What a tragedy that The Vancouver Sun has exhorted the Senate to pass quickly the two anti-smoking bills and to disregard their constitutional validity (A Fast Pass, Editorial, June 25).
I completely agree with you that cigarettes are a serious health hazard--and they ought to be banned. Nonetheless, your reasoning strikes me as being seriously flawed.
In the first place, your call for swift passage of the two anti-smoking bills flies in the face of your previously stated position of supporting the Senate's obstruction of the contentious drug patent bill. You cannot have it both ways!
Second, what is the purpose of having a Senate (setting aside for the moment the fact that it is unelected) if it is not to act as a check and a balance on the House of Commons?
JACK PEARCE
(The Vancouver Sun, July 2, 1988)
Robert McInnes compared the conquests of Stalin and Hitler with the conquest of Canada's native groups by our European ancestors (A Conquest Like Stalin's or Hitler's, Letters, Nov. 1). His analogy seems to be a grotesque distortion of history.
Stalin and Hitler initiated unprovoked attacks upon sovereign states. In contrast, our ancestors came to Canada as peaceful settlers. What they found here was a barren wilderness inhabited by a handful of uncivilized natives.
Stalin and Hitler carried out their conquests with brutal military efficiency, whereas our ancestors, instead of bringing guns and bombs, brought tools, farming implements, livestock, and books.
Stalin and Hitler looted and murdered millions of innocent people, whereas our ancestors brought peace, harmony, and civilization to Canada.
Stalin and Hitler left a wake of destruction behind them, whereas our ancestors built a great and glorious country out of a wilderness.
They achieved this through hard work, perseverance, and ingenuity-- not by exploiting native groups.
And we should be ashamed of this? We don't have to apologize for our past. And we certainly shouldn't be ashamed of our ancestors. On the contrary, they ought to be held in the highest esteem.
Let us keep any criticism of our ancestors in context with reality, as we are not on the same moral level as Stalin or Hitler.
JACK PEARCE
(The Vancouver Sun, Nov. 16, 1988)
(Please take note of the following stinging critique of my letter defending the honour of our European ancestors. Let it not be forgotten, however, that constructive criticism, no matter how trying it may be, is a corrective leaven for those noble seekers of truth and enlightenment, and I have always welcomed it with open arms. J.S.P.)
Jack Pearce has subscribed to an erroneous but widespread stereotype regarding Canadian native peoples (Europeans' arrival not Hitlerian, Letters, Nov. 16).
Before European contact, native peoples evolved elaborate technology to hunt, gather, and preserve the plentiful resources of British Columbia. The totem poles and native design prints we see today as tourist attractions or decorations are testimonies to the highly developed social and religious lives of coastal people.
However, since natives did not visibly dominate and transform the environment like Europeans, it is easy for Mr. Pearce--and all of us--to assume that they were indeed "a handful of uncivilized natives" in a "barren wilderness." The truth about the 10,000 people who lived and flourished on B.C.'s coast for 10,000 years before the Europeans arrived is far more complex.
Mr. Pearce, you are dead wrong in your assumption that the only things our ancestors brought to the New World were tools and farming implements. They did indeed bring guns, as well as deadly diseases like smallpox, and the willingness to eradicate a vital and thriving aboriginal culture. The 1957 report of the B. C. Provincial Museum discusses the deserted Haida village of Ninstints (now a United Nations world heritage site):
"What was destroyed here was not just a few hundred individual human lives.... It was something even more human--a vigorous and functioning society, the product of just as long an evolution as our own, well suited to its environment and vital enough to participate in human cultural achievements not duplicated anywhere else. What was destroyed was one more bright tile in the complicated and wonderful mosaic of man's achievement on earth. Mankind is the loser. We are the losers."
It is a great testament to the adaptability of the native peoples of Canada that they are still a vital and distinct people. Mr. Pearce, please send me a note. I'd be happy to show you around UBC's Museum of Anthropology and show you the truth about these "uncivilized natives."
KEN MacDONALD
(The Vancouver Sun, Nov. 22, 1988)
The Vancouver Sun seems to be at odds with the new economic reality. A recent editorial (Flat Answer, Jan 30) is a case in point.
Your suggestion that the city get into the building business in order to provide Vancouverites with much-needed housing makes no sense. Such an intrusion would distort the free market, and it would take us one step closer to a welfare state.
Why even Mikhail Gorbachev now recognizes the fact that a state-controlled economy is economically unsound, that it is unworkable and unmanageable, and that it deprives people of their freedom.
Again, your claim that the housing shortage in Vancouver is due to the failure of the free market is simply not borne out by the facts.
