Author Archives: Jay Menard

Faith-Based Funding an All or Nothing Proposition

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By Jason Menard

A group called the Multi-Faith Coalition for Equal Funding of Religious Schools is demanding that the Ontario government provide financial support for all religious education system – but what they’ve done is open a Pandora’s Box which may result in the final separation of Church and State when it comes to education.

As it stands now in this province you have the existing Public and Catholic school boards. Grandfathered in from time immemorial, or Confederation in 1867, the Roman Catholic school board has been guaranteed funding. And now, as our communities change so too must we look at what’s fair in a new light.

Because we’ve always done it is no longer a valid argument. To deny one faith the right to have their religion-based education system funded smacks of discrimination. In fact, in 1999 a United Nations committee found that Ontario was violating the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

So, in this case, equality is the right thing to do – but there are two ways to get there. We can either provide funding for all religions to establish school boards and run educational systems – or we can cut off the flow of money to the Catholics.

While in a perfect world we’d be able to offer across-the-board-funding, the fact of the matter is that we don’t have the necessary resources to be everything to everyone. Which makes the choice clear – one publicly funded school board open and accessible to all, and those who want their children educated in an alternative system will have to foot the bill on their own.

In this country, the only two types of school boards that should be funded are ones based on language – English and French, befitting our status as a bilingual nation. We are a secular society and, as such, our government has no place in defining its practices – or funding programs – based on religious beliefs.

Maybe, at one time, it made sense to offer a separate Catholic school board due to the religious demographic makeup. But increasingly Ontario is benefiting from an influx of immigrants – many of whom are representatives of a wide variety of religions. By choosing to publicly fund one religion over another, we are in fact tacitly affirming their second-class citizen status. But it’s not just enough to cut off funding and wash our collective hands of the teaching of religion in the classroom – that would be depriving our children of a valuable learning opportunity. Instead, we need to get creative with our education system and work towards developing a curriculum that meets the needs of today’s reality and anticipates the requirements of the future.

Instead of guaranteed funding for one religious system, the Ontario government, and those of all provinces around Canada, should redirect those resources towards the creation and implementation of a new program in our school system – the teaching of faith.

The issue of religion in the school system is a touchy one for many. There are those who would love to see a return to the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer in the public system and the distribution of those little red New Testaments. And that’s truly a fine proposition – as long as they’re accompanied by little blue Talmuds, little yellow Qurans, and a rainbow of texts outlining the belief systems from around the world.

We need to stop focusing on one religion at the expense of another. Atheist, agnostic, Christian, Buddhist, Islamic, Jewish, or whatever — we all will benefit from a generation that has grown up learning about each other’s religions, beliefs, or lack-thereof. Intolerance and hate breed from ignorance. Understanding the shared concepts of religions, in addition to where they differ, will bring us closer together as a people.

And, by teaching faith, we are in fact bringing out students closer together. We would enable students with different religious beliefs to share their stories, their particular practices and rituals, and their history with their classmates – opening them up to a greater world of understanding. In addition, beyond learning the respective tenets of the various belief systems, our students would be able to explore the nature of faith and why it has existed since the earliest humans. An examination of why certain people believe will help gain insight into the human character.

The world around us is changing rapidly. And, as our world becomes increasingly multi-cultural, a learning system that embraces all belief systems from Atheist to Zionist would help our next generation learn about tolerance and prepare them for an increasingly integrated society.

We are less segmented and our cultural fabric is interwoven with threads from a variety of races, creeds, and religions. And not one thread is more important than another – which is why, in an all or nothing proposition, the Ontario government must choose nothing at first, and then work to develop a public program that includes all for the benefit of everyone.

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Jealousy Colours Our Perception of Athletes

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By Jason Menard

At a time in our history when it’s often more and more difficult to call oneself a sports fan, there are stories like Robert Edwards’ to help you keep the faith. But instead of celebrating our triumphs, we prefer to shove them aside and focus on the negative. And the reason behind this? Jealousy.

For every Terrell Owens in this world there are a thousand more quality players out there who are fulfilling their contractual obligation. For every story of a player beating his wife, committing a crime, or getting busted with drugs, there are countless other stories of players that are good family men, dedicated to their community, and going the extra mile to help those in need.

Instead of focusing on the good in the game, we hungrily devour the most salacious news reports involving players, which then send the truly pompous among us to their respective pulpits to admonish the sins of excess that modern sport has bred. Yet while we’re so ready at hand for a ritual stoning, why do we not have an equal passion for lauding those who merit it?

