Alberta Religious Groups Funded by Canada Summer Jobs

Slowly, but slowly, we're working our way through the list of religious groups that have applied for and will get Canada Summer Jobs grants. To counter the totally false spin that NO religious groups applied or were not rejected.

Next up, Alberta. By riding, with MP and party affiliation.

Note: I was going by name only. All (known) religious groups got tagged. Others that sounded "churchy" got checked. Caps and quotation marks from original document. Where "no website" is noted I could not find a website for that particular group. (Obviously there is a website for "United Church of Canada" but sometimes I couldn't find one specific to that riding.) Where a link is not provided, it is elsewhere in this blogpost.

Remember that MPs get final say -- if they want it -- in which groups get funded.

Banff-Airdrie
MP Blake Richards, Con.
The Redeemed Christian Church of God, Airdrie, no website
St. Andrew's United Church

Battle River-Crowfoot
MP Kevin Sorenson, Con.
Bashaw United Church
Prairie Tabernacle Congregation
Mount Olive Evangelical Free Church

Bow River none
MP Martin Shields, Con.

Calgary Centre
MP Kent Hehr, Lib
Lifespring Community Church
Jewish Family Service Calgary
Knox United Church
Catholic Family Service !!!
Rocky Mountain Church of Christ
Altadore Baptist Church of Calgary
Christian Life Assembly Society of Calgary

Calgary Confederation
MP Len Webber, Con.
ABVM Ukrainian Catholic Parish
Greenhills Christian Fellowship
United/Presbyterian Campus Ministry

Calgary Forest Lawn none
MP Deepak Obhrai, Con.

Calgary Heritage
MP Bob Benzen, Con.
The Calgary Jewish Academy
Calgary Jewish Community Campus Corporation
"St. Andrew's United Church, Calgary, Alberta" no website

Calgary Midnapore
MP Stephanie Kusie, Con.
Central Organization for Jewish Education Lubavitch Alberta
Deer Park United Church


Calgary Nose Hill none
MP Michelle Rempel, Con


Calgary Rocky Ridge
MP Pat Kelly, Con.
Muslim Association of Canada
Westview Baptist Church Society
Victory Christian Fellowship of Calgary NW


Calgary Shepherd
MP: Tom Kmiec Con check
Emma Maternity House Society is a partner to ‪Fake Clinic Calgary Pregnancy Centre.‬
Evangel Christian Assembly
Emmanuel Lutheran Church

Calgary Signal Hill none
MP Ron Liepert, Con.

Calgary Skyview
MP Darshan Singh, Independent
Muslim Association of Canada
Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at Canada Inc.
"The Redeemed Christian Church of God, House of Praise"

Edmonton Centre
MP Randy Boissonnault, Lib
Islamic Family and Social Services Association (IFSSA)
Robertson-Wesley United Church
St. Andrew's United Church
Young Life of Canada

Edmonton Griesbach
MP Kerry Diotte, Con.
Edmonton Mennonite Centre for Newcomers
Fresh Manna Fellowship of Edmonton
Arabian Muslim Association no website
Ukrainian Catholic Women's League Canada -Edmonton Eparchy

Edmonton Manning
MP Ziad Aboultaif, Con.
Young Life of Canada

Edmonton Mill Woods
MP Amarjeet Sohi, Lib
Young Life of Canada
The First Mennonite Church

Edmonton Riverbend
MP Matt Jeneroux, Con
Riverbend United Church

Edmonton Strathcona
MP Linda Duncan, Lib
Bethel Korean Baptist Church of Edmonton
Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at Canada Inc.
Centre for Spiritual Living
Young Life of Canada
Citadel International Church
Holy Trinity Church (Anglican)
United Church of Canada no website

Edmonton West
MP Kelly McCauley, Con.
Young Life of Canada
Hosanna Lutheran Church at Luther Place
Central Organization For Jewish Education Chabad Lubavitch of Edmonton
Edmonton Hebrew Association
Muslim Association of Canada

Edmonton Wetaskiwin
MP Mike Lake, Con.
City Life Christian Centre - Church & Ministries Alberta
Mulhurst Lutheran Church Camp Association
Covenant Bay Bible Camp Society
Lighthouse Fellowship Wetaskiwin

Foothills
MP John Barlow, Con.
One Hope Canada
Mill Creek Baptist Camp Ltd.

Fort McMurray-Cold Lake
MP David Yurdiga, Con.
Markaz-Ul-Islam
Gethsemane International Assembly

Grande Prairie-Mackenzie
MP Chris Warkentin, Con.
One Hope Canada
Young Life of Canada

Lakeland
MP Shannon Stubb, Con.
Moose Lake Pentecostal Youth Camp Society
Lakeland Roman Catholic Separate School District No.150
Shiloh Rebman Youth Ranch Society
Moose Lake Gospel Camp no website

Lethbridge
MP Rachel Harder, Con
Misericordia Fellowship Center
Lethbridge First Baptist Church
Victory Christian Fellowship of Lethbridge(1983) Inc.
McKillop United Church

Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner
MP Geln Motz, Con.
First Assembly of God

Peace River-Westlock
MP Arnold Viersen, Con
/Clyde Christian Bible Church

Red Deer-Lacombe
MP Blaine Calkins, Con.
Gull Lake Baptist Camp Ltd.
Rehoboth Christian Ministries
Sylvan Lake Lutheran Bible Camp Association

Red Deer-Mountain View
MP Earl Dreeshen, Con.
Salem Acres Bible Camp Association
Red Deer First Church of the Nazarene
Mennonite Church Alberta

Sherwood Park-Fort Saskatchewan
MP Garnett Genuis, Con
Fort Saskatchewan Community Baptist Church
Young Life of Canada
"Bethel Lutheran Church of Sherwood Park, AB"

St. Albert-Edmonton none
MP Michael Cooper, Con.

Sturgeon River-Parkland
MP Dane Lloyd, Con.
St. Andrew's United Church Thrift Shop

Yellowhead
MP Jim Eglinski, Con.
Living Faith Evangelistic Association
Edson United Church
Christian Youth Camps Inc. no website

There are a couple of Catholic organizations here. I wonder if they will give back the money as demanded by the bishops.

There is also a Twitter thread.

Fake Clinics Use Federal Money to Fund Summer Jobs for Apprentice Liars

A few days ago, we reported on fake clinics, aka crisis pregnancy centres, getting government funding.

We wondered what programs these lying liars could possibly qualify for.

So we went looking.

It's tremendously tedious but possible.

One has to search by department or agency.

We went to Service Canada looking for organizations that have received funding and found this or the downloadable/searchable PDF.

Golly gee, in 2015 the Canada Summer Jobs program gave our money to four fake clinics in Alberta.

• Calgary Pregnancy Care Centre: $12,782 (2 jobs)

• Lethbridge Pregnancy Care Centre: $5,817 (1 job)

• Central Alberta Pregnancy Care Centre Society: $6,038 (1 job)

• Cochrane Pregnancy Care Centre: $3,766 (1 job).

