SEX: A TELL-ALL EXHIBITION IN OTTAWA:
AN OPEN LETTER TO MINISTER OF HERITAGE JAMES MOORE

(Ottawa) – Late last week, the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada began receiving complaints about a special exhibit which is to start showing tomorrow, on Thursday, May 17, 2012, at Ottawa’s Science and Technology Museum.

This exhibit, aimed initially at ages 12 and up, is called SEX: A Tell-all Exhibition.

It includes information displayed in a manner designed to be both erotic and titillating and shows sex without relationship, commitment and certainly without marriage as the norm. The museum is 80 percent funded by our tax dollars and is a crown corporation.

As a result, the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada has written an open letter to Minister of Heritage James Moore, included below, asking for the exhibit to be cancelled.
The complaints and feedback of parents is making a difference. By the time we visited the museum, they had already raised the age of entry to 16 and removed a display showing youth how to masturbate.

The Institute of Marriage and Family Canada is uniquely placed here in Ottawa, ready to respond at moments like these. We went, had a discussion with the Director of Public Relations and viewed the museum first hand. Many who commented in early reports did so based on the reports of others; however, thanks to our visit to the museum, the Institute is able to condemn this exhibit with authority, not based in shrill rhetoric or name-calling, but based in solid research about the importance of family formation and marriage in delaying teen sexual initiation.

If you’d like to support us to be able to continue this important work, you are able to do so by clicking here or calling us at 1-866-373-4632.

Thank you for your continued support.

__________________________________________________

May 16, 2012

Hon. James Moore, P.C., M.P.
Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages
Canadian Heritage
15 Eddy Street
Gatineau, Quebec
K1A 0M5

Email: james.moore@parl.gc.ca; min.moore@pch.gc.ca

Dear Minister Moore,

It has recently come to our attention that the Canadian Museum of Science and Technology is about to open a new exhibit entitled: SEX: A Tell-all Exhibition. This exhibit is billed as presenting “information on sexuality in a scientific, engaging and interactive manner.” Furthermore, it offers “reliable answers to (teen) questions about sexuality.”

Unfortunately, this billing runs contrary to reality. Based on a tour by our staff, the exhibition espouses a specific point of view including the approval and promotion of anal sex, multiple sexual partners and sex without emotional/marital commitment. Surely these topics are not a part of the mandate of the CMST. Upon further questioning, museum staff confirmed that the previously included animated video of children masturbating has been removed and the unaccompanied age restriction has been raised to 16 years. It is apparent from these changes that the CMST is aware of the public reaction to this display. However, further changes are still necessary.

This exhibit includes what can only be described as soft pornography, expressly designed for youth in the context of a museum.

The views presented therein are deeply personal by their very nature. Sexuality is something many families would prefer to teach within the family context. Furthermore, surveys demonstrate that parents want sexual information to link sex with love, intimacy and commitment – something completely unrepresented in this exhibit. Surveys also reveal that as many as 91 percent of parents want their teens to delay sexual activity until after the completion of high school, reducing the risk of abuse, STIs and unintended pregnancies that can alter the course of a young person’s life. Where the exhibit does address the risk of STIs, the premise that abstinence and monogamy are the only 100% sure way to avoid STIs is also absent. Evidence does not show that early exposure to this type of “education” will delay sexual initiation. To the contrary, the best means of delaying early sexual initiation is through the active involvement of the biological dad in the household.

The following are quotes from the exhibit, which, help create a picture of the tone of the museum:

“My physical appearance, personality and ideas make me unique, but so does my sexuality. The age at which I start having sex, the types of relationships I experience, how my body reacts – all of these define me.” Unfortunately, supporting early sexual encounters has been shown to result in unwanted pregnancies and place youth at a higher risk of emotional and mental health issues.
In learning about passionate kissing, youth can read: “When my mouth comes in contact with yours all these nerve cells bombard me with stimulation. I feel you, I touch you, I taste you and we intertwine.” There is no scientific purpose to this dialogue and it is accompanied by visuals of passionate kissing on video loop.
In the section – “What is that called?” we read, “Pussy, snatch, bush for girls. Prick, cock, dick for boys. The language used to talk about sexuality is astonishingly creative…” This runs counter to all the provincial and general education curricula that instruct parents and teachers to use the correct terminology for body parts.
According to the CMST website, the museum’s mandate is: “to study the “Transformation of Canada,” and can be broken into four sub-themes:

