing and light up your bicycle like a Christmas tree.

4. Finally, always -- always -- wear a helmet.

Evidently, Chretien had not been briefed on the Statistics Canada report. It stated: "Given Canada's current age distribution, overall population aging is unavoidable. Immigration has limited impact on population aging."

In a paper published by The Fraser Institute, Canada's Immigration Policy: The Need for Major Reform, Martin Collacott, a former Canadian ambassador, notes Canada took in 2.2 million immigrants from 1991 to 2001, up from 1.4 million during the previous decade. Yet the average age of the Canadian population continued to increase by four per cent during both periods. Collacott also observes that Britain, France, Germany and Japan have much older populations than Canada, yet none of these countries has restored to increased immigration in an attempt to solve the problem. Their governments know this approach will not work.

What about the economic impact of immigration? Is it not true that on average, immigrants earn more and contribute more to the Canadian economy than native-born Canadians?

Actually, that is no longer the case. Collacott cites a study by Don DeVoretz, an economist at Simon Fraser University, which found that in 1995, immigrants who had arrived in Canada before 1980 earned slightly more on average than people who were born in Canada. "In contrast," says Collacott, "the wages of those who came after 1980 reached a level of only 60 per cent of people born in Canada and 58 per cent of earlier immigrants."

That's not the worst of it. In the past, immigrants were no more likely than other Canadians to live in poverty as defined by the National Welfare Council. However, by this same measure, the poverty level among those who arrived in Canada after 1991 has reached a disturbing 52 per cent. That's more than 2.5 times above the national average.

These are the fruits of a wrongheaded immigration policy. While the Trudeau government placed primary emphasis on the recruitment of skilled immigrants, the Chretien government has given top priority to family class immigrants, who are not required to have job skills or competency in either of Canada's official languages.

What accounts for this shift in emphasis away from skilled immigrants? Collacott observes: "The answer is quite simply that persons in Canada wishing to bring in members of their extended families are inclined to support the political party prepared to make this as easy and fast as possible."

In short, the Chretien Liberals have put their partisan interests ahead of the national welfare. The level of immigration per capita in Canada is twice that of the United States and higher than any other country, but even that's not enough for the Chretien government: It aims to increase Canada's annual intake to a whopping 300,000 immigrants, up form 100,000 at the end of the Trudeau era

Given the grave dangers that this reckless policy poses for the economic prosperity, domestic tranquillity and national security of Canada, why do we not have a serious debate on immigration reform? The problem is that many critics are intimidated: Now that more than 70 per cent of recent immigrants belong to visible minority groups, shameless Liberals have no compunction about deriding anyone who calls for stricter rules on immigration as a racist.

Collacott is immune to the charge. His wife is an Asian. He calls for stricter scrutiny of immigration applications, a substantial cutback in the number of family class immigrants and other major reforms.

In conclusion, Collacott warns: "The proposals made in this paper are designed to strengthen our prospects for remaining a tolerant, multi-racial society. Current immigration policies, in contrast, will place this objective increasingly in jeopardy."

For the past 20 years, judges on the Supreme Court of Canada have invoked the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as a pretence for usurping the legitimate authority of elected legislators, yet there has been little public outcry against this gross abuse of the judicial process. Why is that?

In Friends of the Court: The Privileging of Interest Group Litigants in Canada, Ian Brodie, a professor of political science at the University of Western Ontario, persuasively argues that the Supreme Court of Canada has muted criticism of its encroachment upon legislative powers, by forming a political alliance with a loose coalition of sympathetic law professors and a number of civil libertarian, feminist, gay-rights and other organizations that purport to champion disadvantaged groups. "Whether this manoeuvre was deliberate or the inadvertent by-product of the Court's decisions," opines Brodie, "the rhetoric of the disadvantaged group insulates the Court from criticism of its activism."

Of course, our judicial masters hotly deny Brodie's thesis. They insist that in striking down some laws and changing others, they are upholding the powers elected legislators conferred upon the courts by enacting the Charter.

That's pure poppycock. Take, for example, the determination of the supreme court to enact gay-rights into law. There is no justification whatsoever in the Charter for this judicial exercise of legislative power. Indeed, the idea of including special rights for gays in that document was repeatedly and overwhelmingly rejected by Parliament.

The same goes for the Alberta human rights code. "The issue of whether the province's human rights law ought to forbid discrimination based on sexual orientation had been debated time and again and both the government and the legislature had decided not to do so," writes Brodie. Yet in Vriend v. Alberta (1998), the Supreme Court of Canada unilaterally amended Alberta's human rights law to include protection for homosexuals on the ground that the province is constitutionally obligated to uphold equality rights for homosexuals that the court had read into the Charter.

Despite this brazen act of judicial legislation, the court had the effrontery in its Vriend judgment to affirm: "In carrying our their duties, the courts are not to second-guess legislators and the executives; they are not to make value judgments on what they regard as the proper policy choice; this is for the other branches (of government)."

In making this statement in the context of the Vriend ruling, the Court resembled nothing so much as a mugger who has just punched out an innocent citizen, yet piously exclaims: "I would never dream of committing an assault."

Prior to enactment of the Charter, judges typically restrained themselves to the legalistic process of upholding the principles of the common law, statute law and the Constitution. Interest groups having no direct interest in the specific dispute before a court were not allowed to intervene in the proceedings. Instead, people who did not like the law as it stood were invited by the courts to direct their complaints to elected legislators.

Today, the Supreme Court of Canada still pretends to take no more than a legalistic approach to interpretation of the Charter. Brodie scorns this pretension. "If the Court's role in Vriend was purely legalistic," he asks, "why did it let 14 interest groups intervene in the case?"

Brodie points out: "The Court is trying to have it both ways -- having all the fun of making political decisions under the guise of interpreting constitutional law, but offering up a legalistic defense of its work whenever its activism is questioned."

The Court could not have gotten away with such a ruse without the complicity of the Mulroney Conservatives and Chretien Liberals, whose governments have handed out millions of taxpayers' dollars to radical groups like the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund that encourage and support judicial activism. Voters who still care about representative government and the rule of law should bear in mind that of all the parties in Parliament, only the Canadian Alliance has raised any serious objections to this subversion of democracy by government and the courts.

Joseph is president of the Islamic Centre of Southwest Ontario. He has openly and repeatedly decried attacks on innocent civilians by Islamist terrorists. In a public statement on Sept. 30, 2001, he specifically denounced the Islamists who perpetrated the Sept. 11 attack, saying: "It is tragic that the actions of 19 criminals could affect the perception of 1.4 billion people who practise Islam."

Mansur is a professor of political science at The University of Western Ontario and a regular freelance columnist for The London Free Press and The Toronto Sun. In his column, It will take time to sort Sept. 11's significance (Sept. 11), he wrote: "On Sept. 11, a band of 19 young men, Arab and Muslim, did what was unimaginable in striking terror in America's heartland. We now know they were not alone, that they were part of an international network of fundamentalist Muslim organizations, that their politics was shaped by an ideology grossly distorting a faith, Islam, that sustains the spiritual life of nearly one-fifth of mankind…"

Mohammad Osman Yassine, chairman of The Association of London Muslims, has also spoken out against terrorism. In an address on the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 attack, he declared: "May the murderous thugs who have committed the heinous crime of Sept. 11^th be condemned for their actions."

Note, though, that in this statement, Yassine did not explicitly acknowledge the probable identity of those murderous thugs. Among Muslims, this is a matter of hot contention. Last November, Southam News asked 12 Muslim imams at mosques across Canada for their views on Sept. 11. All but two expressed doubt that the atrocity had been perpetrated by Islamist extremists affiliated with the Al Qaida terrorist network headed by Osama bin Laden.

Dr. Munir El-Kassem, acting Imam of the Islamic Community Centre of Southwest Ontario, was one of the skeptics. He maintained the United States has presented "no substantial evidence that bin Laden is the perpetrator of the horrible crime" and allowed that, "the real culprits may still be at large and preparing for other terrorist attacks."

To help me understand the current views of leaders of the London Muslim community on these issues, Joseph volunteered last week to set up a meeting including him, me, Yassine and El-Kassem. The gathering took place on Thursday morning. El-Kassem was unable to attend because of other commitments.

During the part of this meeting that was tape-recorded and on the record, Joseph contended, "People expect the Muslim community in Canada and around the world to apologize for acts that we are not responsible for and this gets our back up." He added: "One of the greatest sins in our religion is suicide. The only greater sin is taking the lives of innocent civilians, so every act of the perpetrators of the crime of Sept. 11 broke the sanctity of the holdings of our religion. And yet we, Muslims, are supposed to apologize for the actions of people who are clearly not Muslim in name or in practice."

Without calling upon Yassine to apologize for the murderous thugs who committed the heinous crime of Sept. 11, I asked him: "Would you agree that those thugs most likely were purported Muslims affiliated with al-Qaida?"