Congratulations, Canadian taxpayers. You/we funded five students just in Alberta just in one year to learn to lie to and manipulate pregnant people at religious fake clinics.

We looked further. The Calgary fake clinic has been receiving federal money to fund summer jobs every year since at least 2010, starting then at $11,000, going up to the present $12,782 (inflation?).

But we're just getting started.

We have identified 22 other fake clinics taking federal money to create summer jobs, some, like the Calgary gang, for several years.

We'll be delving into those in future posts, as time allows. (We do have to make a living. No taxpaying chumps are funding this research.)

Did Crossroads Clinic Cross Its Fingers?

I'm confused. Is Crossroads Clinic pro-choice or anti-choice?

Or maybe, just, um, flexible.


Here they are trumpeting their involvement in The Sexual Assault Response Network.

The Sexual Assault Response Network (SARN) is a collaboration of seven partners including the Sexual Assault Response Committee (SARC), Crossroads Clinic, Cantara Safe House, RCMP, Southern Alberta Child & Family Services (Brooks Office), Victim Service Unit, and Alberta Health Services (AHS) Emergency, Sexual Health Unit, and Social Worker Unit. These agencies have banded together to address an overwhelming need of support for an estimated 3,400 victims of sexual assault in the City of Brooks alone.

Crossroads Clinic, the lead partner, was awarded a grant by the Community Foundation of Southeastern Alberta. This grant allows them to provide training for those working with the program from the various agencies, as well as purchasing a phone and phone plan for the Support Line. Crossroads Clinic staff mans the support line during the day and Cantara Safe House operates the phone during non-business hours.

I checked at the Community Foundation of Southeastern Alberta and found that yes, indeed, Crossroads Clinic Association (Brooks Pregnancy Care Centre) got a grant in Fall 2013 of $6,048 ($1,639 for Crisis Line Phone and $4,409 for Training for Crisis Line).

Since it is the standard of care to provide emergency contraception (EC, or Plan B) after rape/sexual assault, it seemed that this disclaimer sorted rather badly with Crossroads' new role as sexual abuse counsellor.

Note: Crossroads Clinic provides limited medical services. We provide free medical confirmation of pregnancy and Sexual Transmitted Infections screening and limited treatment for women. We do not provide ongoing prenatal care, abortions, birth control or contraceptives.

Kathy Dawson asked the Association of Alberta Sexual Assault Services on Twitter if Crossroads were a member. Nope.

@fernhilldammit @blueskies366 TY for the tweets. #CrossroadsClinic not an @aasasmembership service under our umbrella http://t.co/bQACkwa5SC

— AASAS (@aasasmembership) February 23, 2015

I emailed two of the legit-looking organizations in the "network," Cantara Safe House and the Sexual Assault Response Committee (SARC) of Medicine Hat, to ask a) is it true that Crossroads is a partner and b) WTF -- do they know that Crossroads is an anti-choice crisis pregnancy centre?

Then I found that SARC has a twitter account. So I asked.

@fernhilldammit SARC is prochoice all of our partners have agreed to refer to AHS Sexual Health for

— Sarcmedicinehat (@SARCmedicinehat) February 23, 2015

@fernhilldammit for options counselling, plan B and medical care

— Sarcmedicinehat (@SARCmedicinehat) February 23, 2015

They call it "options counselling," do they? And EC/Plan B too?

But but but, Plan B is an ABORTIFACIENT!!!!!! Well, according to fetus freaks it is. (Sane people understand how EC actually works.)

So, now we're wondering. If, for the purposes of reaching out to a new group of potential "patients" and/or the six thousand bucks, Crossroads has agreed to act as if it's prochoice, do its fetus-freak donors know? More importantly, does the Canadian (formerly Christian) Association of Pregnancy Support Services know?

If they crossed their fingers behind their backs when agreeing to the prochoice protocols, do the other organizations in the network know and how are they keeping tabs on them?

Crossroads, crossed fingers. . . what's the diff?

Christian Sexual Abuse Counselling from a Fake Clinic

Hoo boy, do I ever have a lot more to say about Crossroads Clinic, a fake clinic/crisis pregnancy centre in Brooks, Alberta.

From its Services page:

Sexual Abuse Support
Is sexual trauma part of your past? 1 in 3 women have experience sexual abuse. You are not alone.

Crossroads Clinic offers a 10 week DVD series that deals with sexual trauma and sexual abuse in a safe confidential setting - Steps to Sexual Health (see below).

…
Steps to Sexual Health
Have you dealt with sexual trauma, abuse, or misuse? Steps to Sexual Health is a 10-part DVD series by Doctor Doug Weiss, Ph.D. that encourages sexual healing and healthy attitudes toward sexuality. Available in safe, confidential sessions for groups or individuals. Call or email Crossroads Clinic to book your session.

So, their sexual abuse support/counselling consists of plugging in some DVDs and leaving clients to watch them confidentially?

Let's find out more about this DVD series, Steps to Sexual Health (bold mine).

These 10 sessions of sexual education with Dr. Douglas Weiss includes: 1. Going for Gold Sex 2. Sexual Expression 3. Roadblocks to Sexual Success (Part 1) 4. Roadblocks to Sexual Success (Part 2) 5. How I Coped 6. Perpetrators 7. Sexual Histories 8. Healing our Histories 9. Your Sexual Guard 10. Sexual Agreement These sessions were taped in front of a live audience. This is perfect for public or private schools, churches or pregnancy centers or to train your own children. This is a professionally presented program for youth to be more prepared for life as a sexual person. Package includes is 3 DVD’s and a workbook.

Crossroads Clinic splurged $95 on it.

Now, who is this Douglas Weiss? He seems to be quack of the first order, an expert on sex addiction, with a long suit in weird coinages, like intimacy anorexia.

He is also -- SURPRISE! -- a fairly whacked out Christian.
Watch this promo for one of his books. (It's mercifully short.)


He's also a regular on the Christian chat show circuit. (I actually watched "Lust Free Living" on that page and learned I'm doing it wrong.)

OK, this is all totally lame, but what would one expect of a fake clinic trying to branch out into other areas and suck in other vulnerable populations?

Not much.

But what would one expect of a fake clinic that has unaccountably gotten itself into something called The Sexual Assault Response Network, with some other legit (-sounding) players?

The Sexual Assault Response Network (SARN) is a collaboration of seven partners including the Sexual Assault Response Committee (SARC), Crossroads Clinic, Cantara Safe House, RCMP, Southern Alberta Child & Family Services (Brooks Office), Victim Service Unit, and Alberta Health Services (AHS) Emergency, Sexual Health Unit, and Social Worker Unit. These agencies have banded together to address an overwhelming need of support for an estimated 3,400 victims of sexual assault in the City of Brooks alone.

For now, all we have to say about this is WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK?

