Banks in Toronto get robbed regularly – why doesn’t every single branch have at least one armed guard? For all the potential of armed robbery, it’s rare to see an armed guard stationed at a local bank. Aside from the cost of armed security, the desire for comfortable customers and the fact their money is insured, banks have another reason for leaving out armed guards at all their locations – they know that armed guards make a bank more dangerous than do unarmed ones.

Bank security is based in part on the belief that the more firearms you introduce into an aggressive situation, the more you expose involved parties to potential harm. The implication is that it’s better to get robbed than killed (especially if you have to wait in line first). I wonder why our local schools and police force continue to contradict this principle by insisting that armed police officers need to be in Toronto’s public high schools.

We do not want young people to bring weapons, especially firearms, to school. An armed robbery at North Toronto Collegiate late last week is a reminder that some youths are still making this unfortunate choice. Even before the media had the correct details of the incident, some were already suggesting it is further evidence that we need armed police officers in our schools.

Initially, Adrian Morrow of the Toronto Star incorrectly reported that the incident took place at Northern Secondary, a school that received plenty of attention last fall for another incident involving a Toronto Police officer stationed there. Now that we know the incident happened at a school without a stationed police officer, we have to anticipate criticism of the school for its presumed negligence, as well as calls for an officer be immediately installed at North Toronto Collegiate.

If the armed robbery had occurred in a school with a so-called Student Resource Officer, would the outcome necessarily have been better for the victims? Is the possibility of stopping the theft of, in this case, two iPods worth the risk of a shootout between a boy and a police officer in a school hallway? Would we accept the potentially fatal consequences of such a set-up, or justify unintended injuries to students or staff in the name of armed school safety?

A weapon in the hands of a police officer has potential to do great harm in a school environment, if for no other reason than the unpredictable nature of an armed conflict. The idea that we’d rather have gun-toting police in schools than gun-toting students is irrelevant. The very presence of any firearms only increases the likelihood that someone will get shot. Only a mythical last-man-standing mentality suggests we can intimidate, injure or even kill anyone who threatens us without considerably damaging ourselves and our communities. This is not the kind of learning environment we want for our students.

The bank knows that customers who are distracted by the constant threat of violence can’t concentrate on giving up all their money. The bank knows that putting more guns in banks means more people will get shot in banks. They call it customer service.

We know that a student who is distracted by the constant threat of violence cannot learn. We know that the more guns are present in public schools, the greater the risk to the people in those schools and their communities. A firearm has no place in a school, even if it belongs to a Toronto Police officer. If a gun could guarantee the safety and growth of our most valuable assets, no bank would be without one.

One night almost 10 years ago, I was walking a friend to her apartment in the student village at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. As we neared her home, we crossed a local police officer. He was looking at us, a black man and a white woman, very intently, and he suddenly called out to my friend, “Miss, do you need assistance?” She was almost too stunned to reply that she was just fine.

Reflecting on the situation in the days and weeks afterward, I wondered if there was any credible reason the officer might have assumed something was wrong. Had there been a call to police about a domestic dispute or strange behaviour in the area? Did the officer think my friend seemed frightened or in distress? I couldn’t understand it. But I wasn’t inclined to chalk it up to coincidence, bad luck or misunderstanding.

Throughout the 20 months in which I lived and studied in Kingston, I simply lost count of the dozens of times I was followed or pulled over in my car by the police without being ticketed, stopped while walking around town, asked for identification and questioned. I had no criminal record. Similar incidents, more than 20 by my count, have occurred in the many Toronto neighbourhoods I’ve called home. I stopped believing in the coincidence of these encounters long ago.

Many other black men who share my experiences move through daily life with an understanding – the colour of our skin is a major factor in our disproportionate rates of non-criminal encounters with the police. Aside from the feelings of anger, mistrust, humiliation and fear these experiences create, black men must also endure the convenient and racist notion that because we are black, we should expect or tolerate racial profiling in the name of public safety.

As noted this morning in a Toronto Star feature on racial profiling and the Toronto police, not only are black men disproportionately charged with more violent crimes than other groups, we are also disproportionately the victims of such crimes. This is why many people think it’s understandable, practical, even necessary for us to be singled out by the police, asked more questions, given less benefit of the doubt. The message is that even if we are not criminals, it’s not worth it to take a chance on us, and that the emotional and psychological aftermath of being treated as natural born suspects is our own problem.