Yassine responded: "There is no denial to that … They may profess to be Muslims, but whoever does this is not really a Muslim -- not living by Islamic tenets."

Joseph observed that many people, Christian and Muslim, do not trust information put out by the United States government and are disposed to believe in various conspiracy theories. With regard to Sept. 11, he said: "There are members of our community, I think they are a minority, that believe in some type of conspiracy theory, either because they do not trust their governments or they find it psychologically difficult to believe that people purporting to follow their religion can commit such terrible crimes."

Speaking for himself, Joseph made clear: "I do not believe in a conspiracy theory." Yassine concurred: "I don't believe in it either." Unlike some London Muslims, Joseph and Yassine firmly reject the view that the Sept. 11 attack might have been perpetrated by the Israeli secret service and the United States Central Intelligence Agency.

Likewise, Joseph and Yassine insist nothing can justify terrorist attacks on innocent civilians. Adeeb Hassan, the current chairperson of the London Muslim Mosque, takes a somewhat different view. On March 29, he told The Free Press that while he does not condone terrorist attacks on innocent civilians, he cannot condemn Palestinian suicide bombers who have targeted civilians in cafes and hotels. In Hassan's view, it's wrong for a Canadian living in peace and wealth to condemn a Palestinian who is in such despair he will blow himself up. "It's not for me to condemn it," he said.

While Joseph also agonizes over the dire plight of the Palestinian people, he has repeatedly and unambiguously deplored terrorist attacks on innocent Israeli civilians. For example, in a statement reported in The Free Press on April 13, he said: "The thing that is so upsetting to me is the suicide bombers. To go and strap yourself up with a bomb and blow yourself up and innocent civilians is wrong."

Yassine concurs. On Thursday, he said: "I deplore all acts of violence against any (innocent) party. I believe terrorism has no cultural or religious identity."

In my column on Sept. 10, I wrote: "moderate Muslims should join with other Canadians in urging all loyal citizens to report suspected terrorists and their sympathizers to the police." Meer Sahib, a former vice-chairman of The London Muslim Mosque, has denounced that suggestion. In an email broadcast to Joseph, Yassine, El-Kassem and other leaders of the London Muslim community, he accused me of, "calling for a witch hunt, reminiscent of the horrors of Communist regimes and what the Jews suffered in the Nazi era."

Sahib suggested tracking down terrorists, "should be left to the authorities who have the necessary training and sophisticated technology. Otherwise, it will open a can of worms and destroy our society, where neighbour will call the police against neighbour, just to get even for petty quarrels and we will relive the horrors of the Jews in Nazi Germany or the hapless victims of the communist regimes."

On Thursday, Yassine rejected this viewpoint. He also emphasized that Sahib does not speak for The London Muslim Mosque on this or any other issue. "It is the duty of any Canadian, Muslim or otherwise, who has reason to believe that violence or any harm is going to come to his community or the community at large to report it to the authorities," Yassine said, adding, "The authorities have a responsibility to screen out information to protect the innocent."

Joseph speaks with special authority on this issue, inasmuch as he is a former crown attorney and chairman of the Canadian Bar Association criminal section for Nova Scotia, who currently serves as a law partner for Lerner and Associates. He says he has represented some Muslims who have been unfairly targeted for investigation by counter-terrorism agents of the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Nonetheless, he unequivocally asserts: "It is the duty of every Canadian, Muslim or non-Muslim, if they know there is going to be a terrorist attack in any way shape or form to report to the police."

In sum, Joseph, Mansur and Yassine have well served the Muslim community, by speaking out against Islamist terrorism. As for the rest of us who are not Muslim, it bears reiterating that we should be no less outspoken in condemning all harassment of our loyal, law-abiding and peaceful fellow citizens who happen to be Muslim.

Together, all of us Canadians, Muslim and non-Muslim, have a duty to do whatever we can to prevent the importation into Canada of the kind of factional strife and terrorist violence that wracks so many other less fortunate countries.

For years, Dr. Stephen Genuis, a former professor of gynaecology at the University of Alberta, has documented the failures of condom-based sex education in the public schools. In his latest book, Teen Sex Reality Check: Sexual Behavior & STDs in the 21^st Century, (co-authored with his wife, Shelagh Genuis), he focuses on the upsurge in sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) among North American teenagers.

While acknowledging that most parents are aware of the dangers posed by teen pregnancy, Genuis says most people, "are completely unaware of the devastating results of STDs and of the overwhelming number of sexually active teenagers and adults who suffer from these very common infections."

HIV/AIDS is an exception: The perils of this disease are generally well understood. A recent article in the British Medical Journal stated: "Despite the impressive advances in medicine since (the 14^th century), HIV/AIDS is likely to surpass the Black Death as the worst pandemic ever."

Still, HIV infection is rare among Canadian teenagers. Heterosexual youngsters are far more likely to contract other serious STDs, including Human Papillomavirus (HPV).

There is no cure for HPV. It's one of the most common STDs. Health Canada estimates the proportion of women in different age groups that have contracted the types of HPV that cause cervical cancer ranges between 11 and 25 per cent.

Genuis recalls treating a discouraged young man for the burning and irritation of genital warts caused by HPV. Genuis relates: "He questioned why he was not told when he was in school health classes about the potentially life changing risks of such an infection."

Like HPV, chlamydia also ranks among the most prevalent STDs in North America. Genuis advises: "Although the vast majority of women carrying this infection have no symptoms during the early stages of the infective process, this STD can silently damage the female reproductive organs and often results in internal scarring, pelvic pain and infertility."

What can be done to prevent the rapid transmission of such STDs among teenagers? Are condoms a panacea? Most definitely not, especially in the case of viruses like HPV and genital herpes that can infect the entire genital region. Genuis warns: "Since condoms cover only a very limited area and do not prevent all direct physical contact in the genital region, transmission may occur despite condom use."

Besides, a person may have no visible signs of HPV, genital herpes or chlamydia, yet still be infected. And the more sexual partners a person has had, the greater the risk that he or she will pass on one of these insidious and readily transmitted STDs. In the case of HPV, Genuis states: "There is at least a 50 per cent chance of transmission with a single sexual encounter with an infected individual."

Parents of teenagers should ask their children if they are aware of these facts. If not, the family would do well to get a copy of the Genuis's Teen Sex Reality Check.

There is no moralizing in this book; just the medical facts pointing to the authors' ineluctable conclusion: "It is optimal, from a health perspective, to postpone voluntary sexual intercourse among pre-teens and teens, and for sexual intimacy to be confined to mutually committed long-term monogamous relationships generally known as marriage."

Many jaded adults think the majority of teenagers will pay no attention to such a message, because they are already sexually active. Yet Statistics Canada reports 53 per cent of Canadian teenagers aged 15 to 19 in 1997 had never had sexual intercourse. That was up from 40 per cent in 1990.

Both parents and schools officials should take note: Instead of accommodating promiscuity, they should help teenagers understand that abstaining from sexual intercourse outside of marriage is essential to their health and well-being.

A few years ago, John Stackhouse, a reporter for the Globe and Mail, spent a week working as a homeless panhandler on the streets of Toronto. On the basis of this experience and a number of interviews with street people, he concluded that panhandlers can take in more than $200 a day and typically spend, "almost all their begging money on their addictions" rather than food.

While interesting and suggestive, this study was not, of course, definitive. Critics pointed out that the panhandlers whom Stackhouse interviewed might not have been typical.

To get a better idea of how much a typical panhandler might earn and spend, Dr. Stephen W. Hwang, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Toronto, and Rohit Bose, one of Hwang's graduate students, prepared a systematic survey of panhandlers who work the streets and subway stations of downtown Toronto. Altogether, they found 54 panhandlers who were willing for a small stipend to take part in a 20-minute interview.

In the current issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Hwang and Bose relate that the median panhandling income reported by their respondents amounted to $8 an hour, $30 a day and $300 a month. In addition, these panhandlers said they received a median income of $200 a month from employment, welfare, family gifts and all other sources.

The most successful one-quarter of panhandlers did considerably better. They reported median incomes of $15 an hour, $50 a day, and $600 a month from panhandling. For other incomes, the top one-quarter had a median intake of $568 a month.

How did these panhandlers spend their money? Bose and Hwang report that they admitted to spending median monthly amounts of $112 on tobacco and $80 on alcohol and/or illicit drugs. That works out to 64 cents for every dollar in panhandling income.

Note, though, that these are just the median amounts for the entire sample. Among the panhandlers in the top one-quarter for each of these categories, median spending amounted to $160 a month for tobacco and a staggering $600 a month for alcohol and/or illicit drugs. That's equivalent to more than 100 per cent of the income that the top one-quarter of panhandlers receive by begging from generous donors in the streets.