Researches are continuing and we'd be grateful for any leads or links.

h/t to Alison for the Dr. Doug video links.

ADDED: Scroll down to see the disclaimer.

Note: Crossroads Clinic provides limited medical services. We provide free medical confirmation of pregnancy and Sexual Transmitted Infections screening and limited treatment for women. We do not provide ongoing prenatal care, abortions, birth control or contraceptives.

So, a sexual assault counselling service that does not offer emergency contraception? How is that possible?

Desperate Crisis Pregnancy Centres: Healthcare or Counselling?

These are trying times for fake abortion centres.

First, the old styling -- "crisis pregnancy centre (CPC)" -- has become so indelibly associated with lies, manipulation, and slut-shaming, they've taken to rebranding themselves as Options/Choice/Life/WhatHaveYou Centres.

Then they were getting dinged by false advertising claims and lawsuits.

According to an analysis by NARAL [US pro-choice organization], 79 percent of the crisis pregnancy centers that advertised on Google indicated that they provided medical services such as abortions, when, in fact, they are focused on counseling services and on providing information about alternatives to abortion.

In response, they began vociferously denying they were medical facilities.

"We aren’t a medical facility,” explains [Lambton Crisis Pregnancy Centre's executive director Kim] LeBlanc.  “We don’t refer people to pediatricians and we don’t refer them to abortion clinics. We aren’t qualified.”

So what then to make of fake clinics acquiring medical equipment and advertising "healthcare services"? Here we reported that we'd found only one such ultrasound-enhanced CPC in Canada.

Now, spurred by a virtual brown envelope over the transom, we report on another, Crossroads Clinic in Brooks, Alberta.

From its Services page:

More than just a pregnancy care center, Crossroads Clinic is a medical facility focusing on all aspects of sexual [!] health.

It lists the usual "Pregnancy Options Counselling," "Abortion Recovery," "Pregnancy Testing" (drugstore pee-on-a-stick type), but also includes "Sexual Abuse or Trauma Recovery" and "STI or STD Testing."

(Anyone ever heard of a CPC offering sexual abuse counselling? Let us know.)

We accessed its charitable status to check on its funding. It reports government funding running at 4-5% of total revenue for the past four years. (No specific sources given.)

Canada Revenue Agency asks its lucky participants to inform them of "new services" and in 2013, Crossroads reported one such.

HEALTH CARE SERVICES ==> Medical professionals provide pregnancy test and sexually transmitted infection (STI) testing and treatment.

Okey-dokey, now they provide healthcare services and indeed ask that "patients" bring their Alberta Health Care number and a photo ID. (Maybe a DJ! reader would like to undertake a query to Alberta Health over that oddity.)

So, beyond aiding patients' peeing on a stick, what do these services entail?

A magic ultrasound machine!

Women come to Crossroads Clinic both to confirm pregnancy and review their options. Having an ultrasound scan by trained medical professionals gives a client the accurate and timely information she needs to make educated decisions about her pregnancy and her future.

We are so blessed to have ultrasound technology on-site.

Blessed, indeed. While its website is all very secular and professional, its Facebook page is way more jesus-y.

As of course it should be since Crossroads is a member of Canadian [formerly Christian] Association of Pregnancy Support Services (CAPSS), whose "core documents" (well worth the read for the Bible verses alone) can be downloaded here.

Regular DJ! readers might remember that it was the affiliation with CAPSS that got the above-mentioned Lambton Crisis Pregnancy Centre stripped of the second part of its Trillium Foundation grant, according to the Sarnia Observer.

Upshot: no matter how they style themselves, what services they try to offer, who they associate with, CPCs in Canada are on the ropes.

And here ends, for now, DJ!'s survey of fake clinics in Alberta.

But we're on a mission here at DAMMIT JANET! We want to see the closure of all fake clinics in Canada.

And we'll do whatever we can to effect that.

Up next, British Columbia, and perhaps more surprisingly, Quebec.

UPDATE: From Jaden Fitzherbert on Twitter: the fake clinic in Fredericton offers ultrasound.

Public Funds for Anti-Choice, Anti-Sex Religious Organizations (an ongoing series)

[Open letter to Mayor Rob Makin, Hinton, Alberta, by Kathy Dawson*. Background here. Links added.]

Dear Mayor Makin, Town of Hinton,

Your grant information indicates that groups that advance a specific moral or religious point of view are ineligible for your Quality of Life Grant. Can you explain why West Yellowhead Pregnancy Care Centre (Hinton) was given $10,000 of public money?

West Yellowhead Pregnancy Care Centre (Hinton) is a religious based mission, an affiliate of CAPSS and bound by CAPSS Core documents (which can be found here (pdf)). They are a Christ-centred mission that is known for opposing reproductive rights and providing religious interference in the choices of pregnant women.  CAPSS prevents them from counselling or referring people for contraception. I have been personally present at a CAPSS affiliate abstinence based sexual health presentations (in a public school no less) and can attest that it excluded LGBTQ, shamed sexually active people, and provided no useful information on how sexually active teens can avoid pregnancy and STIs. In Canada, we have the right to access contraception, protection, abortion and quality sexual health information free of religious bias. It is shocking that the Town of Hinton would provide money to support groups that oppose basic reproductive rights.

I would appreciate a response at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely,

Kathy Dawson
Sexual Health Education Advocate

***********

*Kathy Dawson guest-blogged here recently and has a proven record of activism.

If you'd like to help chivvy an answer out of the responsible people, here are two Twitter accounts: @HintonVoiceInc (town newspaper) and @Hinton Parklander (local Sun franchise).

Public Funding of Alberta Fake Clinics, Part 3

In our series, Hinton Crisis Pregnancy Association is last of the three fake clinics in Alberta that have received public funds from the Alberta Lottery Foundation.

(The others are Medicine Hat and Central Alberta Pregnancy Care Centre.)

Hinton CPC seems to be doing business as West Yellowhead Pregnancy Care Centre; the address is the same on its Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA) annual filings.

The first thing to know about Hinton is that it's pretty small, with a population of 9,640 souls as of the 2011 census.

Another thing about HInton is that it has a photo radar system, the proceeds of which are doled out to deserving community organizations. More on that in a bit.

And now we've run out of things to say about Hinton.

The fake clinic seems a bit shy for these sorts of organizations. Its website is under construction and its Facebook page is rather desultorily maintained.

It is a member of the Christian Canadian Association of Pregnancy Support Services, the umbrella organization that the Ontario Trillium Foundation had an "issue" with.

I found a profile of the outfit in the local paper from 2007.

The pregnancy centre is a faith-based organization made up of volunteers from various Hinton churches. Church members also make up the board that operates behind the scenes.
…
The centre is made possible by donations from churches, local businesses and the United Way. In addition, the centre does three fundraisers per year including a banquet in October, a baby bottle campaign and usually a spring fundraiser. . .

Giffin said that his organization hasn't had much luck obtaining government grants, but that they are going to try again.