Canadian Context – reflecting Canadian achievements
Finding New Ways – the search for new knowledge and new ways of doing things
How “Things” Work – Developing an understanding of how “things” work
People, Science and Technology – People and their dynamic relationship with science and technology
In spite of asking on site, it is not clear to me that this exhibit fits into that mandate in any way.

Minister Moore, I would respectfully ask that this exhibition be cancelled. I realize that the CMST is Crown Corporation operating at arms-length, however, with 80% of their funding coming directly from taxpayers, I believe that many of them will be outraged that this exhibit is being operated through their funding. I believe that it is incumbent upon the federal government as the funders, the CMST Trustees and the administrative staff to reconsider this exhibit.

Along with Canada’s other national museums, the CMST has had a strong, positive reputation. Based on the opinions of many taxpayers who are already providing our office with feedback, and a personal tour through the exhibit, I believe that this exhibit is out of touch with the will of the majority of Canadians and its continuation will only sully the museum’s reputation.

I would gratefully request to meet with you in order to discuss this issue further. With the exhibit set to open tomorrow, on May 17, obviously time is of the essence. I look forward to your earliest reply and commitment to review this situation.

Yours truly,

Dave Quist
Executive Director, Institute of Marriage and Family Canada

CC:

The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, P.C., M.P,
Prime Minister of Canada
pm@pm.gc.ca

The Honourable Gary Goodyear
Minister of State (Science and Technology)
Email: mosst.industry@ic.gc.ca; gary.goodyear@parl.gc.ca

Members of Parliament

Canada Science and Technology Museums Corporation
Board of Trustees:

Gary Polonsky, CHAIR Fax: 613 998-7759
Jim Silye, VICE-CHAIR Fax: 613 998-7759
Harold Bjarnason Fax: 613 998-7759
Amiee Chan Fax: 613 998-7759
Frederic Dugre Fax: 613 998-7759
Ian McIlreath Fax: 613 998-7759
Virginia McLaughlin Fax: 613 998-7759
Eloise Opheim Fax: 613 998-7759
Neil Russon Fax: 613 998-7759
Margaret Smith Fax: 613 998-7759
Denise Amyot
President and CEO
Canada Science and Technology Museums Corporation
Email: damyot@technomuses.ca

Canada Science and Technology Museum
Acting Director Luc Fournier
Email: lfournier@technomuses.ca

Canada Science and Technology Museum
Director of Public Affairs Yves St.-Onges
Email: yst-onge@technomuses.ca

For additional information or comment, please contact: Dave Quist, Executive Director at 613-565-3832.

By Andrea Mrozek, The Ottawa Citizen May 17, 2012

There’s a war on sugar and trans fats in Ontario schools. The province is enforcing food regulations with religious zeal in the name of healthier children. There is no holding back when it comes to provincial pronouncements on what’s risky for your child to eat.

Not so with sex, however. There, it’s anything goes. If you feel like it, do it. This is the ethos behind the new SEX: A Tell-all Exhibition, opening Thursday at Ottawa’s museum of science and technology.

Designed by a collection of doctors, psychologists and sexologists in Montreal, this is a world of sex without stigma, to be sure. It’s also a world of sex without privacy, intimacy or connection. Nothing is sacred; everything is physical, and sex is more or less expected.

Do I want to engage in threesomes? Have friends with benefits? Have sex with men or women or both — at the same time? The recorded voice of sexologists like Jamy Ryan and Jocelyne Robert, as well as the meandering personal testimonies of unnamed individuals provide the answers. Ready to record their pearls of wisdom? In more or less each and every case the answer is “it’s up to you.”

For this sort of superficial silliness, kids can turn to the average TV show or B-rated movie script. And now the Canada Science and Technology Museum, courtesy of your tax dollars. (The museum is 80 per cent funded by you and me.)