The discrepancy between the supply and demand for housing is caused not only by skyrocketing demand but also by a scarcity of capital. Builders are faced with a scarcity of available and affordable land, a scarcity of skilled labour, and a scarcity of affordable financing (due to high interest rates).
They are also faced with mountains of bureaucratic red tape, sky-high taxes, onerous social costs, and obstructionism by self-interest groups. It is a miracle that anything gets built in Vancouver at all.
The housing shortage will not subside until all those problems are acknowledged, and then resolved.
JACK PEARCE
(The Vancouver Sun, Feb. 11, 1989)
The area residents who oppose Al Simmons opening a gun shop on Locke Street in Hamilton are nothing more than alarmists.
They contend that children walking past Mr. Simmons' gun shop will be exposed to violence and that this will be a bad influence on them. But this is simply not borne out by the facts.
Fact. Thousands of children have walked past Mr. Simmons' store on Main Street and yet not one of them has ever been adversely affected.
Fact. There has been no proven correlation between this gun shop on Main Street and violence. His store causes "no problems whatsoever."
Fact. Mr. Simmons is a first-rate businessman who has always conducted his business honestly. Faced with such pernicious obstructionism, he will have a hard time making a living.
In light of these true facts, it logically follows that the fears of the Locke Street area residents are unfounded. I urge them to be more respectful of the rights of others and to be fact oriented--not subjective.
JACK PEARCE
(The Hamilton Spectator, June 7, 1989)
Re: “Views on abortion and the law” (July 25).
I disagree with Mr. Scott’s contention that a fetus is a person. He fell victim to a common error: failure to define terms.
A definition is a statement that logically identifies the essential characteristic of a concept's units. The purpose of a definition is to distinguish one concept from all other concepts. All truths rest on the validity of our definitions. Without clear definitions, language breaks down into a chaotic disorder, making a rational discussion an impossibility and turning every issue into a rancorous war of words.
A person is a rational animal. A fetus is a single organism after its embryonic stage but before birth. A fetus cannot be designated a person unless it has all of the essential characteristics of a person, namely, uniqueness, distinctness, autonomy, and reason. But since a fetus does not have all of these characteristics, it is not a person.
Moreover, the abortion controversy is not a question of “who deserves rights more: the woman or the fetus?” A woman has inalienable individual rights by virtue of her birth as a human being--and no one may take her rights away. A fetus, on the other hand, has only a potential for life. And rights do not belong to a potential but to an actual person. To sacrifice the rights of an actual person to a potential is a gross injustice.
The abortion controversy will persist so long as terms are not clearly and accurately defined.
JACK PEARCE
(The Hamilton Spectator, August 1, 1989)
(I humbly concede the floor to a clear-headed writer whose letter casts light on the thorny abortion imbroglio. Such coherent, dispassionate thinking is a rarity in a world that is dominated by phoney religious dogma and mindless post-modernism, by which I mean: the return to primordial tribalism, the adoption of moral and cultural relativism, the belief in an infinite number of meanings, and the simultaneous dissolution of subjectivity and objectivity into farragoes of symbolism and deconstructionism which can never be integrated into a coherent whole. J.S.P.)
Cheers to Jack Pearce for bringing some reason to the abortion debate by seeking a definition of terms. Columnist William Johnson, who wrote “Rights of the fetus must be defined” should define the fetus first rather that its rights. He needs help with definitions as he believes that “a fetus is a human being.”
Is a spermatozoon (the mature male sperm cell) a form of human life?
Everyone seems to think they know what a fetus is! Mistakenly, they assume that a fetus is created by the union of the spermatozoon with the ovum at the moment of conception, and that it is a human being.
Not so! What we have here is a fertilized ovum, another single cell, loosely called a zygote, which in about two weeks and some other processes matures to an embryo. The embryo, in some seven or eight weeks after fertilization, is considered a fetus. It remains a fetus until birth at which time it becomes a human life form. Yes there is embryonic or fetal life, but it is not a living human being.
Abortion is generally agreed to be loss of delivery of the product of conception before the 20th week, whereas delivery between the 20th and 38th week is considered premature birth.
Abortion, in any form, is not a pleasant thought but my wife and I believe that the sole decision on whether or not to abort should be made unilaterally by the pregnant female.
If we have a law about abortion then it should state that no one has the right to interfere with her decision. We favour making this decision before the 20th week. Nevertheless, having said that, if through fear of bodily harm or some other stressful emotional state the woman is unable or prevented from doing so, we would support her action wholeheartedly.