Outside my university campus, I only ever saw one black person in Kingston. The city’s census data from 2001 includes 850 people who identified as black. Yet the Kingston Police data colection project, a study initiated the year I left Kingston (2003), found that over the course of a year, the Kingston police stopped 304 black people. Black male residents were found to be three times more likely to be stopped than people from other racial backgrounds.

My personal Kingston experiences tell me it’s unlikely these numbers indicate a few troublemakers who refused to change. Instead, I wonder how many of those who were stopped had, like me, no criminal record or reason to be suspected. I was needlessly stopped so many times that I became paranoid and went to the police station to complain. The harassment only stopped when I left Kingston, only to resume in neighbourhoods across Toronto from the Beaches to Davenport to the club district.

Our police almost uniformly resist any opportunity to participate in studies on racial profiling and its impacts on the people it targets. The Star and other groups have been fighting in court for years to obtain information about profiling in Toronto. When Kingston’s police chief apologized to local black people for the biased conduct of his officers, his colleagues in the province and across Canada criticized him for exposing his officers to scrutiny. Ironically, even though most jurisdictions won’t even consider such studies, supporters of racial profiling continue to tell the victims that they should not fear cooperation if they have done nothing wrong.

But the societies police are sworn to protect do just as poorly when it comes to discussing the continued reality of racism in our midst. We don’t want to believe that such institutionalized prejudice exists in a country that is, relatively speaking, incredibly peaceful and tolerant. We grant our police permission to single out black people in the course of  their work, even though we no longer justify (and have consistent legislation against) the same sort of superficial prejudice in an interview room, at a bank, in a court of law.

Two events in Kingston prompted its police to collect and analyze race-based statistics on public contact. In the first incident in 2001, officers drew and pointed their guns at a group of black teenage boys who were, the police later admitted, doing nothing wrong. The youngest boy was 12 years old.

Two years later, during my time in Kingston, two young boys were again accosted by police, and again were found to have done nothing wrong. One of the boys, a 14 year old, was the same 12 year old the police had drawn their guns on two years earlier. I guess after the first mistake, they couldn’t expect him to take another one for the team.

Racial profiling doesn’t work because it relies on the faulty assumption that we can predict someone’s behaviour or personality based on the colour of their skin. It is institutionalized racism. And for every crime allegedly intercepted by racial profiling, there are scores of black men whose potential is pinned to the ground by their society’s lowered expectations.

While it is difficult to know all the circumstances of the situation, two things are very clear. First, the officer’s stated reason for talking to the student was a suspicion of trespassing. Second, the boy is a student at the school. The officer, in his capacity as part of the Student Resource Officer Program, wouldn’t have the same opportunities to interact with students as teachers do. So it’s not surprising he didn’t recognize the young man as a Northern student. What is surprising is how handled a situation best left to a teacher or administrator, and that he didn’t simply alert one of them for the quick task  of identifying a student.

I expect the charge of assault with intent to resist arrest means the assault occurred while the student was being arrested, not before. No other charges have been announced. What exactly was he being arrested for? It is clear from the video and from eyewitnesses that the young man is wearing his school lanyard, the albatross of student identification common to most Toronto schools. It’s also clear that fellow students know who he is (many of them can be heard in the video shouting “let him go,” and “he didn’t do anything wrong.”) So presumably, he was being arrested for giving attitude to a police officer before the alleged assault took place. The young man asks several times while being handcuffed, “don’t you have to let me know what I’ve done?” He clearly did not understand why he was being taken into police custody, and at no time in the video does the officer explain it.

But it should never have come to handcuffs and cellphone videos. If the student was breaking a school rule (and there’s nothing to suggest so far that he was) then it’s up to his teachers and administration to deal with him. You don’t need a badge and a gun to enforce Toronto District School Board and school policies. The assumption that an armed police officer is the best person to handle the day-to-day disciplinary actions within a school has no merit. On the contrary, it only contributes to the cynical relationship between many young people and the police, the very relationship the Student Resource Officer program was intended to improve.

One basic role of teachers and administrators is to know all their students by name and face. That’s why this officer is the wrong one to be patrolling the halls in the first place. When I was a student, our vice-principals took care of issues like these. We wore uniforms, but on non-uniform days is was common for friends from neighbouring  schools to try and blend in. When the VPs or other teachers noticed students from other schools, they took them to the office and called their parents. There was no need to involve the police.

Since the murder of Jordan Manners at C.W. Jeffery’s Collegiate Institute in 2007 and the ensuing Falconer report on school safety, we