Labour Day is rolling around again—our nice, Protestant, North American Labour Day, that is months away from “May Day,” and has nothing to do with it—and we must all switch from heat-stroke mode, back to moral exhaustion.

I used to quote with glee a Scotchman I knew (i.e. a Scots Canadian), to the effect that, “Labour Day is the day on which we must work especially hard, to show how much we have gained in efficiency over the past year.”

He received this instruction at the knee of his beloved mother, but felt sure it was not original to her.

As a descendant of Gaelic-speaking persons, myself—and those, of the Calvinist persuasion—I could not doubt this assertion for a moment.

But I would like to supply, this year, an alternative quote, from an old Czech friend, whose wisdom is equally unimpeachable.

It was something he learned as a young man in the taverns of Moravia:

“Work is not rabbit. It will not run away.”

That is what you say when a prospective drinking companion pleads that he must work for a living. It is the unanswerable argument, true from every angle.

I met this man recently, in Peterborough, Ont.—for a beer, of all things, on a hot and hazy Sunday afternoon; and in the company of my own, now fully-grown boys—to one of whom he once stood godfather. A lad who wasn’t drinking, incidentally, because he’d have to drive. (Our North American Puritanism is alive and well, though it has abandoned religion and invested itself instead in health and safety regulations.)

My friend extended this wonderful Central European observation, by lecturing my lads on the importance of not taking work too seriously.

There is nothing wrong with having a job, he argued, but it becomes a moral danger when it begins to occupy too large a place in one’s mind. Granted, it must take up a large proportion of one’s waking hours, in the weekdays, but the person who carries his job about with him like a snail his shell, may become more snail than human.

In particular, he warned against the danger of mistaking one’s colleagues at work for friends.

Yes, one may by some happy accident, meet at work some friend for life. But such friends are very special, and for the rest, within the “work environment,” our Czech sage recommends a polite aloofness; an unwillingness to enrol in the soap operas unfolding around one; a visceral shrinking from “office politics.”

And if you have merits, which no one ever notices, because you have not forced them on their attention, then who cares? Rewarded merit only means more work.

An exception was made for those with vocations.

It will happen sometimes that a true vocation will coincide with something that looks like a job. There are people who genuinely love their jobs, and this in itself could be the sign of a vocation.

By all means let them work day and night, for that is what they are called to do—we hope by their Maker, and not by the Adversary.

For the present argument, however, we must set vocations aside, together with all priests; monks and nuns; poets and prophets; artists and musicians; scientists of some kinds.

Most of us are called to live fairly normal lives, and possess, or are possessed by, no shocking and extraordinary talents.

We have little callings, amounting to “a competence”; we have (normally) families to raise and serve, and in that alone a task field of no small importance.

Lose a job, and you may find another. Do not lose a child.

It was a point that came home to me when I learned of the fate of another man, recently. It doesn’t matter who he is, or where he was working, for he is typical of many in an economic downturn.

He’d worked for this company all his adult life; his father had worked for the company before him. Suddenly he found himself being frogmarched to the property line at his place of employment.

This, too, is typical, of modern “labour market” practices: to remove the ex-employee quickly from what Catholics might call “the occasion of sin,” on the theory that, were he left hanging around the office, he might at least spread a little dissension, and at worst go to work on the office mechanical systems, with a crowbar. Better for him, as well as for the company, not to have that chance.

We don’t like to think about such things.

It is so much easier to accept at face value the public relations materials that every large company distributes among employees, about how much the company cares; and in a pinch, to cite various standard clichés about “professionalism.” After all, even the highest executives may suddenly find themselves escorted to freedom.

But that is the flip side of “professionalism.” You do your work, and you get your pay. The company owns your time, but not your soul. Surrender your soul, and you have made a bad bargain.