Percentage-wise, the number of people who commit crimes while playing professional sports is no different than that of the society as a whole. However, due to their high-profile nature, athletes will find themselves in the newspapers much more than the local pharmacist or salesman who commits the same crime. Yet, while people are willing to chastise athletes as a group as lawless thugs, where are those same generic cries against lawyers, doctors, garbage men, or any other profession? The number of miscreants is the same for all groups – a small percentage – but those few bad apples seem to spoil the whole bunch a lot easier when the increased exposure is factored in.

Edwards offers a feel-good story. Injured in a freak accident in a National Football League Beach Bowl during the 1999 Pro Bowl in Hawaii, he has come back from suffering severe nerve damage that had the potential to cause him to lose his leg. After being told that he’d never play football again and would be forced to walk with a cane for the rest of his life, Edwards chose to persevere. Since that proclamation of a career death sentence, he enjoyed brief stints back in the NFL before coming to the Canadian Football League. Becoming the Montreal Alouettes’ starting tailback six games into the season, Edwards enjoyed a season that saw him rush for one yard shy of 1,200. And now he’s on the cusp of playing in a game that could see his team earn a trip to the Grey Cup.

Yet all we hear about is the continued exploits of Terrell Owens. An inspirational story like Edwards doesn’t get the time of day, but the petulant, puerile demands and antics of the Philadelphia Eagles’ wide receiver dominate sports talk radio, publications, Web sites, and newspapers.

But far be it for us to blame the media. Too often the press is the made scapegoat for delivering us exactly what we want. If bad news didn’t sell and we weren’t so hungry for negativity, then the press would reflect that in their reporting. Simply put we’ve created a culture where if it bleeds it leads, and we have no one to blame but ourselves.

We want to admire our athletes from afar. We are awed by their displays of athleticism and ease of ability in performing feats the likes of which we can only dream. Yet, tempering that awe is a sense of jealousy. We are incensed by the sheer volume of money that these athletes pull in for playing a game. As we plug along, trying to make ends meet, we find it hard to relate to athletes who wear jewellery that costs more than our car.

So instead of congratulating them on their good fortune and accepting the fact that they’re better than us athletically, we need to regain our moral or intellectual superiority. We know we can’t compete on the field of play, but in the fabric of society we can assume our elevated mantle. Like politicians or, more appropriately, the entertainers that they are, athletes are subjected to inflated expectations of being above-average in all aspects of life.

We don’t ask the same from any other segment of our society. We don’t care what our doctors do once they’re out of their practice – all we care about is how they treat us when we’re on the operating table. Yet we expect our athletes to be the same paragons of society as they are of sport. And it’s an unfair expectation.

As a society, we need to treat our athletes just the same way we treat each other. We need to recognize our extraordinary gifts as just that – a gift. We must look at a hockey player’s prowess on the ice with the same reverence as an artist’s skill on the canvas. And, just as we don’t begrudge an artist’s ability to create neither should we begrudge our athletes’ ability to perform. Jealousy of another’s gifts is a deficiency in ourselves.

Celebrating the good in everyone would be a nice place to start – which is why we need to know more about Edwards and less about T.O. The world, sporting or otherwise, would be a better place.

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

The Unkindest Cut?

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By Jason Menard

Nov. 14, 2005 — With all due respect to the band Europe, I’ve officially entered into my own Final Countdown – and I don’t know if I’ve got the cojones to go through with it. Or, more accurately, I don’t know if my cojones will let me go through with it.

Approximately four years ago, in a fit of empathy (or lunacy) for my wife having given birth to our second child Juliana, I decided to show my devotion to her following a difficult pregnancy and birth by announcing that, when the time came, I would go under the knife and have a vasectomy.

And while I had hoped there would be some debate, some discussion, or gentle commiseration from my wife upon this announcement, it was greeted instead with a savage enthusiasm akin to watching a shark pounce upon a bleeding victim!

“You’re damn right you will!” Or something to that effect (I reserve the right to take liberties with the statements made at that time, due to the fact that my wife had just given birth and I was kind of woozy.) “After what I’ve gone through giving birth to two kids, I think it’s your turn!” Instead of a gentle acceptance, the ol’ calendar was whipped out and a date was circled, underlined in triplicate, and festooned with little gold stars.

Nov. 13, 2006 – just over five years after my little girl’s birth the boys would be saying goodbye.

So now, the final countdown starts. And, like many other men before me – and currently in my position – we go down this lonely street alone, or accompanied by womenfolk who anticipate the procedure with glee, blissfully unsympathetic to the steps we’re taking.

