Oh God, Antonia. You Don't Say

Antonia Zerbisias blames conservatives for "rape culture"

In a characteristically banal column published in the Toronto Star, Antonia Zerbisias muses about the alleged rise of "rape culture".

Seeing as how many people wouldn't be familiar with what Zerbisias means by "rape culture", it's worth reproducing the definition here. She invokes the definition offered by feminist blogger Melissa McEwan:

“Rape culture is encouraging male sexual aggression. Rape culture is regarding violence as sexy and sexuality as violent. Rape culture is treating rape as a compliment, as the unbridled passion stirred in a healthy man by a beautiful woman, making irresistible the urge to rip open her bodice or slam her against a wall, or a wrought-iron fence, or a car hood, or pull her by her hair, or shove her onto a bed, or any one of a million other images of fight-f***ing in movies and television shows and on the covers of romance novels that convey violent urges are inextricably linked with (straight) sexuality."

Zerbisias' evidence for the alleged rise of rape culture is a number of rape jokes offered by the teenage son of University of Alberta professor Lise Gotell, a few accumulating on Facebook (including one invoking Superman, whom she incorrectly identifies as the "Caped Crusader"), and a number of rape scenes in various movies.

As with so many cultural critics, Zerbisias makes the error of assuming that the mere portrayal of a rape in film promotes it. When one considers that her argument refers to rape scenes in Descent, The Last House on the Left, and Observe & Report, Zerbisias' argument essentially deflates itself.

After all, the characters committing the rapes in each of these films are, unequivocally, not to be emulated. In two the films, the rapists are some of the most despicable victims in film history. In the third, the rapist is a paranoid schizophrenic.

Zerbisias being Zerbisias, she isn't finished there. Few Zerbisias features seem complete without a gratuitous potshot at conservatives.

Zerbisias doesn't merely want to chronicle what she considers to be the rise of "rape culture". She also wants to cast blame. And guess who she blames for the alleged rise of rape culture?

That's right. Conservatives.

Zerbisias first quotes Lee Lakeman of a spokesperson for the Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centres.

“I do think the conservative agenda has a lot to do with this," says Lakeman. “We don’t see public officials standing up for women. We don’t see the denunciation of ordinary violence against women. We don’t see men being held to account in any way that speaks to the whole society’s values."

Zerbisias then quotes Gotell.

“In Stephen Harper’s Canada, women’s groups which could have provided a voice on these issues have been weakened or eliminated," says Gotell, making reference to cuts to advocacy groups. “That’s another explanation for the escalation of rape culture."

Naturally, neither Gotell nor Lakeman offer anything even resembling compelling evidence that conservatives are responsible for the rise of so-called "rape culture". Each prefers ideologically-soothing far-left rhetoric.

Naturally, Lakeman doesn't bother to explain how the conservative approach to crimes such as sexual assault has been any different from the alternative. Nor does Gotell bother to explain why it is that women's advocacy groups couldn't be bothered to raise their own funding after their ideologically-preferential government funding was cut off. (Restoring liberal neutrality to government.)

For Antonia Zerbisias, the interest at hand isn't an honest exploration of this particular topic -- it seems that her sole interest is in smearing conservatives. Evidence is an afterthought if offered at all.

In this particular case, no evidence is offered whatsoever, and it shouldn't be considered surprising.

Nope, They Still Don't Get It

Zerbisias makes census-related assumptions

As Canada continues to debate the move by the Conservative government to replace Canada's mandatory long-form census with a voluntary version of the same survey, it becomes increasingly clear that some people simply don't understand what the debate is actually about.

Antonia Zerbisias is clearly one of those people.

Writing in an op/ed in the Toronto Star, Zerbisias addresses some of the privacy concerns raised about the long-form census. This has provided the impetus behind the move to replace it with a voluntary long-form census.

Zerbisias counters this argument by claiming that the alternatives are much worse, even repressive.

She notes that Northern European countries that have abandoned their census altogether rely on "administrative data" in order to get the information the government thinks it needs.

To make this point, Zerbisias refers to the Centre for Policy Alternatives.

“The census cannot track who has given what answer,” explains CCPA economist Armine Yalnizyan. “Talk about Big Brother: Administrative data are way more invasive of your privacy than anything that currently exists with the census."

“It’s deadly easy to figure out what a person’s personal history is—not only every five years but every month on some things," Yalnizyan adds. "An administrative database has your education history, your health history, all sorts of data that can be cross tabulated in a deadly way. You can go from utilities to all sorts of other things."

Zerbisias eventually goes on to refer to some of the questions that are on the long-form census, and explains how the government could acquire such information through administrative data.

Zerbisias is right about one thing: the use of administrative data to gather such information would be wholly unacceptable.

But Zerbisias has missed a key point: the question of whether or not the government needs such information in the first place; the question of whether or not the government belongs in some of the arenas this information would be used to govern.

Among the questions Zerbisias highlights are questions about language, culture, ethnicity, race, and ancestry. Other questions regard matters related to information Canadians already submit to the government -- such as income.

(Moreover, at least one of these questions -- that of whether or not an individual's personal information may be released in 92 years -- actually directly contradcits Yalnigzyan's claim that the collected information is linked to the identity of the citizen providing it.)

Many have raised the question of whether or not the government has any legitimate business in the fora of ethnicity, culture, or race. Fewer raise the question of whether or not the government legitimately has any role related to language -- particularly opponents of official bi-lingualism -- but some do ask such questions.

Replacing the mandatory long-form with a voluntary long-form will allow Canadians to vote with their data on such matters. Language questions have since been added to the short-form census (which will remain mandatory) and such data will be collected regardless. (You almost wrote "irregardless", didn't you? Shame, shame; that's not a word. -ed)

“This joined-up European approach would be difficult to attempt here, and probably unsellable politically once people realize what reliance on administrative data means," Yalnizyan admits. "In fact it is likely the Conservatives and most particularly the libertarian base that supports their current position on the census who would most resist such a move.”

So, summing up, Zerbisias argues that the abolition of the long-form census will lead to the gathering of such information coercively -- provided that the Conservative Party is voted out of government, and replaced with a party that has proven itself far more likely to collect this information by such means: such as the Liberal Party.

The detail that a future government could simply decide to replace the voluntary long-form census with a mandatory long-form seems to have been lost on Antonia Zerbisias altogether.