Would most panhandlers enjoy better health if they had no panhandling income to squander on tobacco, excessive booze or some other death-dealing drug habit? Bose and Hwang are not sure. "The health effects of a loss of panhandling income are uncertain," they note, "because panhandlers might reduce their food intake, reduce their substance use or find other sources of income."

Given this uncertainty, charitable Canadians would do well to emulate the benevolence of the great Dr. Samuel Johnson, who gave not just money to the destitute, but also always had two or three needy and quarrelsome friends living in his own home. Early one morning, he even picked up a fever-ridden prostitute that he had found slumped in a doorway; carried her home; and gradually nursed her back to health.

Of course, few of us are quite so heroically generous as Johnson. Rarely will we take a panhandling beggar out to dinner, let alone welcome him or her into our own home.

At the least, though, instead of just routinely handing out some cash to panhandlers, all of us who are blessed with a good and sufficient income should be willing to make a generous donation to an agency like the Salvation Army or Mission Services of London. In this way, we can be reasonably certain that our hard-earned charitable dollars will be put to good use, providing the food, clothing, shelter and counselling that so many feckless, drug-addicted and/or mentally ill panhandlers desperately need.

Of course, not all Christians share our admiration for this pope. A small minority are reactionaries bent on perpetuating the animosities generated by the religious wars of the 16^th and 17^th centuries. Others are theological liberals, who have neither eyes to see, nor ears to hear -- nor brains to conceive -- the greatness of John Paul.

However, the great majority of theologically orthodox Christians -- Catholic and Protestant -- have a high regard for Pope John Paul II. In an interview with Time Magazine, the Rev. Billy Graham, the greatest of modern Protestant evangelists, has aptly lauded John Paul as, "the strong conscience of the whole Christian world."

This esteem is mutual. In a 1995 encyclical, Ut Unum Sint (That They Might All Be One), John Paul surely referred to faithful Protestants like Billy Graham when he observed: "The relationships which the members of the Catholic Church have established with other Christians (have) made us aware of the witness which other Christians bear to God and to Christ … The Second Vatican Council made it clear that elements present among other Christians can contribute to the edification of Catholics."

Today, the Christian church is divided less between Catholics and Protestants than between theological liberals and conservatives. The former are wise in their own conceit, while the latter seek to uphold the truth as revealed in the Bible and affirmed in the common traditions of the Christian church.

This new split can be traced to the debate over contraception. Up to the 1930s, Protestants and Catholics were united in opposing all artificial means of birth control. As recently as 1946, a United Church of Canada Commission on Christian Marriage headed by former chief Justice J. C. McRuer of the Ontario Supreme Court lamented that, "the widespread illicit use of contraceptives" was fostering sexual promiscuity, while failing to curb rising rates of either venereal disease or illegitimacy.

Despite such evidence, Protestant denominations affiliated with the Canadian Council of Churches soon changed course. In 1964, they called for elimination of a longstanding provision in the Criminal Code that designated the advertising or sale of contraceptives as an indictable offence punishable by up to two years in prison. At the instigation of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, Parliament acted upon this request in 1969, by adopting omnibus legislation that legalized not just the advertising and sale of contraceptives, but also abortion, gambling and acts of gross indecency by consenting adults in private.

In 1968, Pope Paul VI warned in his prophetic encyclical, Humanae Vitae, that widespread access to contraceptives would, "open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards." Time has proven him right. Instead of effective natural family planning (see www.billingsmethod.com), many couples now routinely rely on the Pill, although it sometimes causes abortions (see www.epm.org/bcp.html). Together with the calamitous increase in surgical abortions over the past 30 years, abortifacient contraceptives have undermined regard for the sanctity of all human life, inside and outside the womb.

To counter this trend, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada resolve in 1997 to call upon the so-called therapeutic abortion committees that were then in operation, "to give priority to the principle that the unborn has the right to life." Yet this same assembly reaffirmed the novel doctrine it had first propounded in 1967 that, "a danger to the mother's health indicating the likelihood of permanent or prolonged mental or physical impairment" is grounds for abortion.

Jean Calvin would have been appalled by such an incoherent stance. He forthrightly denounced abortion. "The fetus, though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being," he held. "And it is almost a monstrous crime to rob it of the life which it has not yet begun to enjoy."

As a logical man, Calvin understood that since the unborn have the right to life, the deliberate killing of a baby in the womb can never be justified. He would have agreed completely with the declaration of Pope John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life) that, "direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, always constitutes a grave moral disorder, since it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being."

Underlying the upsurge in abortion, sexual promiscuity and other evils is a disposition to substitute man-made values for the eternal commandments of God. Some theologians even presume to understand the precepts of sexual morality better than Jesus. There is nothing new about such arrogance. In his Commentary on Romans, Calvin noted: "In seeking perfection, the world backslides from the Word of God and goes after new inventions; Paul fixes perfection in the will of God, and shows that anyone who goes beyond it imagines falsehood and falls into delusion."

Likewise, in Veritatis Splendor, (The Splendour of Truth) John Paul noted: "Some people, disregarding the dependence of human reason on Divine Wisdom and the need, given the present state of fallen nature, for Divine Revelation as an effective means for knowing moral truths, even those of the natural order, have actually posited a complete sovereignty of reason in the domain of moral norms." He then warned against this folly in terms no less emphatic that Calvin's.

While theologically orthodox Christians still disagree on some important points of doctrine, the great majority recognize in John Paul the pre-eminent witness to Christian truth in our time. And that's why so many of us -- Protestants as well as Catholics -- were thrilled to see hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic young pilgrims brave heat, wind and rain in Toronto during World Youth Days to worship Christ and salute Pope John Paul the Great.

To mark the first anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attack on the United States, the Department of Communications and Public Affairs of The University of Western Ontario has broadcast the views of two ill-informed academics on the faculty whose rants are an embarrassment to an institution that prides itself as "Leading. Thinking."

The pair in question are David MacGregor, a sociology professor at King's College, and Tim Blackmore, a professor in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies. They have been included by the Department of Communications and Public Affairs in a media release listing three academics who are available to provide "expert commentary" on September 11.

The department's third choice is Jonathan Vance, an eminently well qualified professor of history. His book, Death So Noble: Memory, Meaning, and the First World War, has won three major awards, including the Sir John A. Macdonald Prize, which is awarded annually by the Canadian Historical Association to the best book in Canadian history.

In reflecting upon the first anniversary of September 11, Vance cautions against excess in commemorating, "what many see as the greatest crime perpetrated on the United States this century." In Vance's view, "commemoration works best when it is understated -- less is more."

In sorry contrast to the well-considered reflection on the memorialization of September 11 by Vance, MacGregor and Blackmore have served up no more than an empty-headed sophomoric diatribe against the United States. While MacGregor charges, "The War on Terrorism has become an end in itself," and, "America's brutal war … may protect trade in raw opium and heroin," Blackmore declaims: "The post-September 11th world is one in which we have apparently decided we can organize the world the way we want to; obey or disobey international law as we please; count on the media to carry a message of nationalism and implicit racism; and kill people where and when we choose."

Granted, MacGregor and Blackmore have a right to express their perverse views. Why, though, given the availability of accomplished scholars at Western with knowledge of international affairs, should these two have been singled out by the administration to comment on September 11?

Anyone contemplating the strategic significance of this Al-Qaida outrage would do well to ponder the counsel of Martin Rudner. Unlike MacGregor and Blackmore, he is a genuine academic expert, who heads the Canadian Centre of Intelligence and Security Studies at Carleton University's Norman Paterson School of International Affairs.

In the light of the disclosure last week that two teenaged Canadian Muslims have been captured while allegedly serving with Al-Qaida forces in Afghanistan, Rudner told The National Post that, "It is clear that Canadian communities are not exempt from the contagion of terrorist recruitment. This can constitute a real threat to public safety and international security," he warned. "It is important for community and spiritual leaders to demonstrate leadership in fending off these dangerous influences."

Let us hope that Muslim moderates in Canada will take this advice to heart. They have been all too silent. For the protection of Muslim youths who might be lured into terrorist cells, they should speak up, first by frankly admitting that Islamist extremists affiliated with Al-Qaida perpetrated the September 11 attack on the United States.

Second, Muslim moderates should denounce the crackpot conspiracy theorists who are trying to shift the blame for the atrocity to Jewish agents of the Israeli secret service.

Third, Muslim moderates should deplore all terrorist attacks on innocent civilians, whether by Palestinian homicide bombers, Jewish extremists or anyone else.

And finally, moderate Muslims should join with other Canadians in urging all loyal citizens to report suspected terrorists and their sympathizers to the police.

September 11 should have served as a wake-up call to Canadians, no less than to our friends in the United States, about the dangers of terrorism. Every responsible citizen has a duty to help protect Canada from the terrorists -- Muslim and non-Muslim -- who are lurking in our midst.