FRED A. WILSON
(The Hamilton Spectator, August 9, 1989)
RE: “Board eyes qualified minorities” (Dec. 20).
By adopting unfair hiring practices, the Hamilton Board of Education is headed down the road to discrimination.
In order to reflect the demographics of the community, the board has set targets that call for women to receive 50 per cent of the positions of responsibility and for visible minorities to receive four (4) per cent. In point of fact, the board falsely assumes that fairness in hiring is measured by statistics rather than an objective evaluation.
The board is trying to mask the fact that its hiring policy is discriminatory by claiming: “We don’t use the word quota, we use the word target.” Be that as it may, the board’s statement is a deliberate attempt to equivocate the meaning of the terms “quota” and “target.”
There is no fundamental difference between setting a quota of 50 per cent and setting a target of 50 per cent. Both policies are equally discriminatory.
If a man is barred from employment because the target for his sex has been reached, he is barred because of his sex, which is reverse discrimination. To tell him that those admitted are his “demographic representatives” adds insult to injury. For the board to demand targets in the name of eradicating discrimination is a grotesque obscenity and an abuse of the language.
Since the Hamilton Board of Education practices discrimination, the future of our education system looks bleak.
JACK PEARCE
(The Hamilton Spectator, January 4, 1990)
Re “How Antithesis Gives Way to Synthesis,” by Bruce Hutchison, editorial page, June 23:
According to Mr. Hutchison, our national unity problem could be resolved by a Hegelian synthesis of antitheses--namely, English and French.
The German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831) held that truth is a synthesis of a primary thesis and its antithesis.
Yet Aristotle set the record straight on logic once and for all when he wrote, “Opposite statements concerning the same thing cannot both be true at one and the same time.” (Aristotle also said: “For it is impossible for contraries and opposites . . . to belong absolutely to the same subject.”) What Aristotle meant was that if two contraries (say, black and white) were not completely different, they would be the same, which would be logically impossible. Hence no synthesis between two contraries could be possible.
On the other hand, similar statements concerning the same thing can be synthesized because they have something in common. For example, as human beings, we all have certain similarities. We are all bipedal mammals; we are all rational beings; we all possess free will. On the basis of our common characteristics, a synthesis of human beings is logically possible.
Mr. Hutchison was right to point out the contrariness of capitalism and socialism, but wrong to say that they could be synthesized. A synthesis of capitalism and socialism would result in a mixed economy--the worst of both systems.
In reality, we must choose either capitalism or socialism. We tried the latter and it failed utterly. Now it’s capitalism’s turn.
Under pure capitalism, the free market determines the success or failure of every individual. And since the free market is impartial, it treats everyone the same.
The chief virtue of pure capitalism is its ability to obliterate racial and language distinctions and to unite people into a synthesis of equal individuals.
JACK PEARCE
(The Vancouver Sun, July 5, 1990)
In response to your Oct. 12 editorial, “Changing Roles?” I must confess that I do not share your support for affirmative action.
You said that only a “male chauvinist” would oppose affirmative action. But that statement is fallacious because it attempts to impeach the character of the opponents of affirmative action and sidestep the real issue: discrimination.
Discrimination consists of making an unjust distinction in favour of individuals on the basis of their race, colour, or sex. Affirmative action makes an unjust distinction in favour of women, as opposed to men.
Affirmative action that includes quotas is a viciously evil policy. Here’s why. If a man is barred from employment because the quota for his sex has been reached, he is barred because of his sex. For anyone to demand quotas in the name of eradicating discrimination is a grotesque obscenity.
It is immaterial what percentage of positions of authority women or visible minorities hold in the workforce. True employment equity entails hiring and promoting the best-qualified people and paying them what they are worth, regardless of race, colour, or sex.
If all employers were forced to adopt merit-based hiring practices, any reference to pay equity, demographic representation, affirmative action or quotas would be redundant.
JACK PEARCE
(The Vancouver Sun, Oct. 18, 1990)
“Bayshore Leads the Way with Day Care,” labour columnist Valerie Casselton’s plea for universal day care (Op/Ed, Dec. 4) typified the rapacious collectivist mentality that is destroying individual liberty in Canada.
To back up her plea, Ms. Casselton wheeled out numerous statistics. For example, “59 per cent of poor adults are women and 57 per cent of all single mothers and their children in Canada are poor.” Curiously, she made no mention of the plight of the 41 per cent of poor adults who are men.
With the support of the liberal press, day care advocates are mounting a powerful lobby for universal day care. But day care is not a right. On the contrary, day care is nothing more than a whim--a groundless and irrational demand for unearned benefits at the expense of others.
