C-10 Smackdown

Today, Chuck McVety's rotten and twisted censorship dreams were dashed upon the rocks of reason, sanity and freedom by two Liberal Senators:

"Senators Francis Fox and Wilfred Moore today made public the amendments that Liberal Senators intend to introduce when the Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce proceeds to the Clause by Clause examination of Bill C-10." [...]

"The changes proposed by Senators Fox and Moore would:
1. Remove the power for the Minister of Heritage to refuse tax credits based on "public policy" or to issue guidelines about film content, while at the same time safeguarding the right to deny funds when the production itself is contrary to the Criminal Code;
2. Give producers an efficient judicial appeal mechanism if the Minister blocks or delays funding;
3. Continue to prevent government funding of pornography, child pornography, and hate propaganda."

My favourite part is #3 -- "continue to prevent government funding of pornography..." See? Unlike the lies that Mr. McVety and his fellow social conservative nanny-statist travellers would have us believe, there was never a need to deny tax credits or dictate "content guidelines" in order to stop (SHRIEEEK!) the funding of porn: it was already being prevented. However, the funding of movies deemed "OFFENSIVE!" by Mr. McVety is not being prevented, and boo friggin hoo, tough shit. Apparently, Mr. McVety badly miscalculated -- "Canadian values" don't include censorship of the arts after all.

PSA has more.

Not him again!

Welcome to my new series: McVetywatch! I was right -- I've been derelict in my duty of keeping a close eye on this nitwit and now he's breaking out everywhere, like herpes. Here he is yet again, shrieking, swooning and squirting all over the crusty pages of the Calgary Herald that "We don't want to subsidize porn!"

"Opponents of subsidies for pornography face the same arguments given generations ago by defenders of government assistance for tobacco production. If you opposed tobacco subsidies, you were against farmers, against agriculture and probably against any government assistance to weak sectors of the economy."

What is it with these oh-so-tiresome religious crackpots and their idiotic analogies? First fetuses were like slaves, now we've got the puritanical, authoritarian dingbats who oppose free artistic expression being compared to anti-tobacco activists. Are these people completely and totally incapable of making their point on its own merit? Do they have a point and does it even have any merit!? (Okay, easy now hippie, don't get away from yourself here.) *ahem* Let's read on:

"As in the case of tobacco, defenders of porn subsidies use a kind of attempted character assassination in saying that only the religiously minded are against it. One doesn't have to be religious to recognize inanity.

A Compas poll released this past week shows that three-quarters of Canadians oppose subsidies for porn films..."

Hold the phone! "Compas poll"? He can't mean the poll that got a 75% opposed response by asking the impossibly absurd question "Should the government fund child pornography?" He should know better than to cite a poll that only a few days ago got him spanked and ridiculed:

In closing, ridiculous asshole McVety sobs:

"Instead, the free speech of 75 per cent of Canadians is oppressed as we are vilified, accusations of censorship are levelled, and yet no one can give a good reason to allow tax dollars to fund pornography, or to fund films focusing on sex with corpses, or others with memorable names like Young People F---ing and The Masturbators."

Oh, here we go, flavour of the week, the Free fucking Speech canard. You know their argument is weak-to-nonexistent when they trot this one out. Yet you have to be in awe of the kind of psychological gymnastics it must have taken McVety to arrive at the conclusion that his free speech is being oppressed... because he isn't being allowed to oppress the free speech of someone else! Oh well, I'll concede that he showed remarkable restraint in getting almost the entire article barfed out before he finally broke down and said his favourite phrase, "Young People F--ing", but I bet he had to smack his hands a few times to do it.

Movie Critic McVety gives film Two Cloven Hooves Down

Clearly I've been too wrapped up in Bill C-484, fetal photoshops and the ongoing battle to conflate libel with free speech --I haven't been keeping enough of an eye on this guy. Now suddenly his porcine visage is becoming an alarmingly routine sight all over everywhere, admonishing, scolding and wagging his porky little finger at us, sinners and fornicators one and all.

The Reverend's been pushing this Bill C-10 pretty hard -- even taking credit for it at one point. An idea he quickly backed off from when he realized how much Canadians really don't like him, and especially don't like the thought of him hanging around the corridors of power trying to influence our laws with his brand of shrieking, pearl-clutching, nanny-statist social conservativism. Will it never end? Not until the fat reverend sings!