My, How the Cultural Warriors Pretend to Be Moderates

Marci McDonald continues to insist she's a "moderate"

Speaking in an interview with Lloyd Mackey of Canadian Christianity, Armageddon Factor author Marci McDonald insists that it wasn't her intent to demonize Evangelical Christians.

"I am not an atheist," says McDonald, who also says that she is a Christian. "I believe that faith is a strong motivator for some of the finest actions in public life."

"I am a Christian who lost my faith for some years, and came back to it," McDonald explains.

She also described herself as a "centrist".

McDonald further insists that her book is not meant to make a case for the isolation of religion -- or any religion -- from public life.

"I think having a secular Canada where all faiths have a place -- and feel comfortable and welcome -- is what most Canadians still want," she continues.

These words may be somewhat comforting to many of those who have found the tenor of her work alarming. But that comfort will be meagre, as those who intend to make use of McDonald's work to wage a cultural war against conservatives -- such as Antonia Zerbisias and Murray Dobbin -- to wage a culture war such as the one recommended to the Liberal Party by Frank Graves.

Even if Marci McDonald is herself a centrist, or a moderate, the truth is that her work is then being used by far-left extremists to wage a cultural conflict designed to pit citizens against one another -- with Evangelical Christians being exploited as convenient scapegoats.

If Marci McDonald doesn't want to see her work abused to such ends, it will stand to her to speak out against extremists such as Zerbisias and Dobbin.

Oh Theocracy, Where Art Thee?

Eeeek! It's Christians! And They're Praying!

To hear Canada's far left describe it, one would think that Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party have transformed Canada into a theocracy.

Murray Dobbin is quite keen to insist as much. As is Antonia Zerbisias.

Sometimes the evidence offered for their panic-mongering is rather thin. For example, Zerbisias points at the National Prayer Breakfast, where denizens of Parliament Hill meet to pray over some pancakes (or something).

The problem for Zerbisias is that there has been 44 such breakfasts prior to 2010. Yet only in 2010 does this render Canada into a theocratic state.

She points also to the other thin gruel offered by she and her fellow panic-mongerers: Conservative reluctance to include abortion in a maternal health care plan for the developing world (contrary to Zerbisias' report, family planning has been included in the plan), the de-funding of a collection of over-political and under-productive women's activist groups, and the de-funding of various other things she likes and the funding of some things she doesn't like (like Bible schools).

Zerbisias is apparently a rather big fan of Marci McDonald and her upcoming book The Armageddon Factor: the Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada.

Like so many of the arguments raised by Canada's far left, the book seems to be an attempt to transplant the panicky arguments the American far left deployed against George W Bush into Canada.

Originality? They're not big on it. Overrated, perhaps.

“All my worries about having to prove my case that this government is intent on cultivating the social conservative constituency in this country were nothing to worry about," McDonald says. "They were doing it so openly that you could hardly keep up with the headlines.”

“This was not a polemic I wrote; I do not reveal that Stephen Harper has a secret altar in his basement," McDonald continues. "But I did try to connect the dots because everybody was telling me this isn’t happening here, not in nice, tolerant, moderate Canada.”

Nice, tolerant, moderate Canada. Where everything's OK until politicians stop refusing to be seen in the same room as an Evangelical Christian. Then it's panic time.

Likewise if they stop obligingly advancing the political agenda of the far left.

Apparently, even something so basic as the cancellation of the Martin government's promised national daycare scheme is evidence of theocratic intentions.

“That showed the canniness of Harper’s strategy," McDonald says. "Most people saw it as, ‘Oh yes the neocons don’t like government-funded social policies.’ What they didn’t realize was that he was also pandering to social conservatives who don’t believe that the government should have any role in child-rearing, who believe that mothers should be at home bringing up their children or who send their children to religious daycares and schools. It was one of those policies that cut across both of his constituencies, economic and social. That would characterize most of his policies.”

What McDonald doesn't seem to appreciate is that, whether she likes it or not, Canadian parents have the right to raise their children as they see fit. If they choose to send their children to a religious daycare, that's their right. They shouldn't have to pay twice for child care.

But this is the bizarre thinking of Canada's far left: if you believe that government has no role in raising children, apparently you're a theocrat.

McDonald also offers up a number of private members' bills on abortion as evidence that Stephen Harper has a theocratic agenda. (Naturally, she omits the fact that it was Harper who killed these bills. Once again, accuracy isn't at a premium with these people.)

“I just want people to know the facts," McDonald insists. (Although, clearly, she doesn't want people to know all the facts.) "It is the connections, the depth of the organizational roots, that these organizations have put down in Ottawa. These are not known. Four years ago, they were not being catered to, they weren’t being invited to VIP receptions, they weren’t being asked for special election events, they weren’t having special letters read out their rallies, they weren’t getting (security) passes to Parliament Hill."

The problem for McDonald, Zerbisias, Dobbin and company is that given how loudly they parrot their claims, few Canadians could not know about the facts.

It's just clear that Canadians don't share their panic about Stephen Harper and Evangelical Christians.

And for good reason. Not only do they treat what is actually a diverse category of Canadian Christians as monolithic, but it's clear that Canadians can do the math much better than these shrill, panicky denizens of the far left.

Two plus two, after all, doesn't equal five.

But even if the math doesn't add up, it seems that Zerbisias, McDonald and Dobbin seem to think there's plenty of reason to panic.

“I think we should be vigilant,” McDonald says. “We have to decide what kind of a country we want to live in. We have to stay on top of these issues because this is a government wedded to secrecy."

“This government has chosen a strategy that risks changing the Canada that most of us have agreed we want to live in and the tolerance that we have built, faulty as it is," she concludes.

Marci McDonald shouldn't pretend to speak for most Canadians.

Apparently, she and her fellows on the far left decided they want to live in a country that is hostile to Christians, and exists basically as a far left ideological construct.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has fostered a country that is more respectful and accepting of Christians -- Evangelical and otherwise -- and has begun to dismantle the organs that have facilitated the institutionalization of the far left ideology.

And Canadians continue to not be outraged.

Antonia Zerbisias, Murray Dobbin and Marci McDonald just cannot seem to take the clue. If this is theocracy, it seems that more more Canadians are comfortable with it.