By (David Warren)

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On Tuesday, Diane Ablonczy, Canada’s Minister of State for Seniors, visited a Calgary seniors’ group to announce that our Conservative Government is now accepting proposals for local, community-based projects to provide opportunities for older Canadians to contribute skills, experience, and lifetimes of practical wisdom in support of communities all across the country. Similar events were held at seniors’ centres across Canada by Minister Verner and Senator Fortin-Duplessis, Senator Lang, as well as Member of Parliament Tilly O’Neill-Gordon.

Under the New Horizons for Seniors Program, our Government is making a difference for seniors who are looking to improve the social well-being of neighbourhoods through local volunteering projects.

Our Government has a long record of standing up for Canadian seniors, including:

• Creating the position of Minister of State for Seniors to bring the concerns of older Canadians to the Cabinet table;
• Providing $2.3 billion annually in tax relief to seniors and pensioners through measures such as pension income splitting and increasing the Age Credit – twice;
• Standing up against elder abuse in all its forms by introducing the Federal Elder Abuse Awareness Initiative; and
• Establishing a National Seniors Day which we will celebrate every October 1^st, coinciding with the UN’s International Day of Older Persons.

Canada’s seniors worked hard and contributed so much to the Canada we know and love. Seniors deserve our gratitude and respect. That’s why Conservatives are proud to stand up for seniors and take action to ensure that our policies, programs and services continue to reward the hard work of the folks who built our country.

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The arrests last week in Ottawa and London, Ont., of four of eight suspects allegedly linked with the global Islamist movement reveal again how vulnerable Canada and other democracies are to Islamist “homegrown” terrorism.

The arrested suspects — Canadian Muslims with college degrees, of Pakistani and Middle Eastern origin, in their 20s and two of them trained as medical professionals (Dr. Khurram Sher, 28, and X-ray technician Misbahuddin Ahmed, 26) — fit the profile of a segment of young Muslim males in the West embracing the terror-filled “jihadi” ideology of Islamism, and allegedly prepared to kill and maim their fellow-citizens.

These alleged terrorists are not emerging from the ranks of the desperate poor, hungry and homeless. They come mostly from the aspiring middle class background of immigrant families, and their education ironically makes them readily susceptible to the sort of identity politics that thrives on the cocktail of Third World resentments and grievances.

As I have written on numerous occasions, Islamism is a political ideology dressed in religious garments. It is a modern phenomenon — a totalitarian movement alongside the two other similar movements from the last century, fascism and communism — and appealing to those college educated Muslims who feel acutely distressed by the disparity between their native culture and the modern West.

Islamism appeals to the wounded pride of Muslims, and it offers a hodge-podge of incoherent explanations to dress their wounds by blaming the West for ills of the Muslim world.

This is the politics of Muslim victimhood. It blames the West, deemed rapacious, and those Muslims considered misguided, or worse, who have the temerity to embrace modernity, for the faults of Muslim failure as an individual, or as a people collectively.

From blaming the West — or Jews in the Middle East and Hindus in South Asia — to making war against the West is the journey Islamism prepares for young Muslim males like Khawaja Momin, who was convicted under Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Act in 2009.

There will be more such cases, and the terrible thought is some of these homegrown terrorist plots may succeed as it happened with the July 2005 London, U.K., bombings, or get barely foiled as were the attempted attacks in July 2007 in Glasgow and London (those arrested in this episode of terrorism were all Muslim doctors), or the failed bombing in New York’s Time Square by Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-American.

There is ample evidence, if proof is still needed, that homegrown terrorists in the post-9/11 world are predominantly Muslim males primed by Islamist ideology.

Since Muslims have failed to effectively counter Islamism, it is long overdue for governments in the West to implement more robust measures of information gathering about that segment of the Muslim immigrant population most susceptible to Islamist ideology.

In other words, time to quibble over “profiling” is long past. This is not a matter of becoming “illiberal,” for liberalism, which I hold dearly — as I do my faith tradition as a Sunni Muslim — is not a suicide pact.

Our common security requires a clear understanding of where our threat emanates from, to focus on that threat with necessary resources, and to remove blinders of political correctness that only weakens our efforts in defeating Islamism.