In an opening address to the United Nations World Summit for Sustainable Development, South African President Thabo Mbeki demonstrated a common failing of African and Arab politicians -- a disposition to blame the West for the poverty that afflicts most of their countries.

In essence, Mbeki contends that Africa is poor because the West is rich. He says: "It is as though we are determined to regress to the most primitive condition of existence in the animal world, of the survival of the fittest."

That's nonsense. The wealth of the West is rooted not in the exploitation of the poor people of Africa and Asia, but in the high productivity of Western employees and managers.

The same goes for Hong Kong and Singapore: Despite having virtually no natural resources, these former colonies now have a higher income per capita than many Western countries, thanks mainly to superior labour-force productivity.

Mbeki seems to think that foreign trade is a zero-sum game in which one side gains what the other side loses. But that, too, is a misconception. Hong Kong and Singapore are also proof positive that both the East and the West, as well as the North and the South, stand to gain from greater international trade in goods, services and capital.

Africa suffers not from too much, but from too little foreign trade and Western investment. Why is that?

The main impediments are internal to Africa. For example, in the case of the Republic of South Africa, the country is saddled with a huge government deficit, 30 per cent unemployment, double-digit inflation, a prime interest rate of 16 per cent and a depreciating national currency.

The West did not cause any of these problems. They are all due to the economic mismanagement of Mbeki's own government.

In neighbouring Zimbabwe, conditions are much worse: There, President Robert Mugabe, once a darling of Western socialists, has brought on a severe famine, by expropriating the land of the country's most productive white farmers and giving it away to his black supporters.

Such contempt for property rights is all-too-typical of African dictators. In this respect, though, the Republic of South Africa is exceptional. In a statement last week, Tito Mboweni, the governor of the Reserve Bank of South Africa, denounced illegal seizures of private property. "We are not Zimbabwe," he said. "We believe in property rights. We believe in the importance of the rule of law."

Mbeki lost a good opportunity to make this same point in his address to the World Summit on Sustainable Development. He would have served all the peoples of Africa well, by pointing out that one of the greatest impediments to investment in the region is the violation of property rights by lawless and corrupt dictators like Mugabe.

Mbeki should also have noted that foreign aid can do little to alleviate grinding poverty in low-income African, Asian and Latin American countries that are saddled with grossly corrupt and incompetent governments. At best, only food aid and other forms of emergency relief is likely to provide much benefit to the suffering peoples in these countries.

Accordingly, in addressing the Johannesburg summit, Prime Minister Jean Chretien should warn that Canada will curtail foreign aid to corrupt dictatorships. At the same time he should emphasize that Canadian taxpayers are eager to provide generous development assistance where it is likely to do some good -- in needy countries like South Africa that have reasonably honest and law-abiding governments.

Sahib describes himself as a former vice-chairman of The London Muslim Mosque and a former director of The Canadian Alliance London-West Constituency Association. In an email entitled Sept. 11:WHODUNIT, he says it's a great regret, "that a historical event of such gravity went down in history without proper, in-depth and impartial investigation, to identify the real culprits who perpetrated such an act, which in turn impelled the United States to commit even worse crimes against innocent people in Afghanistan and elsewhere."

Sahib cites no evidence for his allegation that the United States has perpetrated worse crimes against innocent Afghanis than the Sept. 11 attacks. He simply goes on in his email to commend "a very interesting analysis and hypothesis" of Sept. 11 by Dewdney, an emeritus professor of computer science at The University of Western Ontario.

In an on-line article entitled, "Ghost Riders in the Sky," Dewdney maintains that, "The simplest possible scheme for hijacking a modern commercial jetliner involves two elements: a) two small canisters of lethal gas hidden in the aircraft’s ventilation ducts and triggered either by a timer or by radio signal, b) a small information implant (three numbers) in the flight control system and a means to trigger it." In Dewdney's opinion, evil agents posing as, "mechanics or even cabin cleaners" could easily install such "unfriendly hardware and software" on a commercial airliner.

In accordance with this James Bond-like scenario, Dewdney speculates that a fast-acting lethal nerve gas was released shortly after takeoff within each of the planes involved in the Sept. 11 attacks, killing the pilots and everyone else on board. Then the information implants took over the planes' inertial guidance systems, directing two into the Twin Towers of New York City and a third into the Pentagon.

What, though, about the numerous cell phone calls from passengers on the hijacked planes? In one instance, Barbara Olson, a well known television commentator, managed to phone her husband, Solicitor General Ted Olson, and give him a vivid description of hijackers taking over the aircraft she was on shortly before it crashed into the Pentagon.

Dewdney has a ready explanation: The calls were fakes. "Any sophisticated intelligence organization can duplicate any voice type," he notes. "For example, Mossad, the Israeli spy agency, has extensive video and audio archives which it can use as a source for fake images and voice messages."

On the basis of no evidence whatsoever other than his own far-fetched speculations, Dewdney suggests: "If the September 11 attacks were planned and executed as a combined clandestine operation between Mossad and some US agencies such as the CIA and NSA (with God knows what involvement by the Joint Chiefs and the White House), it can be reliably inferred that other attacks blamed on Al Qaeda are also fakes or 'dirty tricks' in CIA parlance."

That's not all. "The possibility emerges," Dewdney speculates, "that Al Qaeda is a front under joint Israel-US control … This in no way precludes the possibility that some members of al-Qaeda may think they belong to a genuine terrorist organization, including bin Laden himself."

Who can give any credence to such a crack-brained conspiracy theory? A lot of Muslims, it seems. It's a measure of the clash of civilizations between Islam and the West that Dewdney says he could not get his article published in any regular Western venue, yet it has been posted on the website of The Institute of Islamic Information and Education, a Chicago-based organization which claims that its brochures have been read by 25 million people in the United States.

Meanwhile, Dewdney says he doubts his own theory. While acknowledging that he wrote Ghost Riders in the Sky, he confides: "In spite of my suspicions, I favour the U.S. explanation of Sept 11. My 'reason' is purely emotional. If the alternative scenario is even approximately correct, it scares the s--t out of me!"

Dewdney should take a Prozac, and relax.

Most definitely not. Under the leadership of former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, the federal Conservatives undertook to ape the Liberals, by embracing big government, high taxes and huge deficits. Instead of upholding the classic ideal of equality of opportunity for all, the Mulroney government promoted an unfair regime of special preferences for women, racial minorities and the handicapped. And to make matters worse, Mulroney tried to appease Quebec nationalists and separatists with a misconceived policy of constitutional reform that nearly split the country definitively apart.

All these so-called progressive policies were adopted by the Mulroney Conservatives with a view to retaining power. But what was the dismal result? In the 1993 election, the Progressive Conservatives went down to an unprecedented defeat, retaining just two seats in the Commons.

Nonetheless, under the inept leadership of Joe Clark, the Progressive Conservative Party remains decidedly on the left. It aims to outdo the Liberals, by supporting massive government subsidies for corporations under the guise of regional economic development. And it supports a so-called employment insurance program that breeds a culture of defeatism, by trapping thousands of Canadians in chronic dependency on handouts from the state.

There is only one genuinely conservative party in the Commons, and that's the Canadian Alliance. In a recent address, Harper promised that under his leadership, the party will remain, "dedicated to the core principles that Canadians deserve: economic policies built on free enterprise, low taxes, low spending and low public debt."

Harper favours the creation of a revamped unemployment insurance system that is based on sound insurance principles for protection against temporary job losses. While Clark has no compunction about serving as grand marshal for a gay pride parade in Calgary, Harper has pledged that the Canadian Alliance will uphold, "respect for traditional values and for strong and independent families."

In April, Harper reunited the right, by inducing the key Canadian Alliance dissidents who had formed a coalition with the Progressive Conservatives into rejoining the Canadian Alliance. As a result, there are virtually no philosophical conservatives left in the Progressive Conservative Party.

However, immediately after Clark tentatively announced his intention earlier this month to step down as leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, Harper offered to have the Canadian Alliance hold a joint leadership convention with the Progressive Conservatives, provided the two sides could get the process underway this fall so there would be some chance of coming up with a new leader before the next federal election. Naturally, Clark and his colleagues turned that idea down cold. They fear that in any merger, former members of the Canadian Alliance would predominate.

Still, some critics insist Harper has not gone far enough: They would like to see him clear the way for a merger with the Progressive Conservatives, by agreeing to water down the conservative principles of the Canadian Alliance.

Harper should firmly reject such advice. Canada does not need another left-wing clone of the Liberal Party.

Harper is an intelligent and articulate spokesman for conservative principles in both of Canada's official languages. By upholding his conservative convictions, he stands the best chance of consolidating the strength of the Canadian Alliance in the West while expanding the party's support in Ontario, Quebec and the few remaining areas of Progressive Conservative strength in Atlantic Canada.