Picture a darkened room, with a video loop of passionate kissing running in the background. White plastic naked models of a life-size man and a woman recline, facing each other. Black light causes the models — and the white page I took notes on — to really pop. The instructions are to “locate 10 male and female erogenous zones by delicately touching each mannequin.” In case youth need help, the nipples of the woman are lit up with a purple hue.

Delicately touch each mannequin? Really? I call over a member of our research team, a medical doctor, to see if I’d understood correctly. Then we call over the public relations director of the museum. “Touching the mannequin” seems like a perverse dare for all of us. I furtively reach out to do what I’ve been told. Nothing happens. Perhaps my caress of the plastic model wasn’t delicate enough.

Another portion of the museum teaches your teenager about passionate kissing. Everything is written in the first person: “My lips and tongue are among the most sensitive parts of my body. When my mouth comes in contact with yours all these nerve cells bombard me with stimulation. I feel you, I touch you, I taste you and we intertwine.” It goes on: “Mmmm, that’s so good,” and “Yes, I wanted it too.”

To be fair, while the exhibit presents the information in a more visual manner, this ethos of “sex when you are ready for it” is something your teenager is currently being taught at school. Ottawa Public Health is currently asking for people under 30 to help design the next condom promotion campaign, because in that younger age range there’s been a spike in sexually transmitted diseases. Hypersexual — that’s our world.

But should it be? What most young people want is true connection, intimacy and community. Upwards of 90 per cent of Canadian youth say they want to get married and have a family. Research shows that having plenty of sex prior to that point is not a way to get there. Sociologist Monica Gaughan conducted a study of 341 women in their late 20s in 2002, only to reveal that women who had more numerous sexual relationships during their early adult years were all less likely to be married at the time of her interview with the subjects. Mark Regnerus reports this in his seminal work called Premarital Sex in America, where he wonders how young adults in their early twenties will achieve the marriages they want when they currently engage in a pattern of serial monogamy.

The exhibit focuses on personal satisfaction and self-identification — lightly sprinkled with a safer sex message. What’s missing is the role that sex has as part of a wholesome, permanent relationship.

Opposition to this exhibition isn’t about being a prude. It’s about what is reasonable. Ask yourself whether that includes teaching youth how to achieve the perfect orgasm. Then join the prude revolution.

Andrea Mrozek is manager of research and communications at the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada (imfcanada.org).

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

Canadians may soon be able to apply for passports that do not reveal their gender.

“Passport Canada policy in relation to the gender indicated on passports is the subject of a review,” reads a briefing note obtained by La Presse newspaper in an Access to Information request.

On Tuesday, Passport Canada spokeswoman Béatrice Fénelon confirmed that “the policy regarding transgender people is still under review.”

Although the details of the change are not yet known, Canada may follow the Australian example and allow Canadians to mark their sex as “X” rather than “M” or “F.” Or the agency may simply streamline the process for transgendered people to obtain a passport denoting their new sex.

Under current requirements, Canadians can change the sex on their passport only if they provide medical proof of having undergone gender-reassignment surgery. If they are still in transition they can obtain a temporary two-year passport by furnishing medical documents showing the surgery is scheduled for sometime in the next 12 months.

Critics note the policy effectively excludes a minority of transgendered people who identify with a different gender, yet are unwilling or unable to undergo genital surgery.

Related
Male, female, or neither? Australian passports offer third gender option
“As physically transitioning can be an extremely expensive process, including access to surgery and hormones, it can be untenable for many trans and gender diverse individuals,” reads a 2011 policy paper on gender-neutral passports by Canadian LGBT advocate Egale Canada.

Intersex people, who are born with ambiguous chromosomes or genitalia, are forced to choose a gender when applying for a passport.

“There are people in transition from one sex to another. In my view I don’t see why passports shouldn’t reflect reality,” said Karen Selick with the Canadian Constitution Foundation.