It isn't, but if Zerbisias, Dobbin and McDonald want to continue panicking, that's their prerogative. It's just time for them to stop pretending that the rest of Canada should join them.

Typical Zerb, Typical Sleaze

Antonia Zerbisias concocts imaginary world in which gun registry saved OPP officer

With the tragedy that befell Ontario Provincial Police Constable Vu Pham still fresh in the minds of Canadians, it should be considered unsurprising that Toronto Star columnist Antonia Zerbisias intends to take full advantage.

Zerbisias, as many should recall, has a significant obsession with the long gun registry. Her numerous columns on the topic are a continual re-hash of poorly-conceived and largely-undefended arguments in favour of the long gun registry that, although they are tailor-made to be ideologically soothing to supporters of the registry, don't hold much basis in logic.

Among the various instances of anti-Conservative grandstanding, however, Zerbisias offers this particular nugget:

"Candice Hoeppner, the Manitoba Conservative MP who last May introduced the bill to kill the registry, would write, in an opinion piece published by the London Free Press, 'The long-gun registry is a massive Liberal policy failure and it needs to end. It makes no sense to force law-abiding individuals with firearms licences to register their long-guns. It makes no sense to believe the registry will prevent a gun crime from taking place.'

Well, that's true. It certainly didn't save Constable Vu Pham, who died just northwest of London."

It's remarkable that Zerbisias would spare such candor in her writing -- it certainly doesn't happen very often.

But if one wonders precisely why Zerbsias would insist that the gun registry must be maintained even if it doesn't prevent crime, one may lose their mind at the logical inconsistency of Zerbisias' next remark:

"But it may have saved Barbara Preston, the wife of the accused killer, Fred Preston, 70, who died last night.

Numerous news reports and sources indicate that Fred Preston, despondent over the separation last year from his childhood sweetheart, had headed out to find her.

What happened on that lonely back road on Monday is still unclear. What is known is, Pham, on his way to that 'domestic' call, was shot when he attempted to stop a white pick-up truck. A gun fight broke out, killing Pham and, eventually, Preston."

Zerbisias then goes on to insist that gun control is a matter of gender politics -- which is a canard of magnificent proportions.

First off, gun control is not an issue of gender politics. Secondly, the long gun registry is not actually a tool of gun control.

But even beyond that, Zerbisias' "logic" resembles nothing of the sort. If the long gun registry failed to prevent Fred Preston from driving out to confront his wife with a gun, and failed to prevent the death of Constable Pham, then one may wonder how Zerbisias expects anyone to believe that it would have prevented the death of Barbara Preston.

No. It was the intervention of Constable Vu Pham that saved the life of Barbara Preston.

Antonia Zerbisias oddly doesn't seem to care about that particular detail. Rather, all she seems to be interested in is using Pham's death for some anti-conservative grand standing.

It makes one wonders precisely what standard of editorial scrutiny Zerbisias' work is subjected to at the Star. When this kind of lunacy can so easily be published in the Lifestyles section of that paper, it makes one suspect that the answer is "not much".

The Rabid Hysterics of the Lunatic Left

Antonia Zerbisias loses the tune in her own hysterics

If anything can definitively be said about Antonia Zerbisias, it is this: as far as being a "Living columnist" (whose work tends to appear in the lifestyles section of the Toronto Star) goes, she makes a really poor political commentator.

Among Canada's media commentators, Zerbisias may seem like a bit of an oddity -- a representative of Canada's left-wing lunatic fringe. A darling of this lunatic fringe that adores it just as much as it adores her, the Star has seemingly written her carte blanche to burden it's Lifestyles section with some of the worst attempts at punditry in print.

As Chris Selley of the National Post points out, Zerbisias recently wrote a column fuming over a recent report suggesting that Canada's gender gap is widening.

"We've been going backwards under the theocratic Conservative caucus," Zerbisias seethed. "As a scathing report released Monday by a coalition of feminist and labour groups details, since the Conservatives occupied Parliament Hill in 2006, Canada's standing in the World Economic Forum's annual Gender Gap rankings has nosedived."

"We went from 14th place four years ago to 31st in 2008, with a slight improvement to 25th last year," she complained.

As it turns out, more is laughable about Zerbisias' column than merely her vapid accusation of theocracy -- an epithet lobbed at the Conservative Party by many like Zerbisias, but one for which they can seldom offer a credible defense.

As it turns out, the report excludes any areas in which women enjoy better results than men -- such as, for example, life expectancy, and draws some very curious conclusions regarding topics like post-secondary education.

But the most humiliating slip for Zerbisias is that despite the fact that she insists women have suffered under the Conservative government, Canada's 2009 equality score was actually a miniscule improvement over 2006's.

Moreover, Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario President Sam Hammond suggests that women have been "going backwards" for a lot longer than the past your years (despite that they seemingly haven't gone backwards over that time period).

"Canadian women have lost a lot of ground in the past 15 years," Hammond said.

So, if Canadian women have been suffering increased rates of inequality, it's been for much longer than the tenure of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. In fact, it began shortly into the tenure of Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien.

Yet somehow the alleged decrease in women's equality has only become a matter of outrage over the past four years.

There's a reason for this bizarre stance: Zerbisias shares with Heather Mallick (her CBC counterpart who has so disgraced herself that she's largely been deemed unpublishable even at those hallowed grounds) an irrational hatred of Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party that can be satisfied by no accusation of extremism, no matter how comical or counter-factual.

It's one of the reasons why, as a political pundit, Antonia Zerbisias would make a really good lifestyles columnist -- if only she'd stick to her strong points.

Putting a Whole New Face on the Proroguement

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's proroguement of Parliament has been nothing if not controversial.

In the most recent poll, the Conservatives are now tied with the Liberal Party at 30% support.

But this proroguement suddenly has a whole new face. Canadians will get the opportunity to judge it very soon.

The timing of Harper's recent proroguement of Parliament certainly cast the matter in a poor light. For one thing, it gave Canada's opposition parties the opportunity to claim that the Conservatives are simply trying to flee tough questions about the torture of detainees in Afghanistan.

Tom Flanagan believed it. John McCallum even went so far as to accuse the government of being guilty of war crimes.