Now to the CRA filings.

2011

2012

2013

Expenses and revenue seem to run at around $100K a year. That's pretty impressive considering that costs at the Medicine Hat fake clinic, with a population six times Hinton's, run about $60K. (Maybe Medicine Hat has competition? Maybe the sluts in Hinton are extra slutty?)

And hey look, the Hinton fake clinic has been successful in getting the government money they were coveting back in 2007.

Some of that would be from the Alberta Lottery Foundation. From 2009 to 2012, it received $50K from ALF or more than half of all such funds given out to fake clinics in the province.

But the really genius part is that it has tapped into another source of public funds -- the aforementioned photo radar tribute.

In April this year, the local paper reported that it had done rather nicely.

Quality of Life grants were doled out last week, with a total of $97,116 for 18 local community groups.

Town council approved the grants at the April 15 meeting. Nineteen applicants had requested $281,068 in funding, which is nearly triple the $100,000 available. Recommendations to council on how to award the available funds were made by the Grant Funding Advisory Committee, which has five voting members. Quality of Life grants are allocated from photo radar fees. . .

The West Yellowhead Pregnancy Care Centre received the largest amount of core funding applied for ($10,000).

So unsuspecting Albertans have TWO ways to contribute involuntarily to the fake clinic: through their lottery tickets and their traffic tickets.

If one is of a religious, anti-choice, misogynist bent, it's beauty. One can say: Well, sheee-it, I didn't win the lottery/I got a damn speeding ticket, but at least the money is going to a Christ-fearing, slut-shaming, human rights-denying outfit.

Of course, if one is not of a religious, anti-choice, misogynist bent, one might say: Well, sheee-it. WTF?

You gotta admire these Christers though. Tricksy with pregnancy/abortion information, tricksy with fund-raising.


h/t to Kathy Dawson for the photo radar link

Does Your School Have an STD (Standard Teaching of Dogma)?

[Guest post by Kathy Dawson.*]
First of all, do not be ashamed. It happens to many nice local schools. With proper treatment and education, a cure is possible.

What it is
STD (Standard Teaching of Dogma) refers to anti-choice missions that are using shame and fear to scare your teen into “never having sex until marriage”. This includes a ban on masturbation or even thinking about sex (thought police)! It is almost always accompanied by a heavy dose of “religious dogma” that masquerades as science based facts. Don’t be fooled! Turning your back on this leads to further infections of sexism, homophobia, attacks on non-traditional families, limiting of reproductive rights and keeping students in total dark about their own sexual health.

How does this happen?
These infections come in free glossy packages affiliated with heavily funded anti-sex league multi-nationals. Egg obsessed missionary hens are accompanied with great qualifications such as “preacher recommend”, “commitment to not counsel or refer contraception” and most importantly a commitment to protect eggs (fertilized or not) at any cost, even if it means financial ruin or death of the “incubators” (the slutty sluts that could not keep their legs closed).

Prevention
These infections happen in secret. Schools do not like it when parents know there is an infection, it makes things a little crab itchy uncomfortable. It is important to ask every teacher, every year: WHO is teaching, WHAT is being taught, and what is Google’s opinion. Tell your child to watch out for specific lying liar agencies. Nothing wrong with a little sound or video evidence, difficult to get but clears infections immediately. A vocal membership on the parent council will strengthen protection.

Symptoms May Include (but not limited to):
• Abstinence because they told you so.
• View that youth are too idiotic to correctly use contraception or protection.
• Attack of the killer STI/STD.
• Slutty sluts should watch what they are wearing because boys are crazed sex demons with no control
• Soulgasms – mind blowing orgasms brought on by wearing a wedding ring.
• Mention of fetus or eggs brings on glassy looks and moans of “My Precious”.
• Allergic reactions to the mention of clitoris (also known as the Devil’s Doorbell), masturbation (ringing the doorbell), sexually active people (aka slutty sluts), and LGBTQ2S (or anything to do with rainbows).
• How to crochet a hat for your 16 cell zygote because they are fully formed.
• Adoptions are happy time for everyone because teen parents raise criminals.
• Facts can be found here.
 
Treatment
Here is a general "how to" when trying to clear up an STD (Standard Teaching of Dogma) in your school. Do not attempt this alone, you will need to call in other stakeholders to help especially if the infection has spread through the entire district. The system is known to shut down and annihilate attempts to clear infection with the process: “you are the only parent, in the only school, in the only board that ever had a problem with it”.

Start gently as some infections are easily cleared up with a little exposure to sunlight. Interactions should be respectful and everyone should focus on what is best for the students. Steps must be taken in a specific order as school systems are very hierarchical and the infection may dig in deeper.

1) Playgrounds can be unforgiving. Protect your child throughout the process.
2) Educate the educator: Try to resolve the issue with the teacher first.
3) Educate school administration: Arrange a meeting with the principal and the teacher.
4) Gather Resources, People, and Research:
    a. Has this issue happened before?
    b. Identify applicable board policies, regulations, curriculum, legislation, etc.
    c. What is the impact on the children? Focus on children’s needs.
    d. Have your talking points (key issues) ready.
    e. Discuss the issue and get support from other parents
5) Educate the Superintendent: provide a copy of your concerns and arrange a meeting.
6) Educate the Board:
    a. Have other stakeholders and yourself attend and speak at board meetings.
    b. Use talking points and be mindful of time limit to get points across.
7) Educate the Minister of Education
    a. Caution: this will automatically start the circular shutdown process. Expect to hear:
         i.“Not our problem it is their issue”. This will rinse and repeat until the media gets involved. Like musical chairs, whomever is left standing will answer to media.
    b. Do not expect “what is good for the students” to be mentioned (that will be your job) as the infection will be trying to survive.
    c. Do not worry, this step is a formality anyway. The next step is critical.
8) Educate the World:
    a. Connect with others stakeholders & organizations:
         i. Comprehensive sexual health providers
         ii. Feminist, Pro-Choice, LGBTQ2S
         iii. Science and/or secular groups
    b. Write letters to the editors
    c. Use social media
    d. Use a petition to connect with interested parties and increase visibility and pressure.
    e. Contact local media and arrange interviews
9) Last resort:
    a. Human Rights: time sensitive, lengthy process. Grounds may be: family status, marital status, gender, orientation, religion (includes non-belief). Check provincial Acts.
     b. Lawyer: Lawyer Referral Services can get you a free consult.
10) Helpful Resource Links:
      a. Alberta Health/Education Teaching Sexual Health website: www.teachingsexualhealth.ca
      b. Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada supports sexual health education: www.sexualityandu.ca
      c. Public Health Canada Guidelines for Sexual Health Education: http://www.sexualityandu.ca/resource-library/single/resources/canadian-guidelines-for-sexual-health-education-2008
      d. SIECUS (Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States) Community Action Resources: www.communityactionkit.org


* Kathy Dawson has been active on the sex ed front in Alberta as reported here. Follow her on twitter, @KathyDawson.