‘There are people in transition from one sex to another. In my view I don’t see why passports shouldn’t reflect reality’
While the passport issue has long been a nuisance for Canada’s transgendered community, it was not until recently that it threatened to become a barrier to travel. Under a series of changes to the Aeronautics Act last July, airlines are not allowed to seat a passenger if “the passenger does not appear to be of the gender indicated on the identification he or she presents.”

“I don’t know why passports should have gender markers in the first place,” said Mercedes Allen, a writer on trans issues based in the Calgary area.

In September, Australia changed its passport policy to allow citizens to mark their gender as “indeterminate.” Then-minister for foreign affairs Kevin Rudd pegged the change as a way to remove the “administrative burden” on transgendered people.

“While it’s expected this change will only affect a handful of Australians, it’s an important step in removing discrimination for sex and gender diverse people,” he said.

In the wake of the Australian move, a spokeswoman with the U.K.’s Identity and Passport Service said the agency was exploring “the security implications of gender not being displayed in the passport.”

In December 2010, to accommodate same-sex parents the U.S. State Department removed the category for “mother” and “father” on its passport applications, opting instead for “parent 1” and “parent 2.”

Last year, the Bangladeshi Hijra, a long-established community of men living as women, obtained approval from the Bangladeshi government to denote their gender as “other” on passport applications. In neighbouring India, the Hijra have been able to list their gender as “E” for eunuch since 2005.

Transsexual rights took the spotlight in March when Jenna Talackova, a woman born as a male, was denied entry into the Miss Universe Canada pageant for not being a naturally born female. The decision was overturned after a storm of public criticism and a legal challenge.

A Christian student suspended from a high school in Nova Scotia for sporting a T-shirt with the slogan “Life is wasted without Jesus” vows to wear it when he returns to class next week.

William Swinimer, who’s in Grade 12, was suspended from Forest Heights Community School in Chester Basin in Lunenburg County for five days. He’s due to return to class on Monday.

The devout Christian says the T-shirt is an expression of his beliefs, and he won’t stop wearing it.

“I believe there are things that are bigger than me. And I think that I need to stand up for the rights of people in this country, and religious rights and freedom of speech,” he told CBC.

Officials with the South Shore Regional School Board plan to meet with Swinimer to hopefully reach a compromise.

P.O.V.
Should William Swinimer have been suspended? Have your say.

Nancy Pynch-Worthylake, board superintendent, said some students and teachers found the T-shirt offensive.

“When one is able or others are able to interpret it as, ‘If you don’t share my belief then your life is wasted,’ that can be interpreted by some as being inappropriate,” she said.

Refuses principal’s order
Swinimer wore the T-shirt every day to class for several weeks. The principal told him repeatedly to stop wearing it, but the student refused to comply.

Swinimer says the principal would have accepted a shirt with the slogan, “My life is wasted without Jesus.”

“But I didn’t go for that because I have my rights as a Canadian citizen,” Swinimer said.

Swinimer says he never intended to attack anyone else’s beliefs. He says he will continue to wear the shirt and is prepared to be suspended the rest of the year.

The board is looking for some guidance on the matter. It hopes to bring in an expert to help mediate the dispute with Swinimer, his family and church supporters.

“We’ll be looking for some people with understanding in this area to help us with that,” Pynch-Worthylake said.

The federal government will appeal a ruling from the Ontario Court of Appeal that struck down several anti-prostitution laws, a move that sex workers say was expected.

But rather than feeling nervous about the potential for a date in front of the Supreme Court of Canada to argue the constitutionality of Canada’s prostitution laws, the sex workers who have twice successfully challenged the law to date are ready for round three.

“I’m not the desperate party for once. I’m sitting on the top of hill,” said Alan Young, a noted constitutional lawyer who represented the sex workers at the Ontario Court of Appeal.

“I’m sitting with two very powerful judgments that are going to be very difficult for the government and the Supreme Court of Canada to contradict.”

The court ruled against the sex workers on one issue, deciding that it was still illegal to publicly solicit or communicate with clients. Young said he was prepared to not appeal that aspect of the ruling.

Last month, the Ontario Court of Appeal said the country’s anti-prostitution rules placed unconstitutional restrictions on prostitutes’ ability to protect themselves.