By (Salim Mansur)

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Sixty-five years ago today, World War II officially came to an end. On September 2, 1945, Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu boarded the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay and signed the Instrument of Surrender in front of American General Douglas MacArthur.

It was a formal and solemn ceremony, coming weeks after atomic bombs had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, concluding six years of warfare, with some 70 nations fighting on three continents.

Today, we find ourselves in another global conflict, and it is broadly understood that there will be no such official declaration if and when we win.

Who would sign the surrender, and where? Would Osama bin Laden apply his imprimatur to some document at Ground Zero, perhaps in the Great Hall of Faisal Abdul Rauf’s planned “community center”?

In 1945, Japan’s leaders, like countless signatories to surrenders of centuries past, were agreeing on behalf of an entire population that hostilities would cease. In today’s war, where terrorist cells attack civilian and military targets all over the world, no leader is empowered to make that peace, even if he cared to.

Without a surrender, how will we know when we have won? Victory will take years, if we can manage it, but what will it look like and how do we achieve it?

Military might alone cannot win this war. And so, the adage goes, we will conquer by the strength of our ideas. Swell – but what’s that mean?

Often, the delineation of “our ideas” takes one of two forms. First, there are people like me, banging on about “freedom,” whatever that might be. Or, we are told, standing up for “our ideas” means making some absurd concession to antagonistic forces, in hopes our good intentions and intellectual bio-diversity will green the souls and stay the hands of our enemies (Mayor Bloomberg, call your office).

Political correctness is no match for radical Islam. The latter has shown its commitment, time and again in locations around the world, to winning this conflict. The former, meanwhile, is a tiresome modern reflex, whereby poseurs take a quick assessment of common sense, then put all their energy behind the contrary view. This tic can manifest itself in straightforward fashion – as in, when people aver it is offensive to erect a nativity display at Christmastime – or abstractly – such as, you demonstrate how a cut in capital gains tax rates spurs the economy, then someone calls you a racist.

In either case, this is no way to win a war.

That brings us back to freedom. But the question remains: Just what would the victory of “freedom” mean to us? Would we breathe a little easier? Would the Kabuki dance of airport security be curtailed? Most important, would the brave members of our armed forces be spared from injury and death on foreign soil?

Intelligent and experienced people have struggled to define victory in Iraq, where the US combat mission has just ended, and Afghanistan, where human rights abuses abound and military casualties continue – to say nothing of the almost-nuclear, terror-sponsoring Iran. What does “freedom” look like for Afghans, Iraqis, Iranians, and others?

There will be no top-hats and ceremonies when this war ends. And so I put the question to you, gentle readers – what does victory in the war on terror look like?

By (Theo Caldwell)

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On Thursday, Ministers Gary Goodyear and Josée Verner announced that veteran astronaut Colonel Chris Hadfield will be the first-ever Canadian to command the International Space Station.

Canadians are proud of our accomplishments in space as our country was the third nation in space. Our astronauts have participated in 15 space missions – more than any country other than the United States and Russia. And the world-famous Canadarm was designed, developed and built in Canada. Our achievements serve as inspiration for young Canadians to pursue studies in science and engineering.

Space exploration and development is a strategic asset and absolutely critical to the delivery of some of our Government’s key goals. Under the strong leadership of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Conservatives are taking action for Canada’s sovereignty, safety and security, sustainable management and the development of our natural resources.

To ensure that Canada maintains its strong position in this important field, our Conservative Government is investing $497 million in the Canadian space industry to develop the RADARSAT Constellation Mission, the next generation of advanced radar remote sensing satellites.

The Harper Government is taking action to support space exploration and development because it drives cutting-edge research, promotes technological excellence and strengthens our economy.

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This being the first glimmer of “hope” for the Liberals in some FIVE YEARS, I’m betting they’re not going hesitate to pull the plug. With the projections showing gains for the Bloc, and only marginal potential losses for the NDP, look for the swords to cross as the House returns from the summer break.