Alberta Fake Clinics Sponging Public Money, Part 2, Medicine Hat

To continue our investigation into Alberta fake clinics sucking off the public tit (Part 1 on Central Alberta Fake Clinic here), let's look at the Medicine Hat Pregnancy Support Society.

It doesn't seem to have its own website and does not belong to Canadian Association of Pregnancy Support Services, the organization that the Ontario Trillium Foundation had a problem with.

It does have a Facebook page, which consists mainly of announcements of holidays on which they'll be unavailable to help any crisis pregnancies. For fun, here's its very goddy newsletter.

Things get interesting however, when we look at its finances. A site named CHIMP gets its information from the same place we do, the CRA.

This pie chart is fascinating, though. WTF does that mean?

But Chimp reports the 2013 data correctly. In 2013, Medicine Hat Haters spent 90% of their dough on management and administration, with 3% going to the "charitable program."

Note that they report 0% "government funding."

Now have a look at their filing for 2012. Then, they spent 95% on the charitable program and 5% on management, again reporting no government funding.

In 2011, again 95% went to the charitable program with no government funding.

Now, go back to the Alberta Lottery Fund and nose around a bit, you'll find that Medicine Hat scored government/pubic money as follows:

2012/13: $4500
2011/12: $6300
2010/11: $9300
2009/10: 0
2008/09: $4500
(figures are rounded to nearest hundred)

Two questions here:
1. Why are they not reporting government funding?

2. How the hell did they go from spending 5% on admin to spending 90%?

Honest mistake?

No flags were raised?

We will continue to ask questions.




h/t to Niles in the comments for the FB, CHIMP, and newsletter links.

Crisis Pregnancy Centres: Alberta Fake Clinics Get Public Money

As promised, we're taking a look at other crisis pregnancy centres (CPCs) in Canada that apply for and receive public funding.

Back here in our how-to identify and expose fake clinics getting public money, Kathy Dawson found that the Alberta Lottery Foundation (ALF) does indeed funnel money to CPCs.

Alberta Lottery Foundation is like the Ontario Trillium Foundation. It redistributes the province's ill-gotten gains to "worthy" community assets. (Or does it?)

It's got a ton of dough to hand out -- $1.486 billion in 2013-14 alone.

The website has a handy search function. Kathy used the search term "pregnancy" and look what she found.

Since 2008, ALF has given $93,200 of "involuntary" donors' -- i.e. Alberta's gamblers' -- money to three "pregnancy"-related groups: Medicine Hat Pregnancy Support Society, Hinton Crisis Pregnancy Association, and Central Alberta Pregnancy Care Centre Society (Red Deer and Olds). Most of the funding was for operations and all of the funds were doled out under the Community Spirit Donation Grant Program.

The Community Spirit Donation Grant Program supports the generosity of Albertans with a matching Donation Grant Program and the Enhanced Charitable Tax Credit.

There's not much information on this program on ALF's site, but it seems that not only are public funds involved in the grants, but Albertans fork out again in forgoing taxes on the donors' contributions in the form of "Enhanced Charitable Tax Credits."

Let's have a closer look at Central Alberta Pregnancy Care Centre. It's interesting for a few reasons. First, it's pretty rich for these kind of operations.

From its mandatory filing at Canadian Revenue Agency, in 2013, it reported revenue of just over $450K, with "government funding" $68,690 or 15%.

In 2012, it reported revenue of $442K and government funding of $95,879 (22%).

"Government funding"??????????????????

It was also the target of an undercover investigation in 2000 by CTV, which exposed the usual lies, manipulations, and misleading information. I can't find any of the original stories but I found an interesting "rebuttal" by Fetus Freak Media outlet The Interim.

The Central Alberta fake clinic can also boast of the fact that one of its founders is Valorie Day, Stockwell Day's wife.

Here is its mission statement:

The Central Alberta Pregnancy Care Centre is a Christian charity dedicated to upholding the sanctity of all human life. We help women, their partners, and their families to explore all pregnancy options; giving access to accurate information and the space and time needed to make a well informed decision.

The Centre does not perform, refer, or advocate for abortion. However, we are committed to unconditional acceptance of everyone we serve, regardless of their choices.

It is also a member of Canadian Association of Pregnancy Support Services, you know, the umbrella organization that the Ontario Trillium Foundation had a "philosophical" issue with.

The decision came after pseudonym-using blogger Fern Hill reached out to OTF Oct. 29, confirmed Thomas Chanzy, vice-president public affairs.

“The issue that was raised when we looked into that grant more deeply was the affiliation with CAPPS, the Canadian Association of Pregnancy Support Services,” he said.

So, if you live in Alberta and buy lottery tickets, you are willy-nilly supporting these lying liars. If you live in Alberta and don't buy lottery tickets, your tax dollars have to stretch just a bit farther because you are underwriting donations to them.

Later, a look at the other two publicly funded fake clinics in Alberta.

Turnabout: WE Have Conscience Issues Too

This is good.

An Edmonton teenager and her mother have successfully filed a complaint with the Alberta Human Rights Commission, alleging the Edmonton Public School District’s use of a Christian fundamentalist abstinence education program infringed upon their rights as non-Christians.

And it should start a trend.

@fernhilldammit @Auragasmic @01CindyLee @blueskies366 "...infringed upon their rights as non-Christians." WHY HAVEN'T MORE PEOPLE SAID THIS?

— MsBlack (@InternetPerson6) July 10, 2014

A similar objection to sex-ed taught by religious nutbars, who, by the way, run fake abortion clinics in the schools' neighbourhoods, was based on the lies and distortions typically offered in such courses.

Why bother with facts and science and tolerance? Let's just cut to the chase and use their tactics against them.

In other words, you have fucking conscience issues, nutbars? So do we.

Take your Christian Sharia crap and stuff it.

UPDATE: CBC interview at 7:00 mark here.

UPPITY-DATE: Victory! Edmonton School Board will look for other providers. Squeaky wheel wins!

UPPITY-DATE 3: Power and Politics panel (50:43 mark) destroys any semblance of justification for religion in publicly funded schools.

Birth Control: Deeply Moral or Inconsequential?

You can't have it both ways.

Either birth control is a highly moral issue on which physicians must be allowed to impose their "conscience" or it is a trivial matter with negligible consequences that can be easily dealt with.


"A doctor at a Calgary walk-in clinic is refusing to prescribe birth control due to her personal beliefs."

This caused a ruckus starting on Facebook and a comment was sought from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta (bold mine).

Under the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta’s policy on Moral or Religious Beliefs Affecting Medical Care, doctors can refuse to provide medical services, but must ensure the patient is offered timely access to those services from another practitioner.

Trevor Theman, registrar with the CPSA, said the policy does not require Westglen to have a doctor on hand who can prescribe the pill.

He did not specify what “timely” meant, but said a delay in receiving a birth control prescription is “not likely going to disadvantage a patient in a serious way.”