The decision allows sex workers in Ontario to hire drivers, bodyguards and work indoors in organized brothels.

In announcing plans to appeal the ruling, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said: “It is important to clarify the constitutionality of the law and remove the uncertainty this decision has created.”

© Copyright (c) The Victoria Times Colonist

JUSTICE REPORTER

Ontario’s highest court has legalized brothels in a sweeping decision that condemned current prostitution laws for adding to the hazards of a highly dangerous profession.

The Ontario Court of Appeal allowed the Crown just one victory, ruling that communicating for the purposes of prostitution will remain illegal.

The landmark decision is binding on Ontario courts and sets up a final showdown at the Supreme Court of Canada next fall or in early 2013.

Ontario Attorney-General John Gerretsen said on Monday that he intends to discuss appealing the decision with his federal counterparts. “Our main concern is that people feel safe in their communities, feel safe in their homes, and this kind of issue may very well need legislative action,” he said.

The five-judge appellate panel said unanimously that prostitutes may set up brothels and hire staff to protect them. They said that it is senseless to have a law that compels prostitutes to work in dangerous isolation, given that prostitution itself is legal.

The judges also explicitly rejected a Crown argument that prostitutes make an informed decision to enter a dangerous trade, saying that prostitutes deserve as much protection as other citizens who work in “dangerous, but legal, enterprises.”

However, the court majority – Mr. Justice David Doherty, Mr. Justice Marc Rosenberg and Madam Justice Kathryn Feldman – salvaged the communication provision on the basis that it has kept neighbourhoods free of organized crime, drugs, noise and unwanted solicitations.

They played down arguments from prostitution activists that those it hurts most are marginalized street prostitutes who work in the shadows and must assess potential clients hastily.

Mr. Justice James MacPherson and Madame Justice Eleanore Cronk took sharp issue with the majority on the point, arguing that the communication provision significantly worsens the plight of street prostitutes.

“The violence faced by street prostitutes across Canada is, in a word, overwhelming,” they said. “One does not need to conjure up the face of Robert Pickton to know that this is true.”

The brothel ruling takes effect in a year. However, as of April 25, prostitutes can engage bodyguards. The court remodelled the pimping provision to target only those who live off the avails of prostitution “in circumstances of exploitation.”

The Sex Professionals of Canada immediately urged Ontario municipalities to begin discussing licensing provisions that will ensure health and safety of brothel workers and their clients.

Municipalities are expected to create a patchwork of regulation. Many, such as Niagara Falls, already license body-rub parlours. About 40 workers are employed in the city’s four licensed parlours. Toronto has 25 body-rub parlours and 482 licensed workers.

Eddie Francis, mayor of Windsor, Ont., said his planning staff are looking at zoning issues that isolate brothels from schools and family neighbourhoods without creating red-light districts.

Meanwhile, police forces are split on the logic and propriety of continuing “sweeps” of body-rub parlours in search of prostitutes and their clients.

“We stopped doing sweeps after the last decision and told our people that if there were problems, there are other laws they could use to deal with them,” said Toronto Police Service spokesman Mark Pugash. “We see little reason to change that.”

However, York Regional Police Chief Eric Jolliffe said that his force “continues to be bound by the laws that exist today and our obligation is to uphold the law as it is now.”

Prostitution activists hailed Monday’s decision as a historic victory.

“Six out of six judges so far have concluded that the law does not work and is hurting people,” said York University law professor Alan Young, the lawyer for the women who launched the constitutional challenge.

Valerie Scott, one of the litigants, said that prostitutes have a sense of belonging for the first time. “I feel like a debutante,” she said. “I feel like a citizen.”

Ms. Scott said that brothels have always existed in the shadows. “There is a brothel on every block in every city, and there always has been,” she said.

Nikki Thomas, executive director of SPOC, told reporters that prostitutes will be normal citizens who file income taxes, purchase investments and quietly go about their work. “We are not going to have fire and brimstone and sex workers raining down from the sky,” she said.

The Court of Appeal noted on Monday that Parliament is not precluded from enacting new prostitution laws provided they do not heighten the danger to prostitutes.