A right is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a rational person’s course of action within a free and civilized society. Here by "civilized society" I mean: "an educated and enlightened society that is subordinated to principles of morality and the rule of law."
There are but two restrictions on one’s rights: One must never violate or put at risk the rights of others, and one must never jeopardize the security of one’s own country. In a word, the notion of rights entails responsibility.
Day care advocates have no respect for individual rights. They are whim-worshippers who believe that their needs supersede the rights of all others.
Women have a right to day care if, and only if, they pay for it out of their own pockets. That is the proper way for rational people to exercise their rights. To ask the government to pay for day care is immoral.
JACK PEARCE
(The Vancouver Sun, Jan. 8, 1991)
The misrepresentation of my letter “Day Care is Not a Right” (Jan. 8) by Michael O’Neill (Jan. 19) and Christopher Norman (Jan. 24) cannot go unchallenged.
Instead of dealing with the issue of rights, both respondents besmirched my good character. Decorum prevents me from replying in kind.
The absence of universal day care does not impede women from entering the work world, nor does it infringe on their rights.
No one has the right to receive economic benefits gratuitously. Both my mother and my aunts managed to work and raise their children without government-paid day care. Today’s women have the freedom to do likewise.
In a free society, all able-bodied adults have a moral responsibility to create their own wealth. That responsibility is not elitist, but transcends one’s sex or economic status. To force non-users to pay violates their property rights and contradicts the principle of equality.
Social programs like universal day care do not alleviate poverty. On the contrary, they increase the national debt and thereby lower our standard of living. Creeping socialism can only lead us to a Soviet-style welfare state in which everybody is poor and individual liberty is nonexistent.
It is absurd for anyone to depict me as a sexist. Disagreement over political and social policy does not constitute disrespect, but it is disrespectful to tell someone “he should go and live in the United States” just because you don’t agree with his views.
I have always respected the rights and ideas of others, but I do not, and cannot, accept irrational ideas like universal day care.
JACK PEARCE
(The Vancouver Sun, Feb. 8, 1991)
(To hark back on what has just been said, the central shortcoming of a Soviet-style welfare state lies in the fact that it engenders a cult of dependency: The poor are marginalized and psychologically terrorized and reduced to helpless beggars tied to the State’s apron strings, effectively rendering them social outcasts denuded of all their rights, and ultimately depriving them of their dignity and self-worth. Now I hate to rain on the parade of the prevailing liberal orthodoxy, but my profound love of humanity obliges me to point out a harsh truth, that being that the benighted liberal policy--first implemented by former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, a despot of neo-fascism--of impoverishing, marginalizing, and psychologically terrorizing the poor is crueler than murder. If this is a true statement of the contextual facts, it necessarily follows that welfare statists, the putative saviours of the poor, don’t have a moral precept upon which to stand. After all, morality ends when the helper becomes the keeper and oppressor. Moral resolution: Constitutionally circumscribing the discretionary powers of the State, drastically reducing the size and scope of the State to essential services only, and legislating a flat-rate income tax with the appropriate threshold will liberate the poor from the yoke of tyranny and bring about a bona fide “Just Society” in which even the homeless will get a fair shake. This conclusion gives rise to a universal moral maxim: The more the State intervenes in the private affairs of individuals, the more dependent and poorer individuals become. But if the State doesn’t interfere, individuals will fend for themselves and thereby enrich themselves. In other words, the State should be placed at the behest of principles of morality and the rule of law on the grounds that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely. A final moral gem: Overthrowing the cruel cult of dependency will ameliorate poverty and homelessness and provide the poor with the staples of psychical life--dignity and self-worth. The poor deserve nothing less. J.S.P.)
Re “Our View of the Fetus Is Sure to Change,” by Doug and Jayne Schmidt (Letters, Mar. 27): I take issue with the Schmidts’ contention that a fetus is a person. To call a fetus a person is to play fast and loose with definitions.
A definition is a statement that logically identifies the essential characteristics of a concept's units. All truths rest on the validity of our definitions.
Definitions state the meaning of concepts, and distinguish one concept from all other concepts. Without clear definitions, language breaks down into chaotic disorder, making rational discussion impossible and turning every issue into a rancorous war of words.
A person is a live, rational organism, whereas a fetus is an unborn organism after its embryonic stage but before birth. Since these two definitions denote completely different and distinct terms, they cannot be equated.
Just as it is ludicrous to equate a seed with a tree or a cow with a horse, so it is ludicrous to equate a fetus with a person. Equating distinct terms is the fallacy of shifting definitions, which consists of using a term in different ways in the same context.