But the revelation -- actually merely a reminder -- that the Liberal Party knew full well about the potential for torture in Afghan prisons while Canadian Forces were operating in Afghanistan, including during the negotiation of the infamous Prisoner Transfer Agreement in 2005 should change matters.

This doesn't excuse the Conservative Party's poor handling of the matter. But it should remind Canadians of an important fact about this proroguement:

If the proroguement of Parliament really was merely an effort to escape questioning over Afghan detainees, it's now evidently justified.

There is no reason in the world why the Harper government should willingly surrender itself to the tender mercies of a duplicitous official opposition that seems intent on holding it to account for a scandal that is actually of their making.

Certainly, one expects these revelations to hold little sway for individuals like Frances Russel, who wishes to compare Harper's proroguement to the 1873 proroguement sought by then-Prime Minister sir John A MacDonald.

The problem for Russel is that, in 1873, MacDonald's government very much had accepted bribes. The scandal was legitimate, and was of their own making.

137 years later, it turns out that there is indeed a scandal, but it's actually of the official opposition's making.

Russel's analysis will not find favourable treatment on the ash heap of history.

Likewise, Antonia Zerbisias will have to defend some of her recent analysis.

Zerbisias writes that the Facebook group protesting the proroguement of Parliament demonstrates that the spirit of populism is very much alive in Canadians. But what Zerbisias will now have to face up to is the reality that the traditional argument against populism -- that the average citizen often doesn't have the knowledge to make proper decisions or judgements -- now very much applies to the anti-proroguement movement and their Facebook group.

As it turns out, a great many of the Canadians who have opposed the proroguement -- perhaps even many of those who have been indifferent to it -- have been denied the information necessary to properly judge this proroguement. They've been misled by a Liberal Party that has chosen to lie by omission, and a media that -- until now -- has declined to report these facts.

In other words, these revelations have put a whole new face on what seemed to many Canadians -- including this not-so-humble scribe -- to be a largely routine proroguement, planned well in advance to give Harper the opportunity to prepare stage two of his party's economic program, reorganize the Senate, and take advantage of the diplomatic opportunity presented by the upcoming Olympic games.

The new face of this proroguement is that of an act of justified self-defense; a government defending itself against opposition parties that are bound and determined to disrupt the government during a key transition period in Canada's economic action plan by unjustly tarring the government with a scandal of the official opposition's making.

How well Canadians respond to the new face of this proroguement has yet to be seen.

How to Play to Your Base (At The Expense of Truth and Logic)

Antonia Zerbisias recycles discredited rhetoric

If there's anything that Canadians can learn from observing the most fervently ideological amongst its media personalities, it's that virtually anything can be treated as true, so long as it's repeated often and insistently enough.

The most recent case in point has been the exaggerated controversy over the Conservative Party's move to -- with the support of MPs from the Liberal Party and the NDP -- abolish the federal long gun registry.

Antonia Zerbisias has gone particularly ape shit over the matter. Zerbisias, along with Heather Mallick and a few public activists, has pretended that the issue is actually one of gender politics, not one of an ineffectual public safety policy being committed to its rightful place on the ash heap of history.

In a column recently published in the Toronto Star, Zerbisias practically labels Minister for the Status of Women Helena Guergis and Candice Hoeppner as traitors to their gender:

"If it weren't so hypocritical, it would be hysterical.

On Wednesday, at a Parliament Hill ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the Dec. 6 massacre at Montreal's L'École Polytechnique, Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner co-starred in Status of Women minister Helena Guergis's show of sympathy.

Bad enough that, last month, Guergis voted for Bill C-391, the legislation that aims to kill the long-gun registry and Hoeppner was the one to introduce it in the House."

For Zerbisias, this almost certainly isn't bad enough. It's just one sign of Guergis, Hoeppner and the Conservative Party rejecting the colonization of government policy by gender/identity politics.

"No wonder that Status of Women committee members Anita Neville (L-Winnipeg South Centre), Irene Mathyssen (NDP-London- Fanshawe) and the Bloc's warrior queen of women's rights, Nicole Demers (Laval), boycotted the ceremony.

As Neville told me Wednesday, 'The Conservatives' record on women has just been abominable.'"

And of course if Anita Neville says it, it simply must be true! After all, it isn't as if the Liberal Party critic for the Status of Women has anything to gain politically from criticizing the Conservative government, even on something as fundamental as a memorial service.

"Never mind that, since the registry was introduced in the mid-'90s, the number of women killed by their rifle-wielding partners has dropped significantly. But, even with the registry, Statistics Canada reports, one out of three femicide victims is still killed by a rifle-wielding partner."

At this point, there is simply no way that Zerbisias and her compatriots don't know full well that they can demonstrate no causal link between the long gun registry and this decrease in homicides involving guns.

There is simply no way that Zerbisias and her compatriots don't know full well that what they are making here is a correlational argument, and that correlation itself is not causation.

The decrease in these homicides could be just as easily linked to anything else that took place in the years since 1995, when the federal Firearms Act was passed. Such as the other measures passed at the same time.

One of the things that Zerbisias and her compatriots tend to omit when discussing the long gun registry is the institution of what was then harsher penalties for crimes involving guns, and the institution of Possession and Acquisition Licenses, that put further requirements in place for gun ownership, and made it more possible to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous individuals.

The gun registry merely kept a record of who could own guns. It did nothing to prevent an unbalanced individual from pointing their gun at a human being -- male or female -- and pulling the trigger.

This became painfully evident on September 13, 2006 when Kimveer Gill stormed Montreal's Dawson College and shot 19 people, one of whom died. Gill perpetrated that shooting with a registered gun.

Oddly enough, Neville voted against a bill that would have toughened the penalties for gun crime even further.

One shouldn't expect these little factoids to appear to Zerbisias. She's too busy using the memories of those killed in the L'Ecole Polytechnique massacre to promote the long gun registry as a matter of gender politics.

"For a frigid few days, I followed the panel around rural Quebec, where it heard horror stories from women whose partners took advantage of their isolation to terrorize and torture them.

There were testimonies from local social services groups recounting terrible murders. Meanwhile, back in the Montreal area, women were being picked off at an alarming rate by former spouses, even those served with restraining orders."

Once again, this is the kind of thing the long gun registry has done nothing to prevent. Although putting more police officers on Canadian streets certainly could.

"One of the things that many of the gun nuts espouse is more guns – for women. As they say, "You can't rape a .38.''