"We don't wish to see Mr. Saddam Hussein acquire weapons of mass destruction," Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham has explained. "And we don't wish to see what can be done with them. So we do have to recognize there is a security issue there. But we strongly endorse doing that through the United Nations. Because that is the world forum designed by us to have an international response to this. That's where Canadians are on this and we'll stay there."

There are several things wrong with this statement. Whether Graham wishes to see it or not, Saddam already has acquired weapons of mass destruction. Last week, Richard Butler, a former chief weapons inspector for the UN told a committee of the United States Senate that there is good reason to believe that Hussein has accelerated production of chemical and biological weapons over the past four years, and might even be close to acquiring a nuclear bomb.

Graham says he does not wish to see what Saddam could do with weapons of mass destruction. Someone should inform Graham that Saddam provided a graphic demonstration of his savagery in 1988, when he ordered the Iraqi air force to drop chemical weapons, including mustard gas and nerve gas, on rebel Kurdish villages. According to Human Rights Watch, thousands of Iraqis died in these chemical-weapon attacks.

While Graham at least recognizes that Saddam poses, "a security issue", he insists that the UN should take care of the problem. What makes him think this approach will work?

Following the Gulf War, the UN imposed weapons inspections on Iraq, only to have Saddam systematically obstruct the UN inspectors. In 1998, they finally withdrew in frustration.

Now, Saddam will not allow them back in the country. During talks on this issue in Vienna last month, the Iraqi foreign minister laid down conditions for a resumption of UN weapons inspections that were so stringent even UN Secretary General Kofi Annan found them to be completely unacceptable.

What, though, is the UN prepared to do to enforce its resolutions? Effectively nothing. For the past 12 years, the UN has maintained comprehensive economic sanctions on Iraq, but they have utterly failed. To this day, Saddam continues to defy the UN, despite the suffering these economic sanctions have imposed on the Iraqi people.

It's past time to put an end to this impasse. More diplomatic talks will not suffice. Neither will more economic sanctions. There is only one solution: Outside military intervention with sufficient power and authority to put a definitive end to Saddam's brutal and corrupt regime.

Will the Security Council of the United Nations authorize such an operation? Not likely. In addition to the United States and Britain, Russia, China and France all have a veto over Security Council resolutions. It's the position of the Canadian government that the United States and Britain should do nothing to prevent Iraq from acquiring an atomic bomb, without the approval of Russia, China and France.

That's ridiculous. It makes no sense to subordinate safeguards for the security of every democratic country to the wishes of an implacable dictatorship in Beijing.

United States President George W. Bush has made clear that the United States wants a regime change in Iraq and is prepared to take unilateral military action, if need be, to achieve this objective. Bush should stick to this policy, but the United States should not have to act alone.

As in the recent Afghanistan intervention and the Gulf War, Britain and Canada should have no compunction about backing up the United States in its determination to oust Saddam, even if equivocal allies like France and Germany remain wedded to a futile and dangerous policy of appeasement. Moreover, once Saddam is overthrown, the democratic powers should take aim at the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Asad.

Bush is right: No democracy can be safe, so long as brutal tyrants like Saddam and Asad are allowed to go on aiding and abetting international terrorism.

Is that right? Does Herle have any solid evidence to back up her serious charge that we Canadians are so heartless and hypocritical that we only pretend to value our children?

Most definitely not. Notwithstanding the Council's claim that the rate of chronic poverty is highest among pre-school children, Canada has no official definition of poverty. None other than federal Human Resources Development Minister Jane Stewart acknowledged as much in a report she released last June on the National Child Benefit program.

"Canada does not have an official poverty line," she said. "However, several different measures of low income are used in Canada, and in recent years, there has been considerable debate about the best way to measure it. Some believe low income means lacking enough income to buy the basic necessities of life, such as food, shelter and clothing."

That, indeed, would be a good definition of poverty, but it has been rejected by the National Welfare Council. Instead, the Council maintains that a Canadian family is poor if it has an income so low that it has to spend, "54.7 per cent or more on the necessities of life." In other words, a Canadian family can have up to 45 per cent of its income to spend on things other than basic necessities, yet still qualify as poor in the eyes of the National Welfare Council.

One might well wonder how the Council arrived at such a cockeyed definition of poverty. It happens that the measure is based on a finding by Statistics Canada that Canadians reported in 1992 that they spent, on average, 34.7 per cent of their gross family income on food, shelter and clothing. The Council arbitrarily added 20 percentage points on top of this 34.7 percent to arrive at its basic poverty line.

Statistics Canada uses this same formula adjusted for family size and degree of urbanization to compile a list of low-income cutoffs (LICOs). The National Council of Welfare regards the LICOs as poverty lines and use the terms poor and low-income interchangeably, despite acknowledging in its report that, "Statistics Canada takes pains to avoid references to poverty. It says the cut-offs have no official status, and it does not promote their use as poverty lines."

Statistics Canada has good reason to discourage the use of LICOs as poverty lines: The cutoffs do not measure poverty. They are a simply an indicator of relatively low incomes.

When the LICOs were first devised in the 1950s, families were deemed to have low-incomes if they had to spend 70 per cent or more of their gross income on food, shelter and clothing. By that standard, there are few low-income people left in Canada -- adults or children.

People who live in real poverty have to get by with less than a minimally decent standard of living. By this criterion, how many children live in chronic poverty in Canada? The National Council of Welfare does not know, and neither does anyone else, because Statistics Canada does not compile such information.

That's a scandal. It's urgent for the federal and provincial governments to come up with an official assessment of real poverty based on the number of Canadians who are burdened with less than a minimally decent standard of living.

Meanwhile, Herle owes the people of Canada an apology. There is not a shred of evidence for her charge that we only pretend we value our children. Instead of making such base accusations, she should join in the call for the creation of a genuine poverty measure so we can identify and assist all the children who are suffering from real poverty in Canada.

Who else could have drawn close to 800,000 people to brave thunderstorms for an outdoor worship service in Toronto? Who but he could have induced more than 300,000 young people to attend a profoundly moving three-hour depiction of the passion of Christ in downtown Toronto on a Friday night?

Among Catholics, John Paul is admired not just for the office he holds as pope, but also for his exceptional piety. In an excellent book, Witness to Hope: The Biography of John Paul II, George Weigel reports that this holy man typically rises at 5:30 in the morning; gets dressed; goes to his chapel in the Vatican for an hour of private prayer; concelebrates mass; and then has breakfast.

Young Catholics also seem to appreciate the integrity of John Paul. He does not pander to them. He challenges them.

To the vast throng who came out to greet him on Thursday, he said: "Dear young people, many and enticing are the voices that call out to you from all sides: many of these voices speak to you of a joy that can be had with money, with success, with power. Mostly they propose a joy that comes with the superficial and fleeting pleasure of the senses."

John Paul urged the youngsters to renounce illusory pleasures for true happiness. "To believe in Jesus," he advised, "is to accept what he says, even when it runs contrary to what others are saying. It means rejecting the lure of sin, however attractive it may be, in order to set out on the difficult path of the Gospel virtues."

Unlike arbitrary values, virtues are eternal. They do not change over time. Like the rules of gravity, they apply to all peoples at all times and in all places.

While virtues remain the same, people differ in their understanding of the dictates of morality. For example, it took a long time for leaders of the Christian church to appreciate that justice requires the abolition of slavery and that all people have a right to freedom of religion.

Today, Christians differ sharply over the requirements of sexual morality. In the history of the church, this is a recent development. Up to the 1960s, every major Christian denomination in Canada -- Protestant and Catholic -- deplored the sinfulness of contraception, abortion and any form of sexual intercourse outside of marriage.

There was but one notable exception to this generalization: As early as 1936, the United Church of Canada embraced the now fashionable idea that there is nothing wrong with artificial means of birth control. Today, this same denomination would also have us believe that, "bisexual and transgendered as well as heterosexual orientations are gifts from God, part of the marvellous diversity of creation."

Pope John Paul II stands out in opposition to these new ideas. To the dismay of many of his fellow bishops, priests and theologians who like to think of themselves as no less enlightened and progressive than the trendiest of Protestants, he faithfully upholds the traditional teaching of the Christian church on sexual morality.

Note the irony: Liberal clerics aim to be popular, yet the young dismiss them as irrelevant. John Paul faithfully expounds and exemplifies the rational truths of the Christian faith as handed down over two millennia, and he is rewarded with immense popularity, not least among the young.

Thus on Sunday, hundreds of thousands came out to cheer this inspiring old man as he urged: "Young people of Canada, of America and of every part of the world! Last year we saw with dramatic clarity the tragic face of human malice. We saw what happens when hatred, sin and death take command. But today Jesus' voice resounds in the midst of our gathering. His is a voice of hope, of forgiveness: a voice of justice and of peace. Let us listen to this voice!"

First, faithful Christians should ponder their own sins.

A few years ago, I reviewed an excellent book, Straight & Narrow: Compassion & Clarity in the Homosexuality Debate, by Thomas E. Schmidt, a professor of New Testament ethics at Westmount College in Santa Clara, California. It's worth recalling that Schmidt begins the book by confessing that he represents, "that class of people responsible for the vast majority of sexual wrongdoing in the world today: male heterosexuals. I have contributed more than my share of wrongdoing, and I need the forgiveness and grace of God every day to become the sexual being God desires."

Second, faithful Christians have a duty to state clearly and in public that God desires chastity in singleness and fidelity within marriage.

About the Christian definition of marriage, there can be no doubt that it entails, "the lawful union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others." That also happens to be the common law definition of marriage -- the very definition that the Ontario Superior Court has ordered Parliament to change so as to denote marriage as the lawful union of one man and one woman; or one gay man and another gay man; or one lesbian and another lesbian.

Third, faithful Christians should give up on the vain hope that their God-given rights to freedom of religion will be vindicated in the courts. Consider the recent record:

* In 1998, Madam Justice Mary Saunders of the British Columbia Supreme Court overturned a ruling by the Surrey District School Board that barred teachers from reading three gay-pride books to kindergarten children on the ground that the board's decision had been "significantly influenced by religious considerations." This case is now before the Supreme Court of Canada.

Meanwhile, Saunders has been promoted to the British Columbia Court of appeal.

* Last year, the Supreme Court of Canada warned in the Trinity Western case that teachers who uphold traditional Christian teaching on sexual morality in public could be fired for violating the equality rights of homosexuals.

* Last June, the Ontario Superior Court decreed that a Christian printer is no longer free to refuse to print business cards or letterheads for any gay-pride organization. It would make about as much sense for the courts to hold that a Jewish printer must print letterheads for Islamic Jihad on the ground that the Ontario Human Rights Code bans discrimination on the basis of ethnicity?

Fourth, if the courts get away with abolishing the traditional definition of marriage, faithful Christians should no longer get legally married; and their priests, pastors and ministers should no longer participate in solemnizing marriages on behalf of the state.

Instead, Christian clergy should marry the faithful only in accordance with church law. On no account should any faithful Christian sign a phoney marriage licence ordained by the courts that is antithetical to a real marriage.

Granted, many so-called progressive Christians have embraced the gay-rights agenda. In their zeal for popularity, they have exchanged the truth of God for a lie. Faithful Christians should pray for these apostates.

It's not easy these days to speak out in favour of traditional Christian teaching on sexual morality. Anyone who does so is liable to be denounced as a homophobe.

Alas, sometimes the charge is true. Faithful Christians should manifest their good will for all people, including those who are trapped in a perverse, homosexual lifestyle

"Finally, and by no means least important," Schmidt admonishes, "Christians should be known for the kind of hands-on help that characterized the ministry of our Lord. People with AIDS, in particular, are the lepers of our day. More than anything, they need simple human companionship. As relationships of trust develop, they may open up to spiritual help. But there is no guarantee of this, and we should not make it a condition of service."

That statement is undoubtedly true. In a policy paper written for the European Commission entitled, Making Sense of Globalization, the non-partisan, London-based Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) estimates that, "About 1.3 billion people live in absolute poverty, defined as an income of less than $1 a day."

That's dreadful. But are New Democrats right to pin the blame for this tragedy on the impact of two decades of globalization? Not at all. The CEPR study points out that over the past 50 years of globalization, the proportion of very poor people in the world has declined to about 25 per cent of the world's population, down from about 50 per cent.

The New Democrats charge that, "Between 1980 and 1996, during the widest, most rapid trade liberalization, 28 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa grew poorer." That statement is also correct, but it, too, is misleading. Few multinational corporations have any major investments in Sub-Saharan Africa, and there is little trade between this region and the rest of the world. For New Democrats or anyone else to blame globalization for the increasing rates of dire poverty among Sub-Saharan Africans is absurd.

To the contrary, there is better reason to believe that globalization fosters, rather than impedes, the elimination of poverty. According to the United Nations Human Development Index, countries like Chile, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea that embraced freer international trade well before the 1980s now rank among the most prosperous and highly developed countries in the world.

Other countries such as Brazil, China, Ghana, India, Malaysia and Mexico only got started on globalization within the past two decades, but are also doing well. The CEPR study indicates that during the 1990s, these countries experienced average annual rates of economic growth of 5.3 per cent, while countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere outside the orbit of globalization had their economies decline at an average annual rate of 0.8 per cent.

A major impediment to poverty-alleviating economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa is lawless, corrupt and incompetent governments. Both multi-national corporations and domestic entrepreneurs will remain shy of investing in the region so long as there is a serious risk that the resulting assets will be blown up in a civil war, expropriated by a socialist government or simply looted by some crazed dictator.

In support of the wrong-headed notion that globalization serves to increase poverty, socialists are apt to observe that in many less developed countries, wealthy multi-national corporations pay their workers no more than $5 a day. And that, certainly, is a paltry sum by industrial country standards. But it's an attractive wage for many workers in impoverished countries that have an average annual income which amounts to less than $2 a day.

Even so, some critics of globalization insist that multi-nationals should be forced to pay the same wages to all their workers in rich and poor countries alike. What, though, would be the results of imposing such a "fair wage" policy on developing country workers? The CEPR study notes that it, "would make them uncompetitive and force them back to the abject poverty they have fought so hard to escape."

While it's easy to cite specific examples of abuse by multi-national corporations, there can be no doubt about the overall benefits of globalization. The CEPR study concludes that, "On average, economic growth is good for the poor, and trade is good for growth. Trade also tends to be associated with lower inflation and with less corruption, both beneficial for growth and especially helpful to the poor. The weight of direct and indirect evidence suggests that a significant degree of openness to trade is at least a necessary condition for sustained economic growth."

What accounts for such elation? Bonnie Diamond, executive director of the NAWL, explains that she particularly appreciates L'Heureux-Dubé for having very clearly taken, "not only her legal analysis, but her analysis of substantive equality to her judgments."

For this same reason, University of Western Ontario law professor Robert Martin has denounced L'Heureux-Dubé as an unabashed judicial activist. He explains: "If there are any Canadians left who believe in the rule of law, and constitutional government, they should celebrate L'Heureux-Dubé's departure. She has consistently treated the Constitution and the law as if they were her personal possessions. She decides almost entirely on ideological grounds and disregards the law and the constitution at her whim."

Of course, L'Heureux-Dubé rejects such criticism. In an address to the Canadian Bar Association 21 August 1999, she denounced critics like Martin for undermining the independence of the judiciary.

Yet in this same speech, she admitted to the charge of judicial activism. "The activist judge," she said, "is often portrayed as one with an inclination towards judicial intervention and, in particular, with a willingness to change the law. Yet most people would agree that it is appropriate for judges to make changes in the common law and the interpretation of legislation or the constitution when necessary, particularly to adapt it to contemporary values."

Among law professors, Martin is a rarity. He emphatically disagrees with the notion that it's appropriate for the judiciary to change statute laws and the constitution. He clings to the traditional, democratic view that judges have a duty to uphold statute laws and the constitution as duly enacted and originally intended by elected representatives of the people in the legislative branch of government.

As a primary exponent of the novel theory that judges have a right to change the law to accord with their understanding of evolving contemporary values, L'Heureux-Dubé had no compunction about endorsing the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in the 1995 Egan case to read equality rights for homosexuals into the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, although Parliament had explicitly rejected such an amendment. Likewise, she enthusiastically backed the ruling in Vriend v. Alberta (1998) that amended the Alberta human rights code to include sexual orientation as a prohibited ground for discrimination, and the decision in M. v. H. (1999) that redefined the word spouse in provincial laws to include partners in same-sex relationships.

Martin maintains that judges have no authority under the Charter or any other provisions of the Constitution to mount such brazen intrusions into legislative jurisdiction.

In a case last year involving Trinity Western University, the Supreme Court of Canada dealt with the refusal of the British Columbia College of Teachers to approve the university's teacher-education program, because all students at the university were required to promise to, "refrain from practices that are Biblically condemned…, including premarital sex, adultery, homosexual behaviour and viewing of pornography." L'Heureux-Dubé held in dissent that in signing this pledge, Trinity Western students had violated the equality rights of homosexuals under the Charter and were therefore not entitled to teach in the public schools.

In support of this conclusion, L'Heureux-Dubé noted that students at Trinity Western are obligated, "to hate the sin, but love the sinner" She would have none of this distinction. Quoting from the opinion of the federally funded homosexual lobby, EGALE (Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere), she argued that, "requiring someone not to act in accordance with their identity is harmful and cruel. It destroys the human spirit."