In spite of being spanked and roundly ridiculed yesterday at the Senate Banking Committee hearing on C-10, McVety's not ready to sing yet -- but apparently he's still got a lot of squealing to do. Thursday's Daily Squeal dealt with McVety's objections to an all-Canadian film called "Breakfast With Scot". It's a family comedy about a gay hockey player and his partner, who are raising an 11-year-old boy. It's kind of a family movie with a gay perspective, the family just happens to have two dads. Whoop-di-do. No, thunders Mullah McVety, "Whoop-di-don't!!":

"Ottawa–A comedy about a gay couple raising a child should not have received any government help, an evangelical activist says.

"We are objecting to films that proselytize young people into homosexuality," Charles McVety, president of the Canada Family Action Coalition, told reporters yesterday."

Ohmigod, it's Gayagenda Propaganda! "Proselytize young people into homosexuality"? Did he really say that!? Yes, but he says mindblowingly stupid things with such depressing regularity that I'm well past the point where he could surprise me. I haven't seen "Breakfast With Scott", but from what I've read about it, sounds like it has little if anything to do with sex. Only a vicious, half-bright fuckwit like McVety could read any ominous, evil sexual ulterior motive into it. But to McVety, apparently it doesn't even have to be about sex to be dirrrrrrty. Any movie with a gay character, in what passes for McVety's "mind", promotes (yeah, "promotes", like a Bacon Double Cheeseburger) homosexuality, playing an evil pied piper's tune that will Lead Your Children to Teh Ghey. SHRIEEEEEK!

Okay, so let's tally up the Mullah McVety Hall of Shame: porn, dirrrrrrty movies like "Crash", and now, even movies with gay characters. So he's not only a puritan and a prude, but a bigot as well. Just the kind of person Canadians want influencing their laws, especially the 63% of us who didn't vote Conservative last time out. Ahhhahahahaha! With every spittle-flecked word he utters, McVety slowly but surely destroys the credibility of any bill he supports. But that's why we want him to keep on jabbering his demented, paranoid gibberish. When Bill C-10 gets nuked, McVety will have done all the heavy lifting.

The Ecstasy of Charles McVety

On Wednesday, Canada's favourite pearl-clutching, tut-tutting religious right mullah, Charles McVety, appeared before the Senate Banking Committee to reiterate his support for the censorious Bill C-10, which would deny tax credits to productions deemed (by McVety and Friends, presumably) to be "offensive":

"Supporters of Bill C-10 were on Parliament Hill on Wednesday continuing their push for the Senate to pass the legislation that could allow the government to deny tax credits to films that are deemed offensive.

The omnibus bill includes an amendment to the Income Tax Act that would allow Heritage Minister Josee Verner, or a government committee, to deny credits to productions considered "contrary to public policy."

The proposed amendment has prompted a debate that pits advocates for the arts against groups such as the Canada Family Action Coalition."

McVety, who constantly voices his outrage by naming a movie called "Young People Fucking" (something he repeats with Tourettes-like regularity) (Edit - except he says "effing", but you already knew that, didn't you?), is one of Bill C-10's most excited and vocal proponents. Here's the chubby little blowhard himself:

"We do not believe this is censorship," McVety said of the bill. "Producers can make films on their own dime, if they wish to, but they should not expect families to deduct taxes from their budget and then to use those taxes for anti-family activities such as the films that we have mentioned."

McVety knows that invoking the word "family" is always good to get the brain-damaged grassroots up in arms and running around in circles jabbering, weeping and gnashing. Why is it that these dimwits always assume they're the only ones who have families and pay taxes? The producers of the films that so offend McVety also have families and pay taxes. But who cares, when there's a poll that shows a majority of Canadians are onside with the reverend:

"The group recently commissioned a poll by Compas Inc., that it says proves there is a consensus among Canadians that subsidies should not be provided to offensive films.

As painfully and embarassingly forced out of McVety as a stubborn kidney stone was the fact that in order to get that majority number, the poll had to ask something like "Should the government fund child pornography?". Well, duh!

McVety's group would lower the bar even further than pornography, to include what he calls "dirrrrrrty movies" (presumably like "Young People Fucking" -- hey, I wonder how many times McVety had to watch that movie, in a darkened room, with a warm bottle of cinnamon massage oil, to figure out that he was "offended"). But McVety denied any puritanical impulse to censor the arts:

McVety said his group is "not puritanical" and that it's simply arguing that the government should be responsible for setting and enforcing standards on what is offensive and what is not, which Bill C-10 allows it to do.

Oh dear, and whatever would we do without Charles McVety and the Ministry of We-Know-What's-Good-For-You to protect us from ourselves?