Terms and their definitions, however, are invariant and are separated by unequivocal dividing lines. The unequivocal dividing line between the terms “fetus” and “person” is birth.
Moreover, the abortion issue is not about whose rights come first: the woman’s or the fetus’s. A woman has inalienable individual rights by virtue of her birth as a human being, and no one may take her rights away. A fetus, on the other hand, has only a potential for life, and rights do not belong to a potential, but to an actual person.
Finally, the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision declaring that “a fetus is not a person and has no independent legal rights until it is born alive” provides us with a veridical definition that squares with the facts. Why should we alter the truth?
JACK PEARCE
(The Vancouver Sun, April 5, 1991)
(The following noteworthy rebuttals of my letter on abortion provide food for thought. Tellingly, though, the dictionary-quoting correspondents neglected to define a pivotal term in regard to the abortion issue, “life.” The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines “life” as “the period during which life lasts, or the period from birth to the present time or from the present time to death”; and The New Lexicon Webster’s Encyclopedic Dictionary defines “life” as “the period of time from birth to the present.” The dictionary definition of “life” as set forth above validates the fact that a person’s life begins at birth. J.S.P.)
In his April 5 letter stating that a fetus is not a person, Jack Pearce based his argument on a definition of person as a live, rational organism. I can think of many adults who would not qualify under this definition.
The Oxford dictionary defines “person” as “individual human being.” Therefore, a human fetus qualifies, and is not simply potential life (since it is already alive); rather, it is a human being with potential.
The term “fetus” simply describes the stage of development of an individual human being, much as we use the terms “baby,” “adolescent” and “adult.”
J. WHITE
(The Vancouver Sun, April 15, 1991)
(Please bear in mind that when it comes to the formal definition of the term "human being"--"a rational animal of volitional consciousness"--"rational," in this context, does not mean or imply that all human beings act rationally; it merely means that all human beings possess the faculty of rationality and that they can apply it to their lives if they so choose. J.S.P.)
Jack Pearce’s letter was a good example of how truth can be altered by a good vocabulary. He is correct in his definition of a definition, but prejudicial on the two definitions in question.
The New Webster Encyclopedic Dictionary defines “fetus” as “the young viviparous animals in the womb, after they are perfectly formed” (italics mine).
A person is defined as “an individual human being; bodily form; human frame with its characteristic appearance” (italics mine). So the equation of the two is perfectly viable.
Mr. Pearce’s comparisons are illogical. A seed bears no resemblance to a tree, but becomes a tree. A cow never becomes a horse.
But a human fetus looks like a person, is alive, and becomes a person. We must not alter the truth with definitions of definitions that suit our personal biases.
C. KATNICH
(The Vancouver Sun, April 15, 1991)
Re Jack Pearce’s thesis that a fetus is not a person: The real issue is not whether a fetus is a person, but whether it is a human being. It is axiomatic that anything that is growing is alive, and that a life that has been generated by a pair of human beings is a human life.
In the absence of factual proofs, the courts can create only arbitrary definitions of concepts such as when a human being becomes a person. Lawyers, including judges, are not qualified to say at what stage of development a human being acquires personhood.
J. WALSH
(The Vancouver Sun, April 15, 1991)
It is obvious that Jack Pearce did not look up the term “fetus” in the dictionary.
Webster’s New World Dictionary offers these definitions:
G. Hall
(The Vancouver Sun, April 15, 1991)
E. Martin alleged there is no factual evidence with which to corroborate the theory of evolution. But hard facts do indeed exist.
When we consider these facts, we can arrive at only one conclusion: Evolution is not only a valid theory but also an inescapable fact.
JACK PEARCE
(The Vancouver Sun, date unknown)
Nicole Parton hit the nail on the head when she called the environmentalists who are protesting logging in the Walbran Valley “petty tin-pot dictators who want to hold B.C. to ransom.” (Let Preppies in Preservationist Clothes Pay Cost of Saving Trees, Aug. 14).
Blocking road construction, vandalizing logging equipment, and ignoring court injunctions are the acts of lawless goons. That these environmentalists think that they are above the law proves how ignorant and self-deluded they really are.
The loggers in the Walbran Valley have the law on their side.
JACK PEARCE
(The Vancouver Sun, Aug. 26, 1991)
With regard to Pam Fleming’s article “Our Unjust Society,” which appeared on the Op/Ed page Feb.6, it is disheartening to note that Karl Marx’s philosophy of class hatred based on expropriation and injustice still has its adherents.