By Christian Conservative

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I’m sitting at my desk trying to think of ways to insult the followers of Islam as intentionally and as maliciously as the Park51 organizers have recently insulted the citizens of this great Christian nation. It isn’t easy to be as abrasive and arrogant as those who propose building a mosque at Ground Zero. But I’m trying my best.

Here are some of my ideas:

I propose building a mosque at Never Land ranch, the former home of Michael Jackson. I would then defend the building of the mosque by reminding opponents that people have been making pilgrimages to Never Land in order to worship a mentally deranged pedophile for years. Putting a mosque there would not change things substantially. Plus, one can reach California from Dearborn, Michigan in a couple of days. The same cannot be said of Mecca.

I propose building a large bomb filled with bacon grease, which would be dropped on the new Ground Zero mosque during the ground-breaking ceremony. Dubbed the “Mother of All Bacon,” or MOAB, this bomb would not actually hurt anyone. It would just permanently defile the location so that no one could worship there. That would take care of any Separation of Church and State issues in the event that Obama tries to use any future stimulus money during site construction. My bomb would also have a picture of Mohammed painted on the side with the caption “Mr. SOB” printed below.

In case you were wondering, “Mr. SOB” is short for “Mr. Scared-of-Bacon.”

Finally, I would propose setting up a vending area that fully surrounds the Ground Zero mosque. I would then gather a number of my redneck friends from South Carolina for a massive hog hunt. We would then sell the smoked hogs at vending locations near each entrance to the Ground Zero mosque. I would offer a “Boar-doba” special all-you-can-eat pig pickin’ platter for $9.11.

Before anyone gets too upset with my proposals and tries to behead me for my remarks on Islam, please remember two things:

1) I am writing this column with a loaded double barrel shotgun to my right and a loaded .357 magnum to my left. If you are a sword-wielding jihadist, please don’t bother. You’ll only annoy me and make me spill my coffee.

2) I am writing this column with tongue firmly planted in cheek. No follower of Jesus would take even one of my proposals seriously. They are meant to remind readers of just how crude, barbaric, violent, and intentionally insulting the followers of Islam really are. Religion of peace, my backside!

It may well surprise my readers when they hear me say that I will not join the efforts of those who seek to block the building of the new mosque at Ground Zero. I take this position for the same reason that I have refused to support legislation banning the burning of the American Flag.

John Stewart Mill once said that censorship is wrong for two reasons. First, it deprives people of the truth. Second, it deprives people of a greater appreciation of the truth via its juxtaposition with falsity.

When someone burns an American Flag we learn the truth about the extent of anti-Americanism among the ranks of our own. We also develop a greater appreciation of those who have fought for our freedoms. When I see my neighbor burning a flag I can boycott his business. I can then give my business to a veteran who has fought to defend the hateful idiocy of flag burners everywhere.

We cannot punish anti-Americanism if we engage in the prior restraint of its expression. We must allow it to flourish for a time if we are to mobilize a more effective response. The application of this reasoning to the controversy over the present Ground Zero mosque is obvious.

By not standing in the way of the construction of this mosque we will allow its supporters to exercise fully their constitutional right to make fools of themselves. When the mosque is completed I look forward to retracing the trail of its financial supporters to the very beginning. I have no doubt that such a search will lead us into the halls of the Obama White House. Nor do I have any doubt that Obama’s affirmative support of this project will lead to his permanent political downfall.

In the end, members of the Obama Administration may decide that the complex housing the mosque at Ground Zero would be a good place for an Obama Presidential Library. Either way, it is a good place to celebrate anti-Americanism for the free world to see and the sane world to judge.

By (Mike S. Adams)

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On day three of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s annual tour of Canada’s North, the Prime Minister visited Operation NANOOK in Resolute Bay, Nunavut. This operation is a major sovereignty exercise conducted by the Canadian Armed Forces, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Canadian Coast Guard and other government departments and agencies. Prime Minister Harper also addressed members of the Canadian Forces before travelling to Inuvik, Northwest Territories.

