John Baird, who I don’t regard as a SoCon, is gamely promoting his government’s decision to create an Office of Religious Freedom.  You can read his rationale, such as it is, here.

I’m going to be debating Brian Lilley about this Orwellian kookiness tomorrow on Sun News.  Given how our last get-together turned out, it might be worth a gander.

Here’s a brief summary of why I think this is a bad idea.  More to come.

1.  It involves government in matters of religion.  Government should leave religion alone, and vice-versa.  Church, state, wall, etc.

2.  It’ll cost $20 million, minimum.  In times like these, we don’t need yet more layers of bureaucracy.

3.  The Americans did something similar, and it was found to show bias against Muslims, and a bias for Christians.

4.  In that regard, it’s clear this thing is ripe for political abuse: an October invitation-only meeting with Baird didn’t even invite Sunni or Shia Muslims – two groups, coincidentally, who don’t vote Conservative much.

5.  I’m concerned that the office will focus only promoting Judeo-Christian traditions, and nobody else’s.  Buddhists, Sikhs and Hindus were also excluded from Baird’s secretive little meeting.

6.  $500,000 is going to operate the office for this thing; where will the other $4.5 million go every year?  The Reformatories won’t say.

7.  The new office won’t report to Parliament.  Unlike the U.S. religious-freedom office, it isn’t multi-partisan, either.  Baird runs it.

8.  The Pew Forum found that Christians are persecuted in 130 countries, and Muslims in 117.  Is the Harper regime saying the former matter more than the latter?

9.  This entire thing, as Amnesty International and human rights experts have noted, is being done behind closed doors.  None of them have been consulted.

10.  Even my friends at Sun Media have editorialized against this thing.  They, like me, feel it’s a bad idea on many, many levels.

It’ll be an interesting debate.

UPDATE:  After reading the list above, a youngster named Faith Goldy-Bazos – who describes herself as “Christian and Conservative” – has been whipped into a veritable fury against Yours Truly on Twitter.  After viewing this, sent along by an interested party, I now know why she was invited to the closed-door meeting: she’s a SoCon kook.  Takes one to know one, etc.

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VANCOUVER – When you are two or three time zones away from Ottawa — as B.C. Premier Christy Clark and Alberta Premier Alison Redford are most days — it is easy to dismiss the place.

From this distance, Ottawa isn’t just insular and puffed up with its own importance. When you are thousands of kilometres away, Ottawa is essentially irrelevant. It is the source of irritation, but not much in the way of government; it’s a place where a lot gets said, but far less gets done. Premiers, mayors and city councillors matter much more to people’s lives out here.  MPs don’t.

That’s why, one surmises, premiers like Redford and Clark weren’t as outraged as their counterparts in other provinces were about Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s recent take-it-or-leave-it approach to federal-provincial relations. You’re not getting the 6% increase in health-care funding we promised you, said Harper, and too bad if you don’t like it.

That set off a chorus of provincial outrage, and understandably so. But from Clark and Redford — two women who have been unenthusiastic about Harper’s style of governance in the past — nary a peep. They did not protest Harper’s distinctly Trudeaupian approach to the federation at all. If anything, their governments sounded nonplussed. It may be that Alberta and B.C. have kept their powder dry because they agree Ottawa is entitled to fund health care at a lower level than promised.

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At the Shanghai Cowgirl (And Davey Snot isn’t here! Wow!) And reading people’s year end lists.

Here’s my rule of thumb: if a critic had the load of pretentious crapola The Tree of Life on their “best” list, you immediately know you’re dealing with a pretentious bullshitter who is all form, and no content.

There. That felt better.

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This was supposed to be in today’s papers, but isn’t. If my bosses are starting the New Year by flushing their Pet Progressive, I’ll let you know. Here’s the column, in the meantime.

**

VANCOUVER – If you need further evidence that political coalitions equal political power, British Columbia is getting ready to provide it.

On Canada’s Left Coast, you see, the Left – as embodied by the B.C. New Democrats – look ready to seize power in the next provincial election. And it’s mainly because the centrist coalition that comprised the governing B.C. Liberals is falling apart.

The B.C. Liberals – whose losing 1996 campaign, full disclosure, I helped to run – have always been a coalition party, going back to their earliest victories two decades ago. Since their improbable first wins in 1991, the B.C. Liberals have been a hodge-podge of federal Liberals, federal Conservatives, former Socreds and even a few business-minded social democrats.

In 1996, we won more of the popular vote than the New Democrats, but – thanks to some suspicious NDP-led gerrymandering – fewer seats. After that loss, BC Liberal leader Gordon Campbell actively courted conservative-minded folks to join the fold, and help defeat the NDP. In 2001, he was massively successful, winning an astonishing 77 or 79 seats in the legislature in Victoria.