The argument “If some people are poor while others are not poor, we do not have social economic justice” perverts the notion of “justice.”
Justice is applicable only to the actions of individuals, not to the distribution of scarce economic goods. Justice is not concerned with who gets what, but with according freedom to all individuals so that they may produce their own economic goods.
A typical ploy of Marxism is to pit the poor against the rich by claiming that the rich exploit and oppress the poor. But the rich are slaves of the free market, just like everyone else. If they oppress the poor, they will end up cutting their own throats.
Women can survive on their own without being permanently dependent on the state. All they need to succeed is fair opportunity, self-initiative, and hard work.
I am sure it is a living hell for women living in the Downtown Eastside; I, too, am a poor denizen of this part of Vancouver.
However, I don’t begrudge other people their wealth and happiness; nor do I blame others for my misfortune.
JACK PEARCE
(The Vancouver Sun, Feb. 13, 1992)
I take issue with Douglas Todd’s contention that our high tax rate promotes the common good (A taxing issue gets a PR twist, June 27).
In his columns, Todd frequently invokes the collectivist slogan “the common good” as if it were a magical incantation that could justify any evil action. How comes it that Todd has never defined the common good or recognized the individuals who make it up and who give it meaning? The common good means that which is beneficial to all individuals in society.
A fundamental right of all free people is the right to retain the greater part of their justly acquired earnings. Otherwise, they will become slaves of the government. Despite the fact that we must all pay our fair share of taxes to the government so that it can provide us with basic services, without which a civilized society would not be possible, we cannot allow the government to oppress us with confiscatory taxation.
Confiscatory taxation impedes economic development, reducing disposable income that determines investment and job creation. One of the effects of confiscatory taxation is that three million Canadians are now on welfare and 1.6 million are unemployed. Thus confiscatory taxation does not promote the common good, since it is not in the best interests of the poor and the unemployed.
The antidote to confiscatory taxation is a constitutional ceiling on taxes. Placing a ceiling on taxes is a necessary corollary of property rights, which, regrettably, our Constitution fails to recognize. But until we enshrine property rights into our Constitution, all of our rights will remain empty shells.
If we put a lid on high taxes and abandon profligate spending, we can raise the standard of living of all Canadians--and that is what promotes the common good.
JACK PEARCE
(The Vancouver Sun, July 11, 1992)
The Charlottetown unity accord abandons the democratic principle of representation by population, as it guarantees Quebec 25 per cent of the seats in Parliament.
In the future, B.C. will likely have a larger population than Quebec, but significantly fewer seats in the House. The toothless Senate will do little to rectify this imbalance.
The accord recognizes Quebec as a distinct society. Giving Quebec special status undermines the democratic principle of equality and puts the rights of Quebec’s minorities in jeopardy.
Again, the devolution of federal powers will emasculate Ottawa, eliminate national standards, and create a patchwork quilt of rights, laws, and services.
Moreover, the concept of native self-government is vaguely defined, and gives natives too much power.
While there is much to be said for this accord, as I see it, a constitution has four purposes:
This constitutional accord fails on all four counts. Hence we should turn it down and hold out for a constitutionally limited, race-neutral democracy grounded on the moral principle of equal rights for all.
JACK PEARCE
(The Vancouver Sun, August 31, 1992)
(The Canadian people, be it noted, rejected the accord in a national referendum. J.S.P.)
The New Democratic Party’s new labor law is blatantly unfair. Although the current labor law is flawed (the wording is brutal and offensive to unions), by and large it is fair because it balances the rights of unions and employers.
Unions have a right to accept or reject employer contract offers, to strike if contract talks break down, and to find alternative employment. Employers have a right to accept or reject union demands, to lock out union workers, and to hire replacement workers during a strike in order to continue operating and retain their customers.
On balance, labor relations are in equilibrium. Both unions and employers have the same rights and both are at the mercy of the market, so that neither can gain the upper hand.
Now this equilibrium is about to be shattered because the new labor law bans replacement workers. This tramples on the rights of employers and tilts the playing field in favour of the unions, who will be able to intimidate and blackmail employers.
Anyone who backs this anti-employer labor law must explain how excessive union demands will be dealt with. To argue the government or a labor mediator will determine the fairness of union demands is oppressive and inimical to individual liberty.
JACK PEARCE
(The Vancouver Sun, Nov. 3, 1992)
In his July 11 column, “Matters of life and death,” Bob Hunter confused the abortion and euthanasia issues.
Hunter is of the opinion that the law is inconsistent in that it gives pregnant women a choice to abort, yet denies dying women a choice to die.