That may be true if you're walking your dog or coming home from work late at night, but it's going to land you a murder charge if you pull the trigger while being 'date raped.'"

This is easily the most provocative statement Zerbisias makes in the course of this column. She neglects to mention that such an act would quickly (and rightly) be ruled to have been committed in self-defense. No proper-thinking judge or jury in the country would dare convict. (Unless that judge was liberal supporter. Thankfully, they don't appoint people that stupid to the bench. -ed)

"n any case, it's pretty tough to be packing, say, in an aerobics class, especially when the assassin sneaks in, turns off the lights and starts firing – which is what happened in Pittsburgh this summer when three women were killed and many others injured.

What's more, there's no guarantee that an abused wife could actually get a gun, or not get it used against her.

Research shows that the determining factor in preventing most violence against women is helping them to be economically independent, through secure employment with appropriate benefits and fair wages, or decent rates of welfare, adequate social housing and daycare."

Zerbisias also neglects to mention -- or simply fails to understand -- that women in social housing, or on welfare, are not economically independent. But that's only one of the failures in basic logic Zerbisias commits in her column.

"Little of which is forthcoming from the Conservative government."

On the contrary, the Conservative government put far more of these things in place, when they shifted the Status of Women's mandate away from reasearch and advocacy and toward providing actual services -- like job training -- to women in their communities.

"That said, it has bumped up funding to some shelters this year. But that does nothing to head off violence."

Neither does the long gun registry.

"In fact, according to Neville, 'Their whole focus on violence against women is what one colleague refers to as `after the gavel.' That means putting more people in jail, harsher sentences, mandatory minimums, that kind of thing.'"

This is still a superior approach than the preceding approach, which largely focused on using cosmetic legislation as a bullwark around which they could build an ideological program -- one that even some of the most fervent supporters of the long gun registry admit is purely symbolic.

"Or as Hoeppner recently said in committee: 'The best thing we can do to protect women is to make sure that people who commit crimes against them go to jail and stay there for as long as they need to.' Which, not only closes the slammer door after the deed has been done, it does nothing to get women out of dangerous situations and into self-sufficient lives."

Interestingly enough, neither do social housing or welfare. Once again, what Zerbisias makes up for in ideology, she lacks in basic reasoning skills.

"As for Guergis, well, although her resumé includes many years of volunteering at Barrie's Rape Crisis Centre, she just tiptoes the party line.

With girlfriends like these, who needs enemies?"

Maybe the answer to this question doesn't truly matter. Ideologues specialize in attracting and inventing enemies.

Antonia Zerbisias would have invented herself an enemy, one way or another. It just helps that there are some women willing to reject Zerbisias' absurd concept of gender politics.

Antonia Zerbisias and the Anti-Abortion Bogeyman

Zerbisias weaves anti-abortion conspiracy theory

If there's any one issue that spins Canada's Lunatic Left into a frenzy, it's the abortion issue.

Writing in her column at the Toronto Star, Antonia Zerbisias suggests that the Conservative Party has concocted an elaborate conspiracy to conceal its true stance on the issue of abortion.

Despite the fact that Prime Minister Stephen Harper intervened to derail Bill C-484 -- the Unborn Victims of Crime Bill, a bill that had nothing to do with abortion but was still deemed unacceptable by Canada's pro-abortion movement -- Zerbisias insists that Harper is secretly plotting against a woman's right to choose.

"I don't believe him when he talks about reopening the abortion debate," Zerbisias writes. "Not that it has ever really been closed."

The evidence Zerbisias offers? That some members of the Conservative caucus have their own opinion on the matter of abortion; opinions that conflict with her own.

"His credibility isn't helped by Conservative caucus members who constantly harp on the subject by introducing private member's bills, making speeches, attending pro-life rallies and putting out news releases," Zerbisias writes, as if Harper ought to be whipping his MPs into not making such speeches or attending such events.

(What she thinks Opposition leaders should do with MPs who attend pro-abortion rallies and make pro-abortion speeches goes unstated, yet remains perfectly obvious.)

In particular, Zerbisias takes exception to Saskatoon-Wanuskewin MP Maurice Vellacott.

"Vellacott stepped in it once again last month when he put out a release commending local doctors for 'reducing the availability of abortion in our city,'" Zerbisias fumes. "It came in response to news that Saskatoon women had to leave town to terminate their pregnancies."

What Zerbisias declines to mention is that it's the doctors themselves that are exercising some restraint in regards to late-term abortion. (Of course, the matter of the doctor's right to choose has been a difficult matter for the "pro-choice" movement. They generally tend to oppose it.)

Zerbisias also fumes at the notion that Vellacott would even mention studies that have suggested that abortion may pose health problems for women later in life.

"As if this weren't unsympathetic enough to the plight of scared teenagers and desperate women, Vellacott added that 'a growing body of research reveals significant health problems caused by abortion, including a greater risk of breast cancer, cervical lacerations and injury, uterine perforations, hemorrhage, and serious infection,'" Zerbisias writes. "This is not only incorrect, it's pure propaganda espoused by those who would rather that pregnant women act as walking incubators for all those couples on adoption waiting lists."

Not only does Zerbisias draw a lunatic conclusion, but as it turns out she's wrong.

Chinese studies, where abortion isn't stigmatized like in North America and so is more likely to be self-reported in the course of such studies, have suggested at least a higher correlation between abortion and breast cancer later in life.

At best, Vellacott is mistaking correlation for causation. Further study would be necessary to determine a causational relationship -- studies which the pro-abortion movement have, oddly enough, also tended to oppose.

Despite these studies, Zerbisias seems to insist that Harper ought to force Vellacott to apologize. Failing that, Zerbisias seems to think that either Harper himself or Helena Guergis should apologize for Vellacott's opinion.

And as eager as Zerbisias is to criticize Vellacott for what turns out to actually be accurate statements, Zerbisias is more than willing to twist or dismiss any factoids that don't support her particular point of view.

"Coincidentally, or not, all this happened just as the Ottawa-based 'educational' LifeCanada issued its survey on attitudes toward abortion. 'For the ninth year in a row, a majority of Canadians have rejected the status quo on abortion in this country,' its statement said. 'Over half say there should be legal protection for human life before birth and over two-thirds say abortions should only be paid for by taxpayers in medical emergencies or in cases of rape or incest,'" Zerbisias writes. "But a closer look at the numbers reveals that only 30 per cent of us feel there should be no abortion rights. The rest say that abortion should be available only up to various trimesters."