With reports from Karen Howlett and Anna Mehler Paperny

Source: theglobeandmail.com

Canada’s “consensus” on our unlimited abortion licence — any time, for any reason, fully funded by tax dollars — is a strange one. First of all, it’s not really a consensus, as only a minority of Canadians, when polled, support the extreme position we currently have.

Yet the faux-consensus is apparently so essential that any attempt to moderate Canada’s abortion enthusiasm is thought to be unpatriotic, as if adopting, say, French or German abortion policies would be to accede to the most retrograde social policies imaginable. At the same time, the faux-consensus is so fragile that every attempt must be made to prevent any discussion about it.

This odd consensus produces odd behaviour. This week, Conservative backbench MP Stephen Woodworth has a private member’s motion coming up for debate in the House of Commons. Given that Stephen Harper is committed to maintaining the status quo, pro-life MPs must resort to nibbling around the edges of issues that perhaps, one day, under certain circumstances, might lead to questions being asked about why Canada has the most extreme abortion licence in the world, save for China, where abortions are sometimes compulsory.

Woodworth’s motion directs that a committee of the House be struck to examine the definition of a human being in the Criminal Code. Section 223 of the code states that a “child becomes a human being” when it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother.” If Woodworth’s motion were to pass, a House committee would be charged with examining “what medical evidence exists to demonstrate that a child is or is not a human being before the moment of complete birth,” and the legal and legislative consequences of such a determination.

It’s pretty anodyne, as far as it goes. It’s not a motion about a law, but only a study. Nonetheless, the normally gentlemanly Justice Minister, Robert Nicholson, did not even wait for Woodworth to finish his press conference on the motion back in February before issuing a statement condemning it. That was rude behaviour, unbecoming toward a parliamentary colleague, especially a member of his own caucus. The Justice Minister’s position is that it is intolerable to ask whether it is medically accurate for the Criminal Code to state that a child actually being born is not a human being.

Other oddities abound. For example, the Liberal Party of Canada passed a “science and policy” resolution at its recent convention, calling for more attention to be paid to science in the formulation of public policy. It declared that the “stature of Canada is declining in the international scientific community because government policy is made with little regard to scientific knowledge” and that “scientific knowledge is critical to address many issues confronting Canadians, ranging from resource and environmental issues to food safety and supply”.

It will be of interest to see what Liberal MPs do on Woodworth’s motion. How important is science in public policy after all? Critical for the environment and food safety, but not when deciding who is a human being or not? One would expect that the pro-science camp might be eager to hear what genetics and embryology have to say about the development of the human being in utero.

There is ambivalence from some in the pro-life camp about Woodworth’s motion, insofar as it will have little practical effect. After all, it is obvious that the unborn child is a human being. What else could it be? The more relevant question for the purposes of the law is what protection does this class of human beings deserve? After all, in a country where the “Persons Case” is one of the most famous milestones in jurisprudence, it is obvious that just being a human being — even a fully grown adult — does not automatically mean being treated as a person bearing rights.

“Even if they were declared to be ‘human beings’ in the biological and medical sense, this would not change the practical necessity of giving them legal personhood only at birth,” explains Joyce Arthur of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada. Everyone knows a child on the threshold of birth is a human being. It takes a judges and politicians to deny that human being the right not to be destroyed.

What today’s debate in Parliament will bring remains to be seen. Perhaps it might bring some clear thought and courageous witness. Or perhaps it will be just another frustrating episode in the perpetuation of a “consensus” that has been imposed on a country which never seems altogether accepting of it.

National Post

Suppose, for a moment, that the institution of slavery had survived various 18th-and 19th-century challenges. The practice had continued to be frowned upon by religious people, and governments had intervened, but not to end the trade, only criminalize some aspects of it. In particular, the slaves had to enter into their contracts of bondage voluntarily; and there were various locations at which they could not work.

This may seem a ridiculous proposition, but only because we suffer from anachronism. Most of us take our own current attitudes for granted when judging the past, thanks to a failure to teach history seriously. Most will not even try to mentally inhabit the past and thus learn how plausible much different attitudes were in another era; let alone try to think forward from there, to some alternative present. Yet this what I’m asking my reader to do.