The abortion issue hinges on the moral status of the fetus.
A person is a biologically complete and physically distinct entity, whereas a fetus is biologically incomplete and physically attached to a host whose rights are paramount. It follows that a fetus is not equivalent to a person, and thus it has no rights.
Conversely, the euthanasia issue turns on whether terminally ill patients have a right to die. The short answer is no.
A right is a moral entitlement to bodily self-determination and to non-interference by others. However, the right to bodily self-determination is not a right to die (since the rationale of rights is to preserve and to protect human life qua human life, not to destroy it), but merely a right to be protected from unwanted intrusion by others.
So it comes about that the abortion and euthanasia issues are fundamentally different.
Since the law currently recognizes this fact, it is wholly consistent and just.
JACK PEARCE
(The North Shore News, July 30, 1993)
From where I sit, the federal election is a heads-I-win, tails-you-lose proposition.
None of our political leaders has what it takes to solve the serious problems facing Canada. Here is the low-down on our leaders.
Audrey McLaughlin: She is unqualified and in over her head. Under the guise of helping the downtrodden, she advocates restrictive trade, class hatred, the redistribution of wealth, and the fool’s gold of wealth creation through deficit spending.
Instead of solving our problems, her antediluvian policies will only make matters worse.
Preston Manning: Behind his sanctimonious façade lurks a petty autocrat. His plan to govern by referendum will endanger minorities. With Mr. Manning at the helm, Canadians will be equals at the market, while at home only white heterosexual males will enjoy equality. Still, his fiscal conservatism and his parliamentary reform package are a welcome breath of fresh air.
Jean Chretien: He is wishy-washy and dated. He promises to kill the GST, but won’t, or can’t, say how. He both supports and opposes the North American Free Trade Agreement. His economic policy, which he lifted from Pierre Trudeau, is the root cause of our current economic malaise.
Despite a strong slate, the Liberal party will be hard put to overcome the millstone of a weak leader around its neck.
Kim Campbell: Arrogant, elitist, lib-left--all qualities that endear her to the media. Like her predecessor, she lacks the courage of her convictions. Thus her promises (sans details) of inclusion, debt reduction, and job creation have a hollow ring. If Ms. Campbell would tackle the issues frankly rather than mouthing platitudes, she could become a first-rate prime minister. Fat chance!
On all scores, then, there is little to be said for any of our leaders.
JACK PEARCE
(The Vancouver Sun, Sept. 11, 1993)
A recent Gallup poll reported that 85 per cent of British Columbians opposed government employment equity programs (Job equity schemes opposed by many, Dec. 24).
The B.C. government defends its employment equity program by arguing that it breaks down employment barriers for women and other historically oppressed groups. But while the government is breaking down employment barriers on one side of the workplace, it is erecting new barriers on the other side, which effectively exclude one particular group--white males.
Instead of hiring people on the basis of their race, colour, or sex and making the workplace reflect the demographic makeup of the community; the government should hire people solely on the basis of their merit and make the workplace reflect the abilities of the people in the community. Besides, preferential hiring perpetuates an impression of inferiority.
In the final analysis, the government’s defence of employment equity is characteristic of a group mindset that rationalizes that it is permissible to treat different classes of people in different ways. And in that torturous rationalization lies an objective definition of racism.
JACK PEARCE
(The Vancouver Sun, Dec. 31, 1993)
Sue Rodriguez was a woman of heroic character who, despite being in the throes of a degenerative disease, fought for what she believed in and who raised some thorny questions about an issue that modern medicine has dumped in the lap of our society.
Ms. Rodriguez was not some hysterical demagogue, but rather a calm, lucid, deliberate thinker who articulated her defence of euthanasia in a way that would have made any philosopher proud. Whether or not her stance can hold up to close scrutiny is a question that is best left for another day when the emotions aren’t running quite so high.
JACK PEARCE
(The Vancouver Sun, Feb. 19, 1994)
The proposal by the Canadian Medical Association that requests for a doctor-assisted suicide should be left entirely to the discretion of Canadian doctors conflicts with the spirit of the Hippocratic oath and embraces moral anarchy (Doctors to dissect euthanasia guidelines, Aug. 16).
Under the Hippocratic oath, doctors have an obligation to cure disease, to preserve and enhance health, to alleviate pain and suffering, and to refrain from harming or exploiting their patients.
If I requested sulphuric acid eye drops as an antidote for my chronic eye pain, should a doctor comply with my request? Such a preposterous request would not be inconsistent with the CMA’s proposal.
