canadian identity

In 1991, Tom Lukiwski stood in a campaign office in Saskatchewan, looked into a video camera and made some very derogatory remarks about gay men, to the giggling delight of whoever was filming.

'I have often regretted my speech, never my silence," the Greek philosopher Xenocrates said. One wonders whether, when the Bouchard-Taylor commission on reasonable accommodation has aired the thoughts of every Quebecer who chooses to take the microphone, the province (and indeed the rest of Canada) will feel satisfaction or regret.

Were you, like me, watching Quebec's election results pouring in last night, remembering Jacques Parizeau's denunciation of "the ethnic vote" in 1995 and anticipating that one of the defeated candidates might blame his ill-deserved fate on veiled Muslim voters - all 67 of them?

Who would have thought? The community responsible for Toronto's gay pride parade, reliably the opposite of dull, finds itself at the centre of a legislative debate that has become boring.

Canada’s Supreme Court recently declared that, should the federal govern-ment wish to proceed with same-sex marriage legislation, it should be encumbered only by its own fear of controversy–not by any constitutional constraints.

In the same-sex marriage debate that engulfed Canadians just before Christmas, The Globe and Mail ran comments from two of its more prominent Christian columnists, broadcaster Lorna Dueck and former Reform Party leader Preston Manning.