Conservatives believe that the integrity of Canada’s borders is the first and foremost responsibility of a national government. Our Conservative Government is committed to strongly asserting Canadian sovereignty throughout Canada’s Arctic.

The strategic importance of Canada’s Arctic is growing, which is why the work undertaken by Operation NANOOK is more valuable now than ever before. Countries around the globe are showing more interest in the Arctic and its rich resource potential. With new trade routes opening up, we must continue to promote Canada’s sovereignty while strengthening the safety and security of Canadians living in our High Arctic.

Operation NANOOK is part of our Government’s ambitious four-part Northern Strategy to assert and defend Canada’s sovereignty; to protect the unique and fragile Arctic ecosystem; to develop a strong Northern economy; and to encourage good governance, local control, and opportunity for Northerners.

Prime Minister Harper has made the North a priority for our Conservative Government because it is a priority for Canadians.

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Rasmussen Reports headline this morning: “75% Say Congress Should Cut Its Own Pay Until Budget is Balanced”.

I agree with America.  I usually do.

I’ve written before that I think federal politicians here and in the U.S. should be paid according to a formula something like this:  They should be paid roughly whatever small business people — entrepreneurs — are earning on average in any given year.  Net, and after their taxes.  Minus expenses (not plus lavish expense accounts and travel compensation and gold-plated benefit plans and Cadillac pension plans and…). 

Since that’s how small business people and their families live, and they’re at least as valuable as politicians to a nation — or more valuable on so many levels — then why should politicians be treated and paid as if they’re better, or more special, or more highly valued by society?  Nobody works harder or is more beneficial and valuable to the economy than small business people who innovate and create jobs, and find efficiencies in everything they do, and provide every good and service a nation needs and wants, and more.

MY BUILT-IN FORMULA FOR PAY RAISES:
The Rasmussen survey also question folks about how pay raises should occur in Congress.  78% of folks said pay raises should first be voted on by the public.  Spot on. 

Using my own formula, however, it works out naturally.  Liberals: you could go ahead and call this “organic” if you want.  If small business people make more money, the politicians will make more money.  So there’s your formula for government “pay raises”.  I imagine that would have an effect upon politicians roughly similar to a bolt of lightning up the gravy-filled butt.  This is the desired effect.

Suddenly politicians would find ways of helping create an environment that would encourage small business, induce higher incomes, help create more productivity, more innovation, more employment, and so much more.  They sure as heck wouldn’t prop up businesses or give them federal grants and loans. My formula would force politicians to see how they are in the way, and force them to get out of the way.  Just watch as those business and employment taxes come down, baby!  And you think they’d take most of the summer and winter off?  Not a chance. 

Some say this pay formula would discourage good folks from running for office.  Well that’s just another added benefit.  Downsizing government by 50%, even if it’s because they were forced to through a shortage of “employees”, would be just what the doctor ordered.  They’re loath to do it on their own.  So that’s fantastic.  We’d end up with a government consisting of folks who actually want to perform a civic duty and serve the public, rather than useless career politicians who make a fabulous living and unreal pensions as they find more and worse ways of getting in the way, creating more stupid laws and regulations and policies and grow government bigger and bigger and more useless, and serve as more a hindrance to progress and innovation than anything else.

The only downside is that the nation would suffer some sort of temporary economic shock.  I mean it would be positive — people not knowing what to do with all the extra money and what not — but this would serve as a re-awakening of sorts.  The economy would suddenly start to turn all, you know, good and capitalist and free-market-y.  People will get used to it, and demand even smaller governments, fewer intrusive regulations and idiotic taxes and reliance on governments….that sort of thing.  Liberals will call it the new dark ages. It will be awesome.

So everyone benefits.  I say let’s get on it.

There is no better way to conclude this blog entry than by including this quote from the same Rasmussen survey:

Voters are evenly divided as to whether a group of people selected at random from the phone book would be better than the current Congress.

Plain old Americans.  Ya gotta love ‘em.

By (Joel Johannesen)

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