Which is still a rejection of the current abortion status quo, which Zerbisias' fellows in the pro-abortion movement support. That is, unless, they can shift matters even further toward their own particular desires.

And it's still in line with Maurice Vellacott's approval of the self-adopted abortion constraints in Saskatoon.

As to what Zerbisias thinks should be done about those constraints, that goes unstated in her column. It would certainly be interesting to know.

But beyond that, Antonia Zerbisias is trying to ascribe a position on abortion to Stephen Harper based on opinions that other people hold, and based on comments that other people have made.

Her hunt for an anti-abortion bogeyman may appeal to her base readership, but it's far less compelling to anyone with a rational mind.


From the archives:

November 25, 2009 - "The Philosophical Dilemma of 'Pro-Choice'"

September 25, 2009 - "Eeek! It's Christians! And They're Praying!"

Are They Protesting Because They're Women, or Because They're Civil Servants?

Public Servant Alliance protests abolition of long gun registry

There's something about the long gun registry that renders Canada's left wing entirely irrational.

This was prominently on display recently, as the Public Servant Alliance of Canada protested at the office of Sackville-Eastern Shore MP Peter Stoffer (NDP), who recently voted in favour of abolishing the long gun registry.

The problem is that the small crowd of 25 women -- chanting "we will not be silent," -- pretended they were protesting Stoffer's vote under the pretenses of feminism.

"To think that a woman's life might be worth less than being able to bag a deer easily is unreal and it's a sad state of affairs that we're in this year marking the 20th anniversary of the Montreal massacre by abolishing the long-gun registry," complained Lori Walton, who is also planning a commemorative vigil for the victims of the L'Ecole Polytechnique shooting.

Walton and the PSAC aren't the only ones to try to make this argument. Antonia Zerbisias recently attempted the same feat, less than a month after a column in which she fibbed about the weapons used to kill the Mayerthorpe four.

Zerbisias argued that "Poll after poll has shown that women, including rural women, overwhelmingly supported the long-gun registry."

But polls have also shown that the majority of Canadians favour abolishing the registry. Only in Quebec did a majority favour maintaining it.

And just while only in the minds of Zerbisias and her followers do the various insular activist groups who purport to speak for all Canadian women actually represent all of Canada's women, only in the mind of Zerbisias should a majority of women count for more than the majority of all Canadians.

But even while the protesters at Stoffer's office pretended that they were there as women and not as public servants, they made their true motivations perfectly evident -- all while pretending that the gun registry is actually a tool of gun control.

"Dangerous people are refused their guns, which is what we should be doing. So yes, she does tell me a lot about the good that's coming out of it," said Anne Faban-Wood.

Of course, the fact that the gun registry doesn't keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people -- the perpetrator of the Dawson College shooting perpetrated the act with a registered weapon -- seems entirely lost on these people. But even in the face of this inconsistency, people like Faban-Wood make themelves entirely transparent.

The "she" Wood talks about is actually her sister, who works on the registry.

Which is really what the long gun registry is about to the Public Service Alliance of Canada.

While, to people like Antonia Zerbisias, the long gun registry is a program of left-wing ideological welfare, to the PSAC it's simply a matter of bureaucratic welfare.

Yeah, Antonia. About That Whole "Sexism" Thing...

Zerbisias decries state of feminism in United States

Writing from her bully pulpit at the Toronto Star, Antonia Zerbisias continues her ongoing quest against... yep, you guessed it: sexism.

Yet among those she identifies as the targets of sexism in the United States is, oddly, enough Sarah Palin.

"Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin? Both still get 'bitch-slapped' around in the most virulent sexist terms," Zerbisias complains. "Women's looks, their clothing, even their voices – all are not-so-fair game, no matter how accomplished they may be."

It's an interesting complaint. One might wonder what Zerbisias would have thought if a sexist attack on Sarah Palin were made by someone who is allegedly accomplished, and female.

How about by Zerbisias' "chesty sister" Heather Mallick?

Mallick's "Mighty Wind" has been played and replayed so much it's almost become a cliche. But at a time like this, it might be a useful exercise to examine a few of Mallick's more "enlightened" comments in the course of that article:

-Palin appealed to the "white trash" vote (by the way, Republicans apparently own that).
-Republican men are sexually inadequate.
-Palin dresses like a porn actress.
-Bristol Palin's pregnancy means Sarah and Todd Palin are bad parents.

Readers may recall that "A Mighty Wind" was the column that pretty much convinced CBC to take her punditry skills elsewhere and stick to writing fluff. (Mallick has, by the way, plied her punditry skills elsewhere, with disastrous results.)

One may want to direct their attention toward the latter two bullet points. It sounds an awful lot like the "women's looks, their clothing, even their voices" complaint that Zerbisias is making here.

As a matter of fact, it sounds exactly like it.

So, one may wonder what it was that Antonia Zerbisias had to say about Heather Mallick's "Mighty Wind". The answer seems to be "why, nothing. Nothing at all."

To find that such a dedicated denizen of the far left could be so disingenuous isn't all that hard to believe. In fact, observers of what passes for feminist commentary these days have long realized that sexism (like racism) can be perfectly acceptable, so long as it comes from the "right" source.

Got Yourself a Gun (Registry)

On Rabble.ca, Judy Rebick cries "emergency"!



Rex Murphy also knows better:

Antonia Zerbisias: Gun Nutty

Zerbisias has her facts -- and logic -- twisted in regards to gun registry

There's something special about guns in the hearts of Ontarian left-wingers.

Former Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant famously made waves with his "No Gun, No Funeral" campaign -- which, if one were to argue the matter under the guise of specious hilarity, may have implied that people don't die of natural causes -- in support of a ban on handguns.

When the federal Conservative party declined to jump on board with Bryant's campaign, noting that legal ownership of handguns was already restricted to target shooters, collectors and those who need them for the purpose of their employment, Bryant lashed out rather predictably.

"The Conservatives have long been in the holster of the gun lobby," Bryant fumed. "I say `no gun, no funeral.'"

And he did -- very often.

Despite the fact that the No Gun, No Funeral campaign was operated out of Bryant's campaign office (something his staff had the temerity to deny when contacted), Bryant mustered likewise temerity in insisting that the campaign wasn't part of his reelection bid.

Moreoever than this, however, the No Gun No Funeral campaign was based largely on a very dubious version of the facts regarding handguns, handgun use, and guns in general.

In today's Toronto Star, Antonia Zerbisias took her own turn at offering up specious argumentation in favour of the Liberal party model of gun control.

"The one thing I will never understand about the Conservatives is how they say they can be so down on crime – and yet so up with guns. Some guns, anyway," Zerbisias writes in her op-ed column. "Guns such as that used to murder those four Mounties in Mayerthorpe, Alberta in 2005."

Zerbisias goes on to complain that the Conservative party has moved once again to scrap the federal long gun registry, which would exempt rifles and shotguns from the registry.

Full stop.

God knows that one will never stop Zerbisias from trying to portray the Conservative party as hicks and rednecks, riding in from the cowboy west to force their nefarious gun culture on the rest of the country. But one would think she could at least be a little more honest about the details.

Zerbisias tells Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner to tell the murdered mounties' families that "the long-gun registry unfairly targets our hard-working farmers, hunters and sport shooters, but not criminals."

The problem for Zerbisias is that the Mounties murdered outside of Mayerthorpe by James Roszko weren't murdered using a hunting rifle or a shotgun.

Roszko killed Constables Brock Myrol, Peter Schiemann, Leo Johnston and Anthony Gordon with an HK .308 semi-automatic assault rifle -- the kind of weapon that is already restricted under federal firearms legislation, and will remain restricted even after the long gun registry is repealed.

But if one thought that Zerbisias was being rather liberal about the facts, one just has to wait to see what she does with her logic, when she writes that "fact is, according to Canada's Coalition for Gun Control, one out of three women killed by their husbands is shot, 88 per cent of them by legally owned rifles and shotguns."

Zerbisias declines to note that registering those weapons in no way prevented the murder, lending skepticism to her next claim:

"Fact is, according to Statistics Canada, firearm spousal homicide is down drastically since the gun registry was enforced," seeing as how we've already seen that registration of firearms doesn't prevent them from being used to murder, there is absolutely no justification for parading this particular correlation as proof positive that the gun registry itself has reduced such crimes. The reduction is much more likely due to other forms of gun control introduced since the introduction of the registry, including enforcement tactics.

Antonia Zerbisias may be surprised to find out that many small-c and capital-c conservatives alike support gun control. But, unlike Ontario's power elite and would-be power elite, conservatives prefer methods of gun control that actually protect Canadians, as opposed to metely being a nuisance to law-abiding gun owners.

But don't ask Zerbisias about that. She's still too busy pretending that the Mayerthorpe Four were murdered with a hunting rifle.

Coming Clean(er) on Antonia Zerbisias

Fair is fair.

Recently, in a post here at the Nexus about Antonia Zerbisias challenging Liberal MP Irwin Cotler's loyalty to Canada, Zerbisias was unfairly credited for making the following comment on her Facebook page: "It doesn't seem possible for Jewish people to have a RATIONAL discussion about Israel!"

As it turns out, Zerbisias did not make the comment in question.

Although the comment was made by another individual (who is, and will remain, unidentified) she did express agreement with it, writing: "I agree. It's almost existential for some of them."

Evidently, this is what Jonathon Kay actually meant when he suggested Zerbisias "endorses" those views. As Zerbisias' Facebook profile is set to private (it can be viewed by her Facebook friends only), it's actually an easy mistake to make, as her comments were made very difficult to verify.

To some, it would seem entirely natural to attribute anti-Semitism to the comments of both individuals. Attributing irrationality to an entire ethnic group of people could certainly be viewed as a racially inflammatory comment. In the case in question, it could be viewed as anti-Semitic.

But rushing to that conclusion admittedly overlooks the rash hastiness of such comments. In the heat of a blogosphere controversy such comments can be uttered in undue haste -- and interpreted equally hastily.

In hindsight -- as due restraint often restores itself once the heat of the moment has passed -- one would like to be able to attribute Zerbisias' comments to that kind of hastiness. But Zerbisias has made it rather difficult to do so.

Even though she has been asked to elaborate on the sentiments behind her actual comments -- once again, expressing agreement with the original comments -- she has declined to share them.

Which is unfortunate. Zerbisias could very well have not meant to attribute irrationality to Jewish people as a whole, but rather to a particular group of pro-Israeli Jews. Truth be told, she would be right about that. There's little question that some Jews -- as well as some non-Jews -- cast aside the burdensome chore of critical thinking in all matters related to Israel. It's a sad truth.

Likewise, Zerbisias could very well have meant to attribute that to Jewish people as a whole. Her comments, even if uttered in haste, seem to suggest that (they also seem to suggest that for many Jews this irrationality is "existential").

If she refuses to elaborate on her comments, it would be impossible to know for certain.

It's on this note that Zerbisias may entreat herself to an apology for the misquote. Fair, after all, is fair.

But it's hard to leash suspicions of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism if Zerbisias herself won't explain some comments that seem like they allude to it. If Zerbisias doesn't like it, there are actually very simple remedies as her immediate command:

Don't say things that may make people suspect you're an anti-Semite. For most people, that seems simple enough.

Eeeeeeek! It's Christians! And They're Praying!

Antonia Zerbisias offers an odd definition of "intimidation"

Toronto Star columnist Antonia Zerbisias has long been a not-so-subetly-kept secret of Canada's loony left (a category of left wingers who should be considered a subcategory of the hateful left, themselves a category of left wingers).

Parading her political thought under the guise of mainstream respectability, Zerbisias has, on occasion, let her true nature slip through the facade -- such as when she suggested Dick Cheney should shoot Michelle Malkin in the face and more recently, when she questioned Irwin Cotler's loyalty to Canada on account of his children volunteering for the Israeli Defense Forces.

But, as is so often the case with individuals such as Zerbisias, it seems that whatever lunacy or silliness (however the case may be) has transpired to date may only be the tip of the iceberg.

Zerbisias recently suggested that Christians embarking on an ambitious new protest campaign against abortion are actually out to intimidate women seeking abortions.

"The birds of `pray' who will be targeting women's clinics in Canadian cities for the next 40 days really don't care about saving lives," Zerbisias wrote. "If they did, they wouldn't be so much about intimidating the desperate women and girls who are seeking abortions."

Intimidation? That sounds truly horrible. Certainly, any rational person would want to know precisely what it is that these "birds of pray" are doing that is so intimidating.

As it turns out, Zerbisias' comments refer to the 40 Days for Life campaign being staged by various anti-abortion groups. For 40 days they'll be praying and fasting outside of abortion clinics, as well as conducting a door-to-door petition.

Intimidation!

Of course, any rational individual would wait for actual violence to occur as part of the 40 Days for Life campaign -- or at least some kind of threat -- before accusing them of indimidation.

Perhaps something like one of the participants in the 40 Days for Life campaign were to pull a gun on a woman seeking an abortion. It isn't as if Zerbisias' cohorts in the extreme pro-abortion movement haven't made any excuses for such incidents.

Hell, some of them have even participated in acts of intimidation.

Zerbisias seems to conclude that the praying protesters only want to take women's rights away.

"No matter how much they will attempt to cloak their vigils outside two Toronto clinics with solemn vows to 'never stop defending life,' their true agenda is unveiled by their lack of support for babies once they're born, their often impoverished mothers and the kind of sex education and contraception accessibility that would avoid abortion in the first place," Zerbisias insists. "Nowhere on 40DaysForLife.com is there any discussion of any of these matters."

"That's why it's easy to assume that what the anti-choice movement is really about is exactly that: no choice for women," Zerbisias continues. "No choice when it comes to their reproductive rights, no choice when it comes to being free to pursue independent lives, no choice to have careers, no choice at all."

In the wake of the revelation that the 40 Days for Life website doesn't address post-birth support for single mothers, contraception or sex eduation, one may be willing to say "fair enough" (at least to that fact, if not to her rhetoric).

But then one would wonder what Zerbisias would have to say about anti-abortion organizations -- such as Feminists for Life that do have something to say about the matter.

Among the various resources available via the FFL website include calls to change cultural attitudes toward single parents to create an environment more conducive to single parenthood, notes on how to raise children inexpensively, and advice on how to cope with an unplanned pregnancy.

When writing about Feminists for Life, Zerbisias has failed to mention these things.

For her own part, this isn't particularly damning. But some of Zerbisias' compatriots in the pro-abortion movement have more deliberately overlooked such things. In a column appearing on the Talking Points Memo website, Ruth Rosen accused FfL of being "cleverly disingenuous".

As anyone who paid attention to the various controversies that swirled around former US Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin knows that FfL's slogan is "women deserves better choices".

That at the very least, is something Feminists for Life and the pro-abortion movement should be able to agree on, even if they fundamentally disagree on abortion.

But despite the fact that FfL's website does address some of the issues that Zerbisias criticizes 40 Days for Life for not mentioning, Ruth Rosen makes a rather unsurprising conclusion.

"In the end, I decided that Feminists for Life is neither about feminism nor about choice," Rosen writes. "It is a cunning attempt to convince young women that choice means giving up the right to 'choose.'"

So, it would seem that no matter who is writing, and no matter what the conditions, the pro-abortion movement insists that the anti-abortion movement simply opposes choice -- that they oppose freedom.

Against this general rhetorical backdrop it's hard to treat Zerbisias' commentary as anything other than disingenuous.

In this particular column, that disingenuity begins when she accuses Christians publicly praying of "intimidating" women, and takes deeper root when she follows the typical pro-abortion rhetorical tactic of accusing them of simply hating freedom.

This is Nothing a Sheeny Curse Wouldn't Fix

Antonia Zerbisias tips her anti-Semitic hand

This post should probably start off with an apology to any Jewish readers -- or just Jews in general -- if they're offended by the title. Please forgive.

Recently, Toronto Star columnist and blogger Antonia Zerbisias sparked another blogosphere controversy when she twittered the following:

"MP Irwin Cotler's children join IDF. http://bit.ly/1Ttsq0 Which country are you loyal to, sir?"

Irwin Cotler, as Kay notes, is known around the world for his work fighting anti-Semitism. He has also been instrumental in highlighting Canada's past failure to detect and deport Nazi war criminals.

As many Canadians would also know, Zerbisias has been far from quiet on the topic of Israel. Recent screeds against Israel include a column applauding a Toronto LGBT group protesting "Israeli Apartheid" (despite the fact that Israel has a far superior record in regard to its treatment of homosexuals than any other Middle Eastern country) and applause of the insipid boycott of the Toronto International Film Festival over its "city to city" program with Tel Aviv.

So it's clear that Zerbisias is a critic of Israel. There's actually nothing wrong with that -- there's plenty of room for constructive criticism of any state, especially Israel.

But to target Irwin Cotler and challenge his patriotism because his children -- who are dual Canadian-Israeli citizens, by virtue of Cotler's marriage to an Israeli woman -- is far, far beyond the pale.

To impugn Cotler's citizenship based on the actions of his children is nothing short of irresponsible.

It could even be interpreted as a form of neo-McCarthyism, as Dr John Baglow accuses Kay of in noting that Zerbisias' comments at least reinforce the impressions of Zerbisias' well-known anti-Zionism.

The problem for Zerbisias and her thinly-veiled threat to sue another blogger (who has actually taken quite a trip over the matter) is that her rhetoric seems to suggest that her anti-Zionism has bled into anti-Semitism.

As Kay notes, Zerbisias recently noted, on her Facebook page, that "it doesn't seem possible for Jewish people to have a RATIONAL discussion about Israel!"

So it would seem that Zerbisias insists that Israel is the problem. But more than that, she infers, the real problem is the Jews.

As the aforementioned Backseat Blogger notes, accusations of mixed loyalties have often been levied against Jews.

At a certain point, a spade just has to be called a spade. Zerbisias' criticisms of Israel themselves are far short of malignant. But when mixed with the kind of rhetoric she's indulged herself in, it becomes clear that there are darker motivations underlying her criticism.

Which brings one back to the Sheeny Curse.

Who knows? Perhaps Antonia Zerbisias would be surprissed to learn that the Sheeny Curse doesn't actually exist. Stranger things have been published in the pages of the Star -- often by Zerbisias herself.