Time Immortal

OR: if you like visible minorities, you’re a racist.

Say that again with me, one more time, for clarity. If you like visible minorities, you, sir, are a racist, and quite possibly worse than Hitler.

Jonathan Kay has an excellent article up, in which freespeecher BCF gets an honourable mention, about the case of paranoiacally aggrieved Health Canada employee Dr. Shiv Chopra, who filed a human rights complaint against Health Canada after his then-boss, André Lachance, began a lecture “with the declaration that — horror of horrors — ‘he liked visible minorities.’”

I think the good Reader can guess what happened from there. Dr. Chopra took “offence,” called this a “racist remark,” and filed a human rights complaint which was recently decided (no surprises here) in his favour. He was awarded a few thousand dollars, and Health Canada has no doubt had to pay hundreds of thousands more dollars in legal fees, in addition to having to pay Dr. Chopra “compensation” for the horrible act of “Racism” perpetrated by André Lachance. Who knew that it was a hate crime to express one’s enjoyment of ethnic diversity in the workplace?

I’ve been putting a lot of stuff into the “Asteroid Overdue” category these last couple of weeks. The decline of civilization, methinks, is beginning to accelerate, if it had not done so already.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

The Auditor General has just delivered her report on how Canada is dealing with a variety of issues before it, including (perhaps most importantly) how the government is handling the issue of over 60,000 people who have immigrated here illegally.

That is also the most alarming of the statistics contained within the report:

The Canada Border Services Agency must improve how it tracks individuals ordered to leave the country. Last fall, the agency had no idea of the whereabouts of 41,000 individuals ordered out of Canada for being in the country illegally.

What I would like to know is: where are the majority of these people from? What countries did they immigrate here from? What are their criminal histories, if any? Do they have any affiliation with known terrorist groups?

And, of course: how the heck did we lose track of a group of people the size of the population of West Vancouver? Oh…wait…

Anyhow, here are some other interesting tidbits from the report:

- Children living on First Nations reserves are eight times more likely to seek the aid of child welfare services than children living off reserves. Last year, there were 8,300 on-reserve children using family service programs — about five per cent of all children in reserves.

- National Defence should improve how it sends supplies to troops in Afghanistan. The department has trouble keeping track of supplies being used in the war and maintaining some key equipment because of spare-part shortages, making it increasingly difficult to support the mission.

- Canadians pay too much for passports. The consular fee — about $25 of the $87 cost of an adult passport — is disproportionate to the cost of consular services being provided and should be adjusted.

- Health Canada has been charging too little for medicinal marijuana.

A 2007 report shows that the department underestimated the cost of administering and regulating the program, and the fee to consumers did not recover the full costs of the program.

- The Public Health Agency, created following the 2003 SARS outbreak, has trouble keeping track of the spread of infectious diseases due to gaps in its information-sharing agreements with the provinces and territories.

Kind of depressing, isn’t it?

Regarding this post by Ken, I find that where Health Canada is concerned, only certain issues regarding are ever addressed, and then, not always with the proper statistics or education. I take everything they say or do with a grain of salt myself.

You almost wouldn’t think they’re a minority government. Oh, don’t get me wrong: I’m upset at for refusing to boycott the 2008 Olympics (or even to not attend personally, as Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, and the Czech Republic’s president, Válclav Klaus, have done). But when it comes to domestic policy, the guy knows how to play hardball, and his chutzpah is admirable. The Conservatives have brought forth a lot of good legislation since taking office over two years ago, and one can’t help but notice that the fact that they don’t hold a majority in Parliament doesn’t seem to slow them down any.

One thing I don’t get, though, is why Health Canada was not empowered to issue product recalls by any of the previous Liberal governments — that sort of interventionist policy seems a bit more their style, doesn’t it? Not that I’m complaining in this regard; even a hard-nosed conservative like me can see the need for the government to step in every once in a while. Consumer protection is an important aspect of a modern market-driven economy, especially in an age where almost everything is made in places like China (which has been caught in several high-profile acts of dangerous cost-cutting recently, such as using antifreeze as an alternative and cheaper ingredient in toothpaste).