The arguments are many, persuasive, and wholeheartedly biased towards us men-folk going under the knife. Yet, despite the common sense aspect of the procedure, there is a much deeper-rooted psychological barrier that exists between men and women when the subject of vasectomy comes up.

As a social activity, get a group of couples – if they’ve had kids, all the better – and pose the question of who should have the ultimate birth control procedure. Like a cabal of contraceptive witches, the women will pounce on the topic, demanding men take their share of the responsibility and wholeheartedly enjoying the idea of a man’s testicular region subjected to surgical intervention. Oh, they’ll crack jokes, make snip-snip sounds, and laugh uproariously.

The guys? We’re sitting slightly hunched down with our legs crossed. All the while knowing better than to speak up in the contrary, lest our significant others decide to take the issue of circumcision into their own hands, so to speak.

Ask any man and we know we’ve got it easy in this life. We don’t give birth, we don’t deal with menopause, and we live our lives relatively pain-free. While our wives suffer in order to bring life into this world, most of our injuries result from playing football with the guys or stubbing our toe searching for the remote. It’s hardly a fair swap.

But what’s lost in this debate is that we’re all little boys at heart. Growing up and well into our manhood – if not throughout our entire life, our testicles play a big part in defining who we are. So what does it say when, through a little snip of a doctor’s scalpel, they now become as ornamental as the male nipple – existing on the body, but without any real purpose.

It’s hard (no pun intended) not to feel emasculated when you’ve effectively been neutered. And despite the fact that as we grow we understand what’s between your ears matters more that what’s between your legs when it comes to being a man, the fact remains that there’s a certain sense of loss and disenfranchisement from all that we’ve held dear (again, no pun intended.)

It is the stallion that garners the most respect and notice, not the gelding. A bull is full of vigour and toughness – a steer is no more than tomorrow’s steak. So can we not be forgiven for feeling that a part of our youth and manliness may be sacrificed by going under the knife?

In the end, while I know that undergoing this procedure won’t result in the unkindest cut of all, let’s just say there is a vas deferens between what I know I should do and what I really want to do.

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

A Matador in this Political Bullfight

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By Jason Menard

Olé!

That sight you’re seeing is Jack Layton’s ass – or making an ass of himself – as he ran right by El Matador Paul Martin with his bull-headed determination to separate himself from the Liberals.

But has he done so at the expense of his own party?

Martin can afford to be cavalier with his negotiations with the New Democrats because, right now, they need him more than the Liberals need the NDP. It’s a far cry from a few months ago when the Liberals needed Layton’s support to stave off an election call in the midst of questions regarding the Gomery report.

Now Martin is not just emboldened by his exoneration, but also by the fact that he knows, as well as everyone else except Layton it appears, that no one really wants to call a snap election in the winter.

Believe whatever poll you want, the fact is that a winter election will favour the incumbents. At best, we may see a small Liberal minority as frustrated lower-case conservatives and disgruntled lefties who previously threw their weight behind the NDP find their way back to the new and improved Liberals!

Despite whatever tough-talk rhetoric the Conservatives may be spouting, the fact of the matter is that they’d much rather wait for a more opportune time to take on the Liberals. Still reeling from internal squabbling, a leader that hasn’t screamed authority, and the fact that many Canadians still don’t see the Party as a viable alternative, the Conservative Party would prefer to have the extra time to build up some momentum, strengthen its foundation, and head to battle in the early Spring.

And the NDP, possibly drunk from its relative power, seems to have gone in over its head. Instead of realizing that its position of power in a minority government is as good as it’s going to get, Layton is rolling the dice that people will view his tough talk as political savvy – not political folly.

Unfortunately, such delusions of grandeur can be political suicide. Instead of using the position of privilege to insert some NDP-flavoured social reforms into the budget, the party may find itself with a lesser position after the next election. But perhaps Layton was feeling pressured to make a statement and affirm the Party’s individuality so that the long-time NDP supporters wouldn’t feel like their leadership was getting too close to the enemy.

And the Bloc? Well, they’re pretty secure in Quebec, so they don’t really care one way or the other. Thanks to the Gomery bungling of the province, it’s pretty safe to say that the hard-liners and soft separatists alike will make a beeline to the BQ whenever the polls open. For at least a campaign or two, the Liberals are persona non grata in la belle province – and both the Liberals and Bloc know it, and will factor that into their campaign focus.

So now we’re going to be privy of the most genteel display of politicking. The Conservatives and the NDP will fall all over themselves in their public politeness, “After you,” “No, after you,” “No, I insist – you make the first move to bring down the government,” “No, no – you go first…”

Neither party wants to put its neck out on the line first. Nor do they want to get too cosy to each other with their ideological opposition. And, of course, nobody wants to incur the wrath of the voters who may be forced to cut into their holiday festivities as a result of electioneering.