L'Heureux-Dubé had no authority in law to make such an outrageous pronouncement from the bench. In Trinity Western as in so many other cases, she undertook to impose her own pagan ideology on Canadians rather than uphold the law and the constitution. As Martin says -- good riddance to her.

Yet instead of supporting Bush, Canadian Foreign Minister Bill Graham has served up a fatuous statement about how Canada recognizes the right of the Palestinian people to choose their own leaders. That's a complete non sequitur.

Bush is not seeking to impose a new leader on the Palestinians. On the contrary, he has clearly stated: "I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror."

Apologists for Arafat are quick to point out that he won the presidency of the Palestine Authority in a generally free and fair election in 1996. But that's irrelevant. Adolf Hitler also obtained power by democratic means. Was he a democrat? Of course not. And the same goes for Arafat. No sooner was he elected than he proceeded to eradicate freedom of the press, subvert the independence of the judiciary and try by all means to crush his political opponents.

Even so, if the Palestinians hold another presidential vote within the next few months, Arafat, or someone even worse, might well win. Bush understands this well: He has simply warned the Palestinians that they can have no reasonable hope of achieving peace and the creation of an independent Palestinian state so long as they are ruled by dictators.

In his statement on June 24, Bush expressed understanding for "the deep anger and despair" of the Palestinian people. "You deserve democracy and the rule of law," he said. "You deserve an open society and a thriving economy."

Bush also held that the same goes for the people of all Muslim countries. "You have a rich culture and you share the aspirations of men and women in every culture," he said. "Prosperity and freedom and dignity are not just American hopes or Western hopes; they are universal human hopes."

Is that right? Certainly, most Muslims hope for prosperity and dignity, but do they also yearn for freedom under law?

In Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam, John Esposito, a pro-Arab professor of international relations at Georgetown University in Washington, concedes that, "Authoritarianism has been the norm not the exception in Muslim politics, cutting across the political and ideological spectrum. The track record of governments both non-Islamist (Algeria, Tunisia, and Egypt) and Islamist (Afghanistan, Sudan, and Iran) reveals a culture of authoritarianism that is incapable of tolerating any significant opposition."

Nonetheless, Esposito maintains that within these oppressive Muslim countries, there are some impressive reformers who have embraced democracy. But he cites only three examples: Anwar Ibrahim, a former deputy prime minister of Malaysia who is now a political prisoner; Abdurrahman Wahid, a former president of Indonesia, whom Human Rights Watch has derided for having, "regularly squandered opportunities for reform"; and Mohammad Khatami, the ineffectual president of Iran.

Esposito denies that there is any inherent clash of civilizations pitting the democracies of the West against the tyrannies of Islam. How many Muslims, though, would welcome a concerted international effort to follow up the liberation of Afghanistan with a military campaign to free Iraq from the barbaric tyranny of Saddam Hussein?

Precious few. The great majority of Muslims are no less content to let Saddam go on oppressing his own people than they are to condone homicide bombings of Israeli civilians.

Regardless, Bush is right: The long-suffering Palestinian people can have no hope of peace or freedom so long as they remain in the grips of a brutal and corrupt dictatorship.

It's also evident that while the United States, Canada and other democracies can offer generous support for democratic reforms, the decisive initiative for freedom and peace within the Palestine Authority will have to come from freedom-loving Palestinians. Alas, the prospect of such a development any time soon seems remote.

The case at issue involves a dispute between Ray Brillinger, a former president of the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives, and Scott Brockie, an evangelical Protestant who operates a print shop in downtown Toronto. In April, 1996, Brillinger asked Brockie to print some blank letterheads, envelopes and business cards for the Archives. Brockie politely declined the order on the grounds that as a Christian, he cannot in good conscience print materials for an organization that promotes the practice of homosexuality.

Instead of respecting Brockie's religious convictions and heading off to another print shop, Brillinger filed a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Commission. Two months later, the Commission accused Brockie of discriminating against Brillinger on the basis of sexual orientation, and summoned him to atone for this alleged offence, by apologizing to Brillinger in writing, paying him $5,000 in damages and pledging not to refuse any more print orders from the Archives or any other gay-activist organization.

Brockie refused to comply with this totalitarian order so the matter was referred to a Human Rights Board of Inquiry. Counsel for Brockie argued that the Commission's directive violated his right to freedom of religion as guaranteed in section two of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Heather MacNaughton, the adjudicator assigned to the case, agreed with this argument, but maintained that Brillinger's right to equality as a homosexual in section 15 of the Charter took precedence. In a ruling on February 24, 2000, she ordered Brockie and his firm Imaging Excellence to, "(a) provide the printing services that they provide to others, to lesbians and gays and to organizations in existence for their benefit;" and (b) "pay damages in the amount of $5,000 to Brillinger and the Archives."

Brockie then appealed to the Ontario Divisional Court. On June 17, the court upheld MacNaughton's order subject to the provision that it, "shall not require Mr. Brockie or Imaging Excellence to print material of a nature which could reasonably be considered to be in direct conflict with the core elements of his religious beliefs or creed."

On this basis, Brockie must print the material requested by the Archives and pay the $5,000 in damages to Brillinger. Yet Iain Benson, Brockie's counsel, insists that his client won the case on the ground that the court at least granted him the right to refuse to print gay materials that conflict with his core religious beliefs. Likewise, Janet Epp Buckingham, general legal counsel for the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, has welcomed the outcome as, "a significant step forward for religious freedom in Canada."

In contrast, CCRL President Tom Langan maintains that in forcing Brockie to print materials for gay and lesbian organizations, the Court has delivered, "the disconcerting message … that one's religious views must be silenced, or limited to avoiding express support for an organization's message, especially in circumstances where the proposed customer is an organization established to advocate for a way of life which cannot be condoned by one's faith."

Langan is right. Why should any decent citizen, regardless of faith, be forced by a so-called human rights tribunal and the courts to print even business cards upon request by any group promoting lesbian and gay lifestyles? Among these groups are organizations like the Toronto Leather/SM/Fetish Coming Out Group -- a self-styled support group for gay men, "who are new to the leather/SM(sadomasochist)/fetish scene."

If Brockie were to defy the Divisional Court, by refusing to print business cards for a despicable organization for the promotion of sadomasochistic sex, he could end up in jail as a prisoner of conscience. Prior to enactment of the 1980 Ontario Human Rights Code and the 1982 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, who would have thought that such a travesty of justice could happen in Canada?

Currently, the hate propaganda provisions in sections 318 and 319 of the Criminal Code state that anyone who "advocates or promotes genocide" or "incites hatred against any identifiable group" on the basis of their colour, race, religion or ethnic origin is liable upon conviction to a sentence of up to two years in prison. Under terms of Bill C-415, legislation introduced by New Democratic Party MP Svend Robinson, these sections will be extended to include groups identified by their sexual orientation.

For 12 years, Robinson has been pushing these amendments. Now, he is poised to succeed. On May 29, his bill was approved in principle on second reading in the Commons.

Most backers of the bill insist that people who simply deplore homosexual sexual relations without harbouring any hatred for homosexuals and bisexuals have nothing to fear, because the law provides not only that the attorney general must consent to any prosecution for hate propaganda, but also that no Christian, Jew, Muslim or member of any other religious group can be convicted of wilfully promoting hatred, "if, in good faith, he expressed or attempted to establish by argument an opinion on a religious subject."

As it turned out, the accusations against MacEachern were dismissed, because the hate propaganda provisions of the Criminal Code do not apply to sexually active homosexuals. But what might happen if Bill C-45 is enacted? In a case like MacEachern's, could someone charged with wilfully promoting hatred be confident of an acquittal because he or she was expressing an honestly held religious conviction?

Gwen Landolt does not think so. She is the National Vice President of REAL Women of Canada and an astute constitutional lawyer who formerly worked for the Justice Department. She notes that in recent gay-rights cases, the Ontario Attorney General failed to defend the heterosexual definition of common-law marriage and the Alberta Attorney General surrendered to the demands of two lesbians for the right to adopt children. Landolt concludes: "The provincial Attorneys General appear to be remarkably vulnerable to the political pressure of homosexual activists, and/or alternatively, sympathetic to their demands."

Moreover, the Supreme Court of Canada maintained earlier this year in another gay-rights case, Trinity Western, that the guarantee of freedom of religion in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is not absolute, but subject to severe restrictions. "In short," says Landolt, "the Trinity case appears to reinforce the notion that religious belief is a private matter, only permitted within a church or the home, but not in one’s public actions or expressions."

During debate on Bill C-45, Vic Toews, the Canadian Alliance justice critic, did not object to broadening the hate propaganda sections of the Criminal Code to include sexual orientation. On the contrary, he regretted that, "a number of other Canadians who may be targeted for reasons of age, health, disability, social status or a number of other characteristics would not be afforded the same protection."

