It’s official – Saskatchewan’s top court has ruled that marriage commissioners can’t excuse themselves from performing same-sex marriages because of their own personal beliefs. Because they’re civil servants performing civil marriages, and if they wanted to perform religious marriages they should have gone into ministry instead.
The government announcement blitz du jour yesterday was all about more money to expand federal prisons – not that it was enough money to cover what the parliamentary budget officer is certain that the whole of the Conservatives’ tough-on-crime agenda is going to cost, mind you. And it certainly won’t keep Canadians any safer, which was the message they tried to push. And so, their politics-over-policy agenda where crime is concerned continues to throw away good money after bad (even Conrad Black is denouncing this move, given his recent prison experiences), and our streets are no more safe than they were before the Conservatives got into power.
On a trip to the Middle East, Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae decided to sit down with officials in the UAE to discuss our situation with them, and the PMO does not like that one bit, saying Rae is undermining them. Not like Harper ever did that when he was in opposition. (Rae offers his thoughts here). Meanwhile, fellow Liberal John McCallum says that focusing so much on perimeter security negotiations means that this government is putting all our trade eggs in the American basket, while ignoring other potential markets.
Ten years after Lucien Bouchard retired from politics, The Canadian Press looks at the state of the Quebec sovereignty movement.
And a law professor tells the BC polygamy trial that bans on polygamy predate Christianity, so it isn’t simply the dominant Judeo-Christian discourse trying to impose its will on Canadian society.
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