Back when I was helping him out, Campbell was always welcoming of new recruits, whatever their political pedigree. “I don’t care if you’re a federal Liberal, or federal Conservative, or a Reformer, or from Mars,” he’d say. “But when you come in our door, you are a B.C. Liberal. Leave your fights outside.”

And, mostly, B.C. Liberals did. While their decade in power saw the occasional ideologically-driven flare-up – and while the party was buffeted by no shortage of scandals, most notoriously one in which senior Liberal advisors pled guilty to corruption-related charges – the Campbell Liberals defeated the New Democrats in 2005 and 2009. Eventually, Campbell resigned, and now leads Canada’s High Commission in Britain.

To her credit, new B.C. Grit leader Christy Clark had been climbing back in public opinion polling, and she seemed to be escaping fallout over the province’s asinine decision to withdraw from an HST accord with the federal government, too. Until just a few months ago, Clark had been positioning her party for an astonishing fourth consecutive election victory.

That is, until former Tory MP John Cummins was elected leader of the B.C. Conservatives in May. Cummins – aided and abetted by a gang of advisors that includes former B.C. Socred Premier Rita Johnson, former Newfoundland Premier Brian Peckford, and former Okanagan-area Conservative MP Jim Hart – then cheerfully set about destroying B.C.’s centre-right coalition, and getting the B.C. New Democrats back into government.

Because, make no mistake, that will be the result if Cummins’ Conservatives continue their upward trend in the polls. The B.C. New Democrats will form government, in an election that can come no later than the Spring of 2013.

Incredibly, that means that the controversial NDP leader Adrian Dix – who, last time he was anywhere near the Premier’s Office, was forced to resign as a top aide to disgraced B.C. Premier Glen, for back-dating a memo about casino licences – will be Premier. And, mostly, he will have John Cummins ego to thank for it. The party that gave B.C. Hydro-gate, Bingo-gate and destroyed economic growth in the province will be back.

In Canadian politics, it is always thus. When Preston Manning (and, to a lesser extent, Stephen Harper) blew apart Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative coalition, they helped to usher in more than a decade of Liberal rule. When Paul Martin and Michael Ignatieff wrenched the federal Grits too far to the Right – thereby scaring away blue New Democrat voters – the Liberal Party commenced a downward descent from which it has yet to recover.

In a country as big and as diverse as this one, it has always been necessary to bring together the like-minded, and not to drive them apart.

If and when Adrian Dix becomes Premier, therefore, his first official act should be to declare a John Cummins Appreciation Day.

He’ll deserve it.

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I’d post my Sun column, but I can’t find it anywhere.

Also, I’d move my limbs, but I hurts too much.

2012: it begins in pain. Bjorn and Rockin’ Al did this to me, the bastards.

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Warren goes looking for excitement at one of Vancouver’s trendiest locales, and finds none. Check it out!

Oh, and Happy New Year. Don’t become a statistic.

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Some journalists think the Star has an “agenda,” and is trying to get Toronto’s mayor.

Some journalists think it’s a legitimate story and should be pursued.

Personally, I objected to the CBC’s stunt, and wrote that they should have never gone to the house where his children live. On this one, however, I think that it’s a legitimate story. If the most powerful municipal politician in the country is under police investigation for anything, people are entitled to know about that. There’s no claim to privacy in criminal law, and for good reason.

Moreover, I don’t think conservatives’ insistence that this is all about politics is accurate. Out here in Vancouver yesterday, the progressive mayor was all over the front pages with a criminal matter involving his foster son. I didn’t see any progressives saying that conservative media were out to get him.

What do you think, readers? This is a big, big story in Toronto, and lots of folks are talking about it. Should the Star have published on this?

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None of us are surprised in the slightest, of course. But some of us are going to make him wear it.

Promise.

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We’re not BFFs – he’s said I’m a “gadfly” and I’ve called him a “boring old fart” – but I admire Simpson, a lot, for his annual mea culpa column. If only more members of the commentariat did likewise.

So, I plan to! Being back in BC, I’ve been doing some understandably Western-focused columnizing this week, the results of which show up in the Sun papers over the next few days. Once that’s done, I plan to write up all of my pundit face-plants from 2011.

If you remember any that particularly rankled you, send ’em along. It’s time to ‘fess up!

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Live from Vancouver!
A W@AL report on the coming B.C. election, and what’ll happen with a B.C. Liberal and B.C. Conservative vote-split – and the Dix Democrats coming up the middle! Shocking footage shows what’ll happen after that!

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