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From the Editor

War vets latest endangered species

by Judi McLeod

November 9, 2004

Like most politicians, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and his over zealous Minister of Natural Resources David Ramsay are sporting Remembrance Day red poppies on their lapels.

In November, no Canadian politician would show up for a media scrum without the poppy. It’s good optics to be perceived as pro-war veteran come Remembrance Day.

Better to champion the needs of Canada’s dwindling war veteran population, which Ramsay and McGuinty, by association, do not.

accompanied by armed Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) constables, Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) raided the home of a 78-year-old war veteran and his 80-year-old wife on Oct. 20, 2004.

The heavy hand of the MNR came down on the war vet all because he is alleged to have killed a goose on March 30, 2004.

Nor is the purported goose killer the only elderly victim of the self-important MNR.

another local farmer and member of the Lanark Land association (LLa) was charged on Sept. 28, 2004 with the heinous crime of shooting a ground hog.

In the drive of Ontario’s Liberal Government to be all things to Mother Earth, farmers, some of them elderly, have been slapped with fines for removing nuisance deer from their properties.

In the prelude to Remembrance Day 2004, the ground hog, burrowed field holes of which pose an ever-present risk of broken legs for grazing livestock, has been put on an MNR pedestal.

Or, as LLa President Randy Hillier so aptly puts it: “The ground hog is worth more than any and all farmers through corrupt MNR laws.

“The ground hog is complacent, passive and not critical of the MNR, therefore must be protected.”

The self-righteous Ramsay is putting on a show for environmentalist friends. at the rate he is going, when it comes to the value of human life, he mirrors Ingrid Newkirk, People for the Ethical Treatment of animals (PETa) president.

“There is no rational basis for saying that a human being has special rights,” says Newkirk. “a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy.” (Washington Times, aug. 29, 1999).

The increasing harassment of Ontario farmers and landowners since the arrival of the Dalton McGuinty Liberals at Queen’s Park, is nothing less than shameful.

Provincial Liberal ministers, in lockstep with their federal cohorts, will wear the red poppy on Nov. 11. Elderly farmers harassed by them will watch them on the evening television news, laying wreaths at the cenotaph, and making pretty speeches about the need to remember the courage of Canada’s war veterans.

But television cameras won’t show them when they return to their campaign of harassment, charging 79-year-old war veterans for alleged goose murder--in front of their 80-year-old wives.

Given the deplorable record of the last two Liberal governments in Ottawa, holding back veterans’ and their widows’ pensions, it is not ground hogs and their four-footed friends that should be placed on endangered species but the vulnerable, yet courageous, and, in some cases, still working war veteran.

In Canada, public outrage and not Liberal government intervention forced Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe to reverse his stance of refusing to allow his MPs to distribute Maple Leaf flags to veterans for Remembrance Day services.

Under Liberal governments, war veterans have been driven out of outlets like Home Depot and sent to cold parking lots on the one day a year they can sell Remembrance Day poppies. Sad to say they have been sent packing from the outside parking lots without legislation from governments like McGuinty’s, even though it’s been happening year after year.

Some sixty thousand Canadians died fighting for freedom and democratic principles of justice in World War II.

If Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty believes in our veterans, he should rein in Righteous Ramsay, forthwith.

The veterans harassed by Ramsay are the very men whose courage paid for his liberty and freedom.

Enough, Mr. McGuinty. Enough.

Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com


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