“There’s a degree of urgency but it’s not like life or death today kind of urgency,” he said, adding most women should be seeing a family doctor about their sexual health needs.

“In an ideal world, women who need birth control or are seeking birth control will have a regular doctor and won’t just be dropping into a walk-in clinic to get a prescription for birth control pills.”

Yabbut, this is not an ideal world

Pam Krause, president and CEO of the Calgary Sexual Health Centre, said she’s aware of doctors who morally object to making abortion referrals, but refusing to prescribe birth control is virtually unheard of in Alberta.
...
Personal beliefs should not interfere with a professional responsibilities, she said, adding that the birth control pill is one of the most highly demanded prescriptions.
...
In fact, one in five Calgarians ­­— 200,000 people — is without a family doctor and rely on walk-in clinics to serve their medical needs.

So, which is it? Big fucking hairy deal? Or minor matter that non-irresponsible women should sort out on their own?

And that reminded me of the messed-up recall of the birth control pill AlySena in April 2013.

“Although this recall is currently a Type 2 recall and does not require pharmacy to contact patients, due to the potential seriousness of the recall, and in an abundance of caution, care and concern for our customers, London Drugs has chosen to be proactive in advising our customers and patients of the recall,” the blog post read, linking off to the urgent notice.

Class 1 situations require “reasonable probability” that the use of the drug will cause serious health consequences or death. Class 2 could lead to “temporary adverse health consequences,” Health Canada explains on its website.

The maker, Apotex, seemed to consider the issue serious. Health Canada not so much.

The lot was identified as LF01899A and distributor Apotex issued a voluntary recall to wholesalers and retailers on April 3. The affected packages were removed from store shelves on April 5, when most pharmacies received the recall.

But patients were not required to be contacted until April 8, when Health Canada upgraded the recall to Type I, the most serious level.

Health Canada says this type of recall is reserved for “a situation in which there is a reasonable probability that the use of, or exposure to, a product will cause serious adverse health consequences or death.”

Again, an unintended pregnancy seems to strike some in the medical community as a mere "temporary adverse health consequence." Much like the fetus fetishists who insist pregnancy is hardly any bother at all. And women who reject it are selfish bitches.

Gawd, we women and our reproductive systems require a lot of policing, don't we?

Here's a radical idea: Why don't we leave such decisions entirely up to the person most affected? And leave the damned panty-sniffing gatekeepers -- whether MDs, pharmacists, or Health Canada -- out of it.

Let us know if a product is safe and effective, then shut the fuck up.

Reminder: In Ontario, a similar kerfuffle over the "morality" of birth control prescriptions drove the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario to seek public input. Go have your say. The process is open until August 5.

Elsewhere in Canda: GSAs, Abstinence-Only Sex Ed, Parental Consent for Abortion

Gazillions of electrons will be spilled today poring over the entrails of the election in Quebec. Since I know little and understand less of QC politics, I'm turning my attention to some neglected stories from Alberta and Saskatchewan.

First up: Valiant but doomed effort to mandate Gay Straight Alliances in Alberta.

A motion from a Liberal MLA to mandate that schools support the establishment of student-led gay-straight alliances to help curb bullying and discrimination was defeated in the legislature Monday.

Calgary-Buffalo MLA Kent Hehr said in the debate that clubs that bring together gay and straight students help create a tolerant environment and have been demonstrated to reduce bullying of all types.
. . .
The Liberals and NDP supported the motion with the support of some PC MLAs. However, a majority of Tories and the Wildrose Party opposed it, with the final tally 31 to 19.

Sure, Conservatives will invoke "bullying" as their excuse when they really want to invade our online privacy, but actually doing something about it? Not if it offends the gord-fearing haters in their base.

Next up, also from Alberta, it seems those gord-fearing haters have invaded the sex ed programs of PUBLIC schools.

Back in 2012, a CTV investigation in BC got sex ed programs run by Christian "Crisis Pregnancy Centres" aka fake clinics booted from public schools.

Now they're spreading the hate and lies in Edmonton public schools.

While abstinence may be the only foolproof way to prevent pregnancy, local parents are worried it is the only form of birth control taught at certain Edmonton schools.

According to Edmonton parent and local activist Franki Harrogate the Pregnancy Care Centre — a local organization that offers counseling and guidance for unplanned pregnancy — has been teaching an abstinence-only model at some schools.

“They don’t provide comprehensive sexual education and it’s performed from a very sex negative (perspective),” Harrogate said.

A grassroots group in Edmonton trying to stop them. Here's the petition by Kathy Dawson.

In violation of the curriculum requirements (the CALM Guide to Implementation and the Education Act), students at an Edmonton public high school were recently taught gender stereotypes, inaccurate, incomplete, and biased information about sexuality in a Career and Life Management (CALM) class.

Sexually active students were shamed, non-traditional families were disparaged and LGBTQ questions were not answered. Parents were not informed of the presenter's identity or the specific content.

In response to letters, the Ministry of Education appears unwilling to intervene and the Edmonton Public School Board is not acting to change its policies around parental notification or to ensure that only quality comprehensive sex education is taught in public schools as per curriculum requirements.

Background
Edmonton Pregnancy Care Centre is a Christ-centred anti-choice ministry that is not a medical facility. They present the “Wait! Let’s Talk Sex!” (Abstinence only program) to 60 Edmonton Public Schools (that includes students in grades 7, 8, 9 and CALM 20). Edmonton Public Schools is fully aware of the content of these presentations and continues to allow teachers to select this “ministry” to indoctrinate vulnerable youth. Edmonton Public Schools is refusing to mandate that parents be informed about presenters and content as part of the parental consent procedure for sexual health education. Only 18 schools bring in comprehensive sex education presenters.

The presenter I saw in 2013 appeared to focus on abstinent, heterosexual teens while misrepresenting and omitting sexuality information. The following is a partial list of fundamentalist anti-choice, anti-feminist, anti-male, anti-birth control, anti-gay, medically inaccurate and biased doctrine I heard:

-refused to answer questions relating to LGBTQ
-scientifically inaccurate information about fetal development, abortion and emergency contraception
-misused research on oxytocin bonding
-misled youth about contact with babies surrendered for open adoption
-misled youth about birth control and condom effectiveness
-presented a divorce rate at 70%
-provided inflammatory and misleading information about Planned Parenthood
-misrepresented the effectiveness of over the counter pregnancy tests
-presented gender stereotypes that were sexist to all genders
-misrepresented boys as HPV (human papillomavirus) carriers-stated 60% have it under their finger nails

In addition to this bosh, the Christian sex expert is clairvoyant.

More from the petition:

This presenter claimed that she could look students in the eye and know if they were having sex.

Abstinence only sex ed is not only medical and scientific bullshit, by all credible assessment measures, it simply does not work.

And now to Saskatchewan, where as we reported recently, fetus fetishists are gamely trying to introduce "parental consent" regulations for abortion to Canada for the first time.