So: we have slavery, but we also have laws to limit the trade, and keep it, as much as possible, out of view of “respectable” people. We accept, without much thought, that some people become slaves because it’s their way to keep food on the table. There may be others who are actually attracted to slavery as a way of life or who get a thrill from it – at first.

Humans are strange creatures, and some actually enjoy being tied up and whipped. Libertarians may argue that, if that’s your thing, and the arrangement is voluntary, no law should stand in your way.

Slavery is dangerous work. Your own body is bought and sold, for use by another, and you cannot know what master you will get. There are laws, of course, preventing any master from harming you, physically. If some psychopath has been buying slaves, for the purpose of murdering them, he may certainly be prosecuted. But then, as some pundits argue, there are all kinds of dangerous jobs in our society: it goes with the trade, and you sold yourself in. “Live with it.”

One might even imagine a court decision which, while acknowledging this fact, points out that the very restrictions placed on the slave trade increase the dangers to which slaves are exposed. Imagine, if you can, a case brought by three eccentric slaves, who make an entertaining spectacle in the courtroom. The judge, at their behest, strikes down laws restricting the slave trade in Ontario, arguing that while “respectable” people may be appalled to have the slave trade made more visible, the safety of the slaves themselves must be the priority.

People who have lived outside a slave culture have great difficulty imagining what slavery involves. Those unacquainted with prostitution may likewise entertain romantic nonsense about the lives of prostitutes.

With our “modern” attitudes, we imagine that when the slaves were freed, they just walked. In reality, many slaves dreaded freedom, for the world beyond their plantation was full of frightening unknowns, and how were they now going to feed themselves? A very large part of the work of freeing slaves consisted of a Christian missionary effort, to equip former slaves with the material, intellectual, and spiritual resources to face freedom – in a world prejudiced against former slaves. We fail to realize, today, that this effort was every bit as important as the legal campaign.

The trafficking in human beings is, according to Christian teaching at least, a real evil. That is why the institution of slavery, on which the whole economy of the ancient pagan world depended, began fading away in the Christian “Dark Ages.” It is why, when the institution revived after the Middle Ages, despite constant condemnation from places such as Rome, the campaign to put an end to the slave trade was led by “fanatical” Christians.

Human trafficking nevertheless survives today, even in Canada, at its most virulent in the sex trade. True, people may enter the trade voluntarily, for the money or whatever reason, but many are effectively sold into it, imported from abroad.

The relationship between a prostitute and a pimp is anyway different in kind from other commercial relations, for the very reason that human bodies are for sale. This, at least to a Christian view, is an outrage to human dignity and to God. We have a trace of this view, surviving through feminism, in the shame that still attaches to being a “john.”

It was Justice Susan Himel of the Ontario Superior Court who, on the grounds of work safety, struck down provisions of our prostitution laws, at the behest of three eccentric sex workers, in a memorable decision 17 months ago. Her ruling is stayed pending a decision from the Ontario Court of Appeal, coming perhaps this spring. Pressure is meanwhile on the federal government to rewrite Canada’s prostitution laws, or else abandon them.

And I noticed this week, that the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada has taken the leading position in lobbying the government to take effective prudential action against this human trafficking.

It’s those “fanatical” Christians again!

Relatively free of enslavement themselves, to contemporary attitudes and fashions, they think that prostitution, like slavery, is absolutely wrong. Therefore we should do what we can to eliminate it. Good luck to them, in getting anyone to listen.

Nearly one in 10 Alberta men believes it’s OK to physically assault a woman if she does something to make him angry. That’s one of the startling findings of a recent survey examining men’s attitudes toward domestic violence. And while the survey results indicate awareness about domestic violence is on the rise in Alberta, it also makes it clear the province still has a long way to go.
 
The telephone survey, conducted in February by Leger Marketing, quizzed 1,000 Alberta men about their attitudes on gender equity and domestic violence.  The results of the survey were released in Calgary Monday, when the Alberta Council of Women’s Shelters (ACWS) hosted its annual “Breakfast With the Guys” fundraiser, an event aimed at empowering men and boys to take a stand against domestic violence.
 
