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Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, Lord's Prayer

Our Dalton, who art in doo-doo



Yesterday, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty announced that he wanted to banish the Lord’s Prayer from being recited in the legislature on those rare occasions when the MPPs actually sit.

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McGuinty is not objecting to prayer per se at Queen’s Park; his objection is that the Lord’s Prayer is a “Christian” prayer and so does not reflect the province’s multicultural diversity yadda, yadda, yadda. Dalton should just come right out and say that he’s attempting to pander to the province’s Muslims but that would be telling the truth, something the Ontario premier reserves for special occasions. If McGuinty has a prayer in mind that should replace the Lord’s Prayer (the odds should be on worshipping Gaia) he isn’t saying. So he’s doing whatever any fearless leader would do in a similar situation; he’s striking a committee to let them take the heat for whatever replacement prayer is decided upon. McGuinty must be spending too much time on the floor of the legislature with Conservative leader John Tory. Oops, that can’t be right; John Tory doesn’t have a seat. Nonetheless, the premier’s making an issue out of “that Christian thing” brings back memories of the Conservatives’ prize election policy of publicly funded faith based schools. It was a divisive policy that was not a major issue prior to the Tories making it one.  These diverse people who are welcomed to Canada primarily to make the political elites feel good about tolerance and diversity are more like those who are born in this country than the elites think. They pay scant attention to the goings-on of the boys and girls at Queen’s Park when they get down to business, let alone contemplate how horrible it is to start each day with the Lord’s Prayer. People who were born outside of Canada and are not Christian have not been taking to the streets protesting what a racist society we have by starting the legislative day with the Lord’s Prayer. Immigrants are as about as upset with the Lord’s Prayer as they are by the use of the dreaded “c” word (Christmas). Besides, too many of them are too busy driving taxis so they can earn $3 an hour, way below the minimum wage, to worry about the Lord’s Prayer. This is just another example of enlightened politicians attempting to divide the population along ethnic and religious lines just in order to feel good about themselves. McGuinty may be introducing this as a diversionary tactic to take the heat away from other problems that he is currently facing. He’s taking some heat over the Toronto District School Board’s decision to create Afro-centric (that’s a fancy word for Black) schools. Having called John Tory’s faith based schools “segregationist” he can hardly support this initiative. He and the legislature could, of course stop the Board from creating these schools but that would destroy the Chamberlainesque “peace in our time” agreements that he has reached with the province’s education system. In McGuinty’s attempts to work his way out of this one, he’s appearing more and more like Federal Liberal leader Stéphane Dion, the guy that McGuinty is rumoured to one day replace. The McGuinty Liberals are also taking some heat for refusing to hold a public inquiry over the staying of serious criminal charges against six Toronto police officers on the grounds of unreasonable delay. The cynics among us smell a fix but Dalton, to whom nothing was ever too small to demand a public inquiry while he was in opposition, prefers to have the Attorney General “investigate” the Attorney General’s office. This issue is not likely to go away soon. And it is probably not a coincidence that the banishing of the Lord’s Prayer was announced the week before “Family Day” the new holiday created by Dalton during last fall’s election campaign. The rush to make the third Monday in February a holiday has created numerous problems for employers, unions and some workers such as the police who will not be able to take advantage of an extra holiday. This sudden need to get rid of the Lord’s Prayer was announced for a reason. But the reason really doesn’t matter; with a majority government, a fixed election date three and a half years away and with an ineffectual Howard Hampton and a complacent John Tory, McGuinty can pretty well do what he wants. It will be interesting to see what non-Christian prayer will replace the Lord’s Prayer. The smart money is still on Gaia.


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Arthur Weinreb -- Bio and Archives

Arthur Weinreb is an author, columnist and Associate Editor of Canada Free Press. Arthur’s latest book, Ford Nation: Why hundreds of thousands of Torontonians supported their conservative crack-smoking mayor is available at Amazon. Racism and the Death of Trayvon Martin is also available at Smashwords. His work has appeared on Newsmax.com,  Drudge Report, Foxnews.com.

Older articles (2007) by Arthur Weinreb


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