So, how's their letter-writing campaign going? Not too well (scroll down to March 10).

PARENTAL CONSENT Law
Saskatchewan MLAs say they are getting few e-mails.

We see that petitions are getting downloaded and many petitions are getting signed. They should be hitting the floor of the Legislative Assembly soon.

HOWEVER, MLAs are saying they are getting very few e-mails.  We need to STEP it up.  We need to BOMBARD our MLAs with everything we have to get this very basic and "friendly" law passed in Saskatchewan.

Use the Easy-Mail program - it is quick, easy and takes less than a minute, unless you choose to personalize the content of the letter.  PLEASE, DO IT NOW!!!

Hee. They thought this was going to be quick and easy. After all, who could argue with this "very basic and friendly law"?

Joyce Arthur of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, for one, wrote her own letter to Saskatchewan MLAs.

Dear Saskatchewan Members of the Legislative Assembly,

Two anti-abortion groups have recently launched a campaign to enact a law in Saskatchewan requiring parental consent before a minor can have an abortion (http://sk.parentalconsent.ca/).

The attached new Position Paper (also available here http://www.arcc-cdac.ca/postionpapers/58-Parental-Consent.pdf) demonstrates with comprehensive evidence that if a parental consent law for abortion was passed by any Canadian province or territory, it would contravene and reverse current medical policies and ethics around the consent of minors to healthcare, violate their constitutional rights to bodily security and privacy, and increase risks to their health and safety.

In Saskatchewan, a parental consent law for abortion would be particularly harmful and counter-productive, as it would disproportionately impact the high numbers of marginalized youth in your province, as the following facts attest:
• Child poverty rates in Manitoba and Saskatchewan are the highest in Canada, according to Saskatoon Health. Saskatchewan also has a significant Aboriginal population (11.3%) that has historically experienced enormous economic and social hardships, much of which continues to this day. 
• Saskatchewan has the second highest rate of teenage births in Canada (29 per 1,000 women aged 14-19), second only to Nunavut. A parental consent law for abortion would increase these rates even more, thereby continuing the cycle of poverty and dysfunction that so many are trapped in.
• The Saskatchewan Child Welfare Review Panel Report: For the good of our children and youth (http://saskchildwelfarereview.ca/CWR-panel-report.pdf) documents that “Saskatchewan has high rates of alcohol dependency and abuse, the second largest concentration of youth gang members on a per capita basis, and high rates of child poverty, youth crime, incarceration, disability, family violence, and mental health problems.” In addition: “Caseloads of children in care keep growing, and the outcomes for children and families are not acceptable. … The majority of clients of the child welfare system are Aboriginal – First nations and Métis. The percentage has been growing over recent decades and seems likely to continue on that path.”


Given the environment of poverty and inequity that too many Saskatchewan youth live in, and the evidence submitted in the attached paper, we ask you to please reject any possibility of a parental consent law for abortion. Instead, we urge the Saskatchewan government to follow the recommendations of the above-noted report from the Saskatchewan Child Welfare Review Panel, which urged all levels of government to address the poverty-related conditions that drive child neglect and other social problems. These include making “significant improvements to the income support, affordable housing, and disability service systems used by Saskatchewan families.” We believe this would be the best way forward to protect Saskatchewan youth and improve their futures.

Thank you very much for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
Joyce Arthur

In addition to the letter, ARCC produced a position paper (pdf) on parental consent laws and what a nightmare of privacy and human rights violations they would entail.

In Canada, as ever, the sexual two-step continues. One step forward, two steps back.

Upcoming blogposts on the forward (New Brunswick) and back (*sigh* Woodworth Rides Again).

Join the #DefendAbortion Tweet Fest Tomorrow

Fetus fetishists plan to spam their provincial legislators tomorrow in a Tweet Fest urging them to #defund abortion.

They've targetted four provinces.

DAMMIT JANET! proposes a counter Tweet Fest using the hashtag #DefendAbortion.

At DJ!, we live to serve, so here are the lists of provincial pols on Twitter from PoliTwitter.

Alberta

Nova Scotia

Manitoba

Ontario

We've reported on these feeble efforts before. They've been centred in Ontario so far. Like this lame little gathering from March this year.

Sadly, this rally had been postponed from the previous fall when Hurricane Sandy pooped on their parade.

The planned rally was announced with some hoopla at Queen's Park, 'sponsored' by three MPPs, who unaccountably did not attend.

They were Rick Nicholls, John O'Toole, and Randy Hillier.

Only @RickNicholls and @RandyHillier have Twitter accounts.

I intend to concentrate my spamming efforts on those two.

Along with @timhudak, aka He Who Would Defund Abortion Until It Became Too Hot a Potato, of course.

Check out politicians on Twitter from your province and identify those who might be receptive to defund/defend messages. You can also check Campaign Lie's handy list of MPPs, MLAs, MNAs, abd MHAs to find out where they stand on abortion -- if they've bothered to answer its questionnaire. Many I checked had not.

If you need some talking points for why abortion must be fully funded, ARCC has you covered here.

Let's do this.

UPDATE: Wow. Alison in the comments points out that ALL the comments at LifeShite on this article come from Murricans blatting about ObamaCare and the US government shut-down. Now we know that fetus fetishists aren't the sharpest pencils in the box, but this is a bit much. Alison asks: Just where does the funding for the Canadian anti-abortion gang come from again?

MORE UPDATE: AntoniaZ in the comments prefers #DefendChoice. Fine by me. But in this case, it is specifically abortion they want to defund. So I'll used #DefendAbortion and add #DefendChoice if I've got characters to spare.

EVEN MORE UPDATE: Alison expands on her comment at her blog.

AND MORE UPDATE: I haven't read this yet (11-page PDF). The Evangelical Whatsits have updated a 2012 evaluation on the requirement to fund abortion by provinces. Arming themselves for tomorrow, it seems.

Git your souvenir oilsands globe here!

The pitch (yeah, eh, eh, eh):



The innovator is Dan Murphy.

For extra fun, enter the search term "A Celebration of Tarsands!" at  youtube.

A New Front in the War on Women (Canadian version)

. . . has appeared in Alberta. It got some attention in the comments here by Jane, Anonymous, and Niles.

But the Alberta Tea Baggers Wildrose Alliance deserves more scrutiny for this brain-fart.

“The legalities of abortion fall under federal jurisdiction. We respect that Albertans view social issues differently, which is why Wildrose would immediately introduce legislation allowing citizens to put issues like abortion of citizen initiated referendum. “

Still doubtful, I called and asked a Wildrose spokesman myself about the matter this evening.

Bill Bewick, the party’s spokesman on health policy, told me that a Wildrose government could not ban abortion, since that’s a matter of federal responsibility. However, he said, the province could opt to delist abortion, so that the service would no longer be covered by the province’s health insurance plan.