All the while, the Liberals will be sitting back, steeling itself for another foray into the political ring, emboldened by the knowledge that they’ve taken their opponents best blows and, while they may be reeling, they’re still on their feet and not yet ready to throw in the towel. They now can work at putting the past behind them, focussing on important key regions, like urban British Columbia (hello Asian trade initiatives). They can talk tough trade with our neighbours to the south (nothing like a little anti-Americanism to stir up the political pot). And they can prepare to come out swinging next election – the heralds calling out the dawn of a new Liberal party, despite the fact that it’s comprised of a majority of people (except a noted 10) from the old guard.

Layton made his charge and Martin deftly avoided it, daring the NDP to make the next move. The NDP, and by extension the Conservatives, can only hope that their horns aren’t stuck in the wall – and that they don’t end up the traditional way bullfights end – dead with a triumphant matador standing above them.

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Martin Targets Ontario with Gun Law Proposal

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By Jason Menard

In order to keep the title he so dearly covets, Prime Minister Paul Martin is taking his best shot – by making it harder for Canadians to shoot. In doing so, he’s drawn the line in the sand and showing just which Canadians he’s targeting in his bid for re-election.

Essentially, by suggesting that guns should be restricted in Canada, Martin knows that he’s released an opinion that’s not going to fly in Alberta. But, the politically savvy Prime Minister knows that it’s a winning formula for B.C., Quebec, and – most importantly – Ontario.

Toronto is being subjected to daily stories of gun violence, in large part perpetrated by gangs, and the citizens are fed up. And, as Toronto goes, so too does a large part of our Hogtown-centred media. In smaller communities, such as London, any gun violence gets tied directly to the rise of crime in Toronto – and the fear-mongering begins.

As evidenced by the past few elections, Ontarians are looking for a reason to vote Liberal. No matter what the scandal, the citizens of Canada’s most populous province are apparently willing to forgive all transgressions in order to ensure the Liberal influence remains dominant in the House of Commons. Overall, Ontario can be categorized as centre-left, and restricting guns and getting tough on crime will be well received here.

If there’s one issue that Canadians are passionate – and polarized – about, it’s the issue of gun control. While Conservative Leader Stephen Harper tried to exhume the long-cooled body that is the gay marriage debate, Martin decided to take just as strong of a stance against another polarizing issue – but one that’s more appealing to the swing voters which both parties covet.

This election is going to be won down the middle. The idea of rescinding rights on marriage that have already been given remains the domain of the right. By bringing the gay marriage issue up, Harper released the spectre of the “hidden agenda” to rule over this campaign. Those wavering around the centre are generally not the type to be opposed to granting rights to all Canadians.

Gun control is just as polarizing, but without the spectre of treading on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In large part, we Canadians aren’t prone to bringing up the ol’ Right to Bear Arms argument that our friends to the south will trot out. And those that will are so set in their ways that they’ll search for any excuse to keep their beloved firearms.

Whether it’s the farmers demanding the right to bear arms against critters in their fields or sport shooters who use handguns for recreation, there will be those whose opposition to this idea is set in stone. Martin knows this and he’s aware that people that hold this ideal generally are going to vote Tory regardless of his stance. So, instead of appealing to the right, Martin’s wooing the far left by introducing a policy that will appeal greatly to Liberal and NDP supporters alike. And, more importantly, it will appeal to those undecideds wavering between Red and Orange.

But since the opportunity’s at hand, let’s make this a gun law with some teeth. Ban outright all handguns. Create strict penalties for anyone found possessing an illegal firearm in this country. And, most importantly, ensure that anyone caught using a firearm during the committing of a crime is sent to jail for a very, very long time. A firearm offense should result in a minimum 10-year sentence automatically tacked on to any punishment levied for the original crime.

If a criminal thinks they can get two years for robbery, that’s not much of a deterrent. But if they know that sticking up a store with a firearm’s going to add a dime to their ride – then the situation changes.

There can be no opposition to this. Guns kill. It’s their sole purpose. Rifles, while not much better, have their use in hunting, culling, and sport. Handguns don’t. They’re designed to kill. In a civilized society, we don’t need the spectre of handguns hanging over us. It’s time to do the right thing and remove them from society.

The people of Toronto will agree – and that’s exactly what Martin’s counting on. Ontario’s the key battleground. And while Harper’s policies have missed the mark on this vote-rich province, Martin’s anti-gun rhetoric is right on target.

2005 © Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved