Monday, August 14, 2006

Ashamed

I have never been so ashamed of the Canadian government as I was this morning when I heard that Stephen Harper will not be attending the international AIDS conference going on right now in Toronto. Do you know why he isn't attending something so important? Because he's afraid of being booed. That's right. He's afraid that those who do not agree with his government's views on same-sex marriage will boo him. So, let's think about this for a minute. What's more important? Representing the host country of a very important scientific conference with a great many very influential delegates OR the fear of people reacting negatively to one of your policies? As Andy Barry said this morning on the CBC, this conference is an opportunity for the government to have open and honest discourse with the people about their policies including their stance on aid for AIDS research and victims. Instead, they chose to throw away that opportunity and not even SHOW UP. It's disgusting.

1 comment:

origin said...

Oh, I don't know. While the excuse seems pretty lame, at least your government isn't making your country into a laughing stock of the rest of the world or blowing up innocent civilians by the thousands for their oil or openly endorsing discrimination against 10% of the population, or continuing to promote lies about AIDS prevention (such as "abstinence works"), etc.

Ok, ok. So I might be a little bitter. :-)