“We have no plans to address this issue. We will not legislate on it,” Bewick told me.

On the other hand, he told me, the party does favour citizen-sponsored referenda on a wide range of issues.

“People are free to initiate referenda on any issue they want,” he said.

But when I asked Bewick if the Wildrose campaign would commit not to delist abortion, he declined to do so.

Delist in Alberta = defund in Ontario.

But not to fear, pro-choice Albertans. Top-dog Teabagger is totally reassuring.

Leader Danielle Smith had words of her own Thursday evening.

"Like the Progressive Conservatives, Wildrose has absolutely no intentions of legislating on abortion, and that includes delisting," she said.

Hmm. Just like the federal Contempt Party?

And that's not all Albertans have to worry about. Cliff at Rusty Idols thinks the entire healthcare system will be toast if Wildrose wins.

Albertans: You are familiar with the definition of insanity, yes?

ROC media dancing to Contempt Party tune.

As it so happens, I'm Franco-Ontarian and while I understand, intellectually and emotionally, the premise of the sovereignty movement in Québec, I didn't feel personally engaged.

Until now.

This is the famous *firewall* letter King Stevie Spiteful the First and his cronies addressed to the premier of Alberta; it was published in the NatPo in January 2001.

The leader of the Contempt Party has bragged about the ways that he will oversee the destruction of Canada as we know it. Federalism? Phooey. SHithead came to Ottawa to reduce our government to something small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Twenty or perhaps even ten years from now, when the country formerly known as Canada has been fragmented into a number of US states, political historians and theorists will compare the respective goals and strategies of ethical sovereignists in Québec - people like Françoise David, Gilles Duceppe and Amir Khadir - versus greedy survivalists in Alberta such as Ezra Levant.

Moving to Montréal is quite appealing, at the moment. If I still feel this way this time next year ...

Will Toews Be 'Toewsed'?

This ought to be fun! Veteran NDP warhorse takes on delusional adulterer.

Former provincial justice minister and NDP titan Al Mackling will run for the NDP against Tory MP Vic Toews.

Mackling, a political heavy-hitter who served in several portfolios in the Schreyer and Pawley governments, will announce his candidacy later today.

The 83-year-old will battle the province’s senior Tory minister in a riding long believed to be among the safest in the province for the Tories.

Some in political circles have already dubbed it a battle of the justice ministers.

Some commenters at the link see this move as Mackling doing his NDP pals a favour as sacrificial lamb in this riding.

I'm ashamed to say I'd never heard of Mackling, but he seems to be quite the soshialist stalwart.

Toews, on the other hand, is a fave here at DJ! Whether he's bringing back the word 'rape' or defending his coke-possessing, speeding former colleague or dismissing positive reports on the long-gun registry, Vic Toews is ^NOT our kinda guy.

Good luck, Al.

Trip-down-memory-lane bonus: Remember the challenge Dan Savage threw out to Canadians? To come up with a new definition of 'Toews' à la 'santorum'. Did we ever decide on a meaning for 'toews'?

Teaching Old Farts New Strategies.

In spite of decades of work done by feminists and women's organizations with police, it appears that there are lessons that many cops and their administrator bosses are unwilling to learn.

A women's studies professor is criticizing police for not warning women in Edmonton about a man who allegedly sexually assaulted four women within a week after luring them on a social networking site.

"It's quite possible had they alerted women that some of these assaults could have
been prevented. The police could have warned women using social networking sites or dating sites to be specifically careful of someone doing this particular thing," Lise Gotell from the University of Alberta said Tuesday. "And it's quite possible had they alerted women that some of these assaults could have been prevented."

Edmonton police first announced Tuesday afternoon that they had arrested a 22-year-old man in relation to four assaults that allegedly took place in the Millwoods area of the city. The suspect has been charged with two counts of sexual assault, two counts of sexual assault with a weapon, three counts of possession of an offensive weapon dangerous to the public, two counts of unlawful confinement and one count each of robbery and theft over $5,000.

Police allege the man contacted the women through a social networking site, developed a relationship with them over several days, lured them to a remote location, threatened and sexually assaulted them.

Note that Gotell, an award-winning prof at the University of Alberta, is first identified through her association with Women's Studies which is an interdisciplinary academic program that right-wing conservatives often attack and attempt to discredit.

In Manitoba, cold cases and historical homicides of women are to be re-investigated.

Justice Minister Dave Chomiak first told the Free Press last month that the RCMP and Winnipeg Police were dusting off the old cases. The news came shortly after 17-year-old Cherisse Houle was found dead, face down in a ditch, and Chomiak
himself wondered if a serial killer could be responsible. ...

Former Vancouver police officer turned serial-killer profiler Kim Rossmo told the Free Press that it wouldn't surprise him if a serial killer was at work in Winnipeg.
"It would be shocking to think that in a city the size of Winnipeg, that you wouldn't have one or more serial killers preying on prostitutes over a 30-year period," Rossmo said.

Do cops become so hardened by their obligation to view prostitutes as criminals, rather than human beings - a consideration always generously awarded to their clients who are offered an opportunity to bypass criminal charges by enrolling in "John School" - that when women are butchered, they shrug it off? Don't they care that these are someone's daughter, sister, mother? And is the fact that many of them are Aboriginal women lead to a somewhat desultory investigation of their murders?

If there are other versions of Willy Pickton (and his suspected accomplices at the pig farm, who have somehow escaped criminal charges) who are stalking and killing women in Manitoba, the police don't appear very committed to finding him to stop his campaign of murder and terror.

And those who defend pedophilia crawl out ...

from the underside of a big rock that was lifted to shed some light upon the sexual exploitation of children (emphasis ours).

oldowleyes wrote: "Wow, if your male your not even allowed to pay cash or ask for a quiet private room w/o out being suspected of being a pedophile. What a bunch of clowns Canadian governments are turning out to be, go back into your holes of institutional discrimination. While your at it, I suggest you get those illegal Family Relation Laws* off your books, or someday soon your going to be on the hook for billions in a class action law suit."

boardhead wrote: "Great. Now any 35 year old man with a young looking 20 year old girl will get a label. I'm all for the initiative as well, but most 18 yr. old girls these days are promiscuous with older men, and some look younger than 18, which will cause problems for some guys who are doing nothing wrong."

Most of the commenters who responded favourably to this campaign appeared to be women. The purpose of this initiative from the government of Alberta, Child and Youth Services division is to target adults who sexually exploit vulnerable girls and boys in rooms rented from commercial lodging establishments such as resorts, hotels and motels.

I have traveled with my daughter and her girlfriend, when they were teenagers. If I had seen hotel staff chat informally with them to ensure that neither had been kidnapped or were being coerced to participate in child prostitution, as part of precautionary measures that screened all guests, I would not have reacted in anger or fear. But perhaps men like Dickie Evans who engage in duplicitous sexual behaviour know that they have something to hide.

* This appears to be the legislation that oldowleyes finds objectionable.