Are at ;east church leaders decrying the totalitarian imposition of so-called gay rights on Canadians? For the most part, no. As so often before when the church has come under attack by an oppressive regime, the great majority of clergy -- Catholic and Protestant -- have either conformed their thinking to the secular fashion, or are cowering in silence.

Two recent court cases vividly demonstrate how the courts have invoked the Charter as a pretext for subverting freedom under law. Consider, first, the ruling on May 13 of the Ontario Court of Appeal in Falkiner v. Director, Income Maintenance Branch. At issue in this case was the "spouse in the house" rule that renders a person ineligible for welfare benefits if he or she shacks up with someone who can financially afford to support the entire household.

In the judgment of the court, this rule violates the equality rights of social assistance recipients in section 15 of the Charter. That's nonsense. There is no mention of social recipients anywhere in the Charter and there is no reason to believe that the legislators who enacted the Charter in 1982 implicitly intended to include them among the groups singled out for protection in section 15.

Typically, though, the plain language of the Charter and the intentions of the elected legislators in adopting it mean nothing to our robed dictators in the courts. Rather, under the cover the Charter, our ruling judicial masters have taken to enacting their policy preferences into law.

At the time the Charter was enacted, every province had a "spouse in the house" rule. That's still true today. But that's of no account to the Ontario Court of Appeal, which insists that government can cut off benefits for a welfare mother who marries her boyfriend, but not if she just moves in with him in what the court calls a "try-on relationship."

For vulnerable women and children, this ruling is a disaster. Instead of allowing the Ontario government to maintain welfare rules that encourage low-income couples to marry, the Court has mandated welfare benefits for mothers in try-on relationships that are far more likely to result in family breakdown, spousal violence and child abuse.

Who will foot the bill for the millions of dollars in extra costs entailed by this court-ordered extension of welfare benefits to shacked-up men and women? Taxpayers, of course. Under the guise of upholding the Charter, the courts in Canada have abolished one of the most basic of democratic principles -- no taxation without representation.

No less egregious was the ruling by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on May 10, that the Durham Catholic District School Board had violated the equality rights of homosexuals under the Charter, by forbidding a 17-year-old student from taking his homosexual boyfriend to a High School prom. In typical fashion, the court paid no attention to the fact that Parliament had deliberately excluded any reference to sexual orientation in the Charter.

With this judgment, the court has not only violated the ostensible guarantee of freedom of religion in section 2 of the Charter, but also flouted section 93 of the Constitution Act of 1867, which upholds the right of Catholic parents to have their children educated in a manner consistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church. That's typical of judges in the Charter era. Regardless of the Constitution, the Charter and the laws of Canada and the provinces, they are hell-bent on imposing their ideologies from the bench.

Moreover, the problem is not confined to Canada. It infects the United States and numerous other democracies. In Coercing Virtue: The Worldwide Rule of Judges, Robert Bork decries how, "The nations of the West are increasingly governed not be law or elected representatives but by unelected, unrepresentative, unaccountable committees of lawyers applying no law other than their own will."

Let the judges, lawyers and law professors of Canada celebrate the power they have gained by abusing the Charter. The rest of us should mourn the loss of the very rights and freedoms that this same Charter was supposed to guarantee.

Regardless, a matter of more vital interest to Canadians is the performance of our own hospitals. How do they stand up in comparison with each other as well as their private for -profit and non-profit counterparts in the United States?

Dr. William Orovan, a past president of the Ontario Medical Association, maintains Canadian hospitals are not doing at all well. In a recently televised panel discussion, he cited unacceptable waiting lists for many hospital-based treatments in Canada. Another panellist, Carol Kushner, a health consultant and author, immediately accused him of baseless fear-mongering on the ground that the data on hospital waiting lists in Canada are unreliable.

In an informative collection of readings entitled, Better Medicine: Reforming Canadian Health Care, Dr. David Gratzer has included the transcript of an interview in which he asked Orovan how he would respond to Kushner's accusation. "Well, she's right that the data is not complete," Orovan conceded. "For hospital-based care, we don't keep good statistics. In general, operating room waiting times, for instance, are not known because we don't require that surgeons put in their list until seven days in advance."

Nonetheless, Orovan insisted there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to indicate, "a very major problem in diagnostic imaging and numerous interventional procedures." He cited a twofold increase in the CT scan waiting list over the past three years as well as a "huge waiting list" for cataract removal surgery within his own hospital.

In the latest edition of Waiting Your Turn: Hospital Waiting Lists in Canada, the Fraser Institute estimates waiting times for 121 different kinds of medical procedures. According to this study, most patients had to wait for treatment longer than what medical specialists regard as "reasonable" in 86 per cent of these categories.

However, the reliability of these data has also been questioned inasmuch as they are based on a survey of physicians rather than on a compilation of the precise times recorded in the medical files for each patient.

In the United States, most state health departments make a wide range of information from medical files available in summary form for the guidance of both experts and the public. In New York state, for example, a patient who has been advised to undergo dangerous surgery can readily determine which hospitals and surgeons in the state have the most experience in performing the operation (see http://www.medicalconsumers.org/index.html#Main_Index).

No such information is available to the public anywhere in Canada. In an essay in Gratzer's book, Public System, State Secret, David Zitner and Brian Lee Crowley note that no one in any province can provide a satisfactory answer to such basic questions as: "How many people have difficulty finding a family doctor? Who got better, who got worse, and whose health status remained unchanged as the result of contact with the health care system? Which specialities have unacceptably long waiting periods?"

The problem, Zitner and Crowley explain, is that in Canada, "health care is an unregulated monopoly, devoid of any performance requirements." The bureaucrats who run the system have a vested interest in keeping the rest of us in the dark about how well or poorly they are doing.

In contrast, medicare in the United States is a hotly competitive industry. Rival providers of medical services vie with each other to prove they can provide patients with excellent treatment at an acceptable price.

For Canadians, the conclusion is obvious: There can be no hope for any significant improvement in medicare until Canada, like every other democracy, opens up its public-sector medicare system to vigorous and across-the-board competition from service providers in the private sector.

Two recent court cases vividly demonstrate how our judicial masters have invoked the Charter as a pretext for subverting freedom under law. Consider, first, the ruling on May 13 of the Ontario Court of Appeal in Falkiner v. Director, Income Maintenance Branch. At issue in this case was the "spouse in the house" rule that renders a person ineligible for welfare benefits if he or she shacks up with someone who can financially afford to support the entire household.

In the judgment of the court, this rule violates the equality rights of social assistance recipients in section 15 of the Charter. That's nonsense. There is no mention of social recipients anywhere in the Charter and there is no reason to believe that the legislators who enacted the Charter in 1982 implicitly intended to include them among the groups singled out for protection in section 15.

Typically, though, the plain language of the Charter and the intentions of the elected legislators in adopting it mean nothing to our robed dictators in the courts. Rather, under the cover of the Charter, out-of-control judges have taken to enacting their policy preferences into law.

At the time the Charter was enacted, every province had a "spouse in the house" rule. That's still true today. But that's of no account to the Ontario Court of Appeal, which insists that government can cut off benefits for a welfare mother who marries her boyfriend, but not if she just moves in with him in what the court calls a "try-on relationship."

For vulnerable women and children, this ruling is a disaster. Instead of allowing the Ontario government to maintain welfare rules that encourage low-income couples to marry, the Court has mandated welfare benefits for mothers in try-on relationships that are far more likely to result in family breakdown, spousal violence and child abuse.

Who will foot the bill for the millions of dollars in extra costs entailed by this court-ordered extension of welfare benefits to shacked-up men and women? Taxpayers, of course. Under the guise of upholding the Charter, the courts in Canada have abolished one of the most basic of democratic principles -- no taxation without representation.

No less egregious was the ruling by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on May 10, that the Durham Catholic District School Board had violated the equality rights of homosexuals under the Charter, by forbidding a 17-year-old student from taking his homosexual boyfriend to a High School prom. In typical fashion, the court paid no attention to the fact that Parliament had deliberately excluded any reference to sexual orientation in the Charter.

With this judgment, the court has not only violated the ostensible guarantee of freedom of religion in section 2 of the Charter, but also flouted section 93 of the Constitution Act of 1867, which upholds the right of Catholic parents to have their children educated in a manner consistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church. That's typical of judges in the Charter era. Regardless of the Constitution, the Charter and the laws of Canada and the provinces, they are hell-bent on imposing their ideologies from the bench.

Moreover, the problem is not confined to Canada. It infects the United States and numerous other democracies. In Coercing Virtue: The Worldwide Rule of Judges, Robert Bork decries how, "The nations of the West are increasingly governed not by law or elected representatives but by unelected, unrepresentative, unaccountable committees of lawyers applying no law other than their own will."

Let the judges, lawyers and law professors of Canada celebrate the power they have gained by abusing the Charter. The rest of us should mourn the loss of the very rights and freedoms that this same Charter was supposed to guarantee.