The “anything goes” liberal philosophy that people have an absolute right to bodily self-determination doesn’t hold water, as personal liberty in a civilized society is limited by the rights of others, or else the law of the jungle prevails.
Just as the right to drive a car while intoxicated must be prohibited because it endangers the lives and property of others, so the right to suicide on demand must be proscribed because it puts at risk those people deemed useless by society, such as the elderly, the sick, the blind, and the handicapped.
The chief defect with euthanasia is that, out of a misguided sense of duty to the terminally ill, a liberal mindset poisoned by pragmatism gives way to a monstrous ethics of prosaic slaughter under the guise of pity.
Thankfully, the proposal met its Maker. Meanwhile, the fate of the euthanasia issue hangs in the balance.
JACK PEARCE
(The Vancouver Sun, Aug. 23, 1994)
In his polemic against the death penalty, Dr. Ezzat Fattah classified all proponents of the death penalty as being either revenge seekers or deterrence cranks (Death penalty “barbaric,” Aug. 16). Then he tore apart their arguments and wrongly concluded that the death penalty had no merit or sound logical foundation.
Well, I support the death penalty, not because I seek revenge, not because I believe it deters crime, not because opinion backs it, not because the church decrees it, but because I love justice.
For me, the blindfold on the statue of justice does not mean that justice is blind, but rather that justice represents impartiality in that it considers only the relevant facts and shuts out the subjective, the arbitrary, and the emotional.
The sword in the hand of the statue serves two vital functions: It metes out punishment to wrongdoers, and it protects law-abiding citizens with a view to maintaining a civilized society.
The scales in the hand of the statue depict just desserts, that is, recompense according to one’s voluntary conduct. The scales balance voluntary conduct on one side and the proportional payment (reward or punishment) for it on the other side.
It follows that punishment must fit the crime. And since premeditated murder is the ultimate crime, it must be recompensed with the ultimate punishment--the death penalty. Anything less would tip the scales of justice in favour of brute murderers.
JACK PEARCE
(The Vancouver Sun, Aug. 29, 1995)
Justice went astray when Julia Campagna walked out of court a free woman even though her speeding car crashed into a parked vehicle and killed two teenage occupants: Kimberly Brooks and Monique Ishikawa (Judge frees U.S. woman over fatal border crash, Sept. 3).
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Thimersingh M. Singh reasoned speciously when he ruled that Ms. Campagna was mentally unstable because she suffered from delusional symptoms caused by the drug, Xenadrine, she was taking to lose weight for a marathon.
What renders us responsible moral agents is the fact that we have not only a conscience and a moral sense (the capacity to distinguish right from wrong) but also control over our behaviour with respect to moral decisions and their long-term outcomes.
Ms. Campagna, of Kirkland, Wash., was irresponsible and, therefore, criminally culpable because she failed to exercise sound judgment by wilfully disregarding the warning on the diet-drug label not to drive while under the influence of the drug.
Ms. Campagna knew that she was having hallucinations and that driving a car under such circumstances would put innocent people at risk. She had a choice and should have been held responsible for her actions.
Being drunk, stoned, or delusional is not a justified excuse for criminal negligence, but rather a cop-out.
Sympathy goes not to Ms. Campagna but to the parents of the two teenagers who were killed at the Peace Arch border crossing on May 30, 1998. Contempt goes to our bleeding-heart lawmakers who confound sympathy with responsibility.
JACK PEARCE
(The Vancouver Sun, September 13, 1999)
The Sun’s pacifist correspondents play into the hands of terrorism by advocating that the U.S. refrain from using retaliatory force against the diabolical terrorists who attacked America on Sept. 11, 2001 (“Don’t create new martyrs,” Letters, Sept. 15).
The absolute moral duty of self-preservation is the first law of nature, from which springs the right to life and its necessary derivative, the right to self-defence. When people are unjustly attacked, they have a moral obligation to use retaliatory physical force against their attackers. Failure to do so renders all rights null and void.
The opposing view of appeasement is a far greater evil than terrorism. Brutes regard appeasement as a sign of weakness and an incentive to perpetrate even more atrocities. Did the appeasement policy of Neville Chamberlain dissuade Hitler?
JACK PEARCE
(The Vancouver Sun, Sept. 22, 2001)
It is cause for alarm that Canada's courts are giving a cold shoulder to the welfare of children and undermining the traditional family by redefining "marriage" and "parenthood" in order to sate their ideological predilections. For the sake of our children, we need to reign in the sphere of authority of Canada's courts before their social experiments render Canada an ethical wasteland.
JACK PEARCE
(Reader's Digest, September, 2007)