ACWS provincial co-ordinator Jan Reimer said she has “mixed emotions” about the information brought to light by the survey.  On the one hand, some of the responses are cause for optimism – for example, 56 per cent of men say they are more aware of domestic violence issues than they were five years ago, and 91 per cent say they would intervene if they knew someone in a violent relationship. Some of the results, however, are more disturbing.
 
Fifty-two per cent of men surveyed said they believe a woman can leave a violent relationship if she really wants to, while only 52 per cent disagreed with the statement, “If a woman wears provocative clothing, she’s putting herself at risk for rape.” Thirteen per cent of survey respondents said domestic violence is not as serious if it results from people getting so angry they temporarily lose control. And eight per cent did not agree that it’s never acceptable to physically assault a woman if she did something to incite the anger.
 
Reimer said the information gleaned from the survey will be useful to those who work in the field of domestic violence response and prevention, helping them to target their message and design programs. “This is where we’re at,” Reimer said. “We’ve got a realistic appraisal here, so now let’s take what we know and see how we can make a difference to make things better.”
 
Guest panellists at Monday’s event included Enbridge president and CEO Pat Daniel, Calgary police Chief Rick Hanson, White Ribbon Campaign program director Humberto Carolo, activist and former NHLer Sheldon Kennedy, and Alberta Premier Alison Redford, who said some of the survey results “made me sick to my stomach.”  Redford said one of the statistics that stood out for her was the fact that 21 per cent of men surveyed said slapping a child’s face is acceptable behaviour.  ”I think that is very troubling, and as a mother of a nine-year-old, I want us to do better as a community,” she said. “We have to start saying to people that this behaviour is inappropriate. . . . It’s not acceptable in Alberta in 2012.”

 
Redford urged the “silent majority” of Albertans to hold their neighbours, family and friends to a higher standard. That sentiment was echoed by Hanson, who said the Calgary Police Service responds to 14,000 domestic calls every year, and that many more incidents of domestic violence go unreported. He told the crowd it’s easy for people to tell a telephone surveyor that if they saw domestic violence occurring, they would intervene. Hanson said it’s a lot harder – but just as important – to stand up to a friend who makes derogatory remarks about women or slings insults at his ex-wife.  ”Too many people say, ‘Oh yeah, if I saw it I’d intervene.  If I saw some guy beating up a woman, I’d intervene.’ But there’s too many other things that they ignore,” Hanson said. “Part of that is the verbal abuse . . . and I think that’s where we need to elevate our game and say, ‘That’s not acceptable.’ ”
 
According to a report released by Statistics Canada in 2011, Alberta and Saskatchewan have the highest rates of spousal abuse in the country.
 
astephenson@calgaryherald.com

OTTAWA — A controversial proposal from a Conservative backbencher to legally define fetuses as human beings — and reopen the abortion debate — will have its day in the House of Commons.
Tory MP Stephen Woodworth wants Parliament to create a committee of politicians whose task it will be to review a law that stops short of defining unborn children as “human beings.”
 

A committee of MPs has agreed to give Woodworth at least one hour of debate sometime in April. He will receive a second hour of debate sometime either in late spring or early fall.
If parliamentarians agree to Woodworth’s request, a special committee would review Section 223 of the Criminal Code, which says a child becomes “a human being . . . when it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother.”

That section of the Criminal Code says a homicide on a child happens when someone “causes injury to a child before or during its birth as a result of which the child dies after becoming a human being.” The review, he argues, is needed because the law is based on a 400-year-old definition of human being. “If a child five minutes before birth can be defined as not a human being, then the question is who’s next?” he argued.

Woodworth said his proposal will be wrapped up in the emotions that surround the abortion debate, but he doesn’t intend to back down even though his own party has said the government has no interest in reopening the abortion debate. “The prime minister and justice minister have to speak for themselves. I don’t take any issue with any statement that the government won’t reopen this debate,” he said.
“I’m acting as a private member.”

Since 1988, Canada has had no legal restrictions on abortion.

jpress@postmedia.com