Straight thoughts 169

The Canadian Senate recently passed an “anti-spanking” Bill (Bill S-209). This Bill will now be discussed in Parliament.

We have spoken before on the necessity to maintain the authority of the family and against government intervention in family law.

To understand the implications of this proposed law, we need to analyze anti-family activism within the context of the culture war.

These activists are determined to remove responsibilities from the family and give power to the state.

This power shift goes against the principle of subsidiarity, a Catholic principle similar to the concept of “spheres sovereignty” used among Reformed and Presbyterian Christians. This principle states that the government role should be limited to do what families, associations, churches and lower levels of government cannot do for themselves, apart from cases in which criminal law is broken.

Any effort against the above principle leads inevitably to tyranny and oppression.

In all cases of attack to freedom, family and property, we can identify a pattern.

First: Activists use the media, to generate public awareness and pressure.

Second: Activists try to introduce legislation, by including vague terms in Bills that can then be “interpreted” by liberal judges.

Third: Activists use the justice system. They appeal a case until it goes to the Supreme Court, which has the power to declare anything “unconstitutional” and “read-into” the Charter of Rights what they want.

The anti-spanking issue
In trying to push a repressive solution to the purported problem of spanking, activists (most of them lawyers) tried the first of the above steps. However, they were not able to generate enough public interest through debates (One of which was organized by CTS who invited me as a guest).

We now need to send a message to our federal Legislators and stop this Bill in Parliament, because:

-“People who use violence in a repeated way” (as the Bill says) can already be charged and prosecuted.

-This bill will not prevent acts of violence, but will severely curtail the ability of loving parents to help their children become responsible adults.

-This Bill will give more excuses to the children aid societies to remove children from their natural parents and assign them to “politically correct” couples.

-This Bill will require another bureaucracy to accept complaints and tribunals to hear them. Because this parallel justice system would not follow strict legal proceedings, just as in the case of the Human Rights Commissions, most cases risk receiving the same “guilty” verdict, no matter what the evidence is. Then, when appeals would have to be launched through the court system, our courts will be even more burdened with frivolous cases and related costs.

-This Bill’s wording is not defined and is open to interpretation. For example, what is “excessively offensive or disruptive behaviour”? Such language will give an excuse for precedents in law, which will eventually override the intent and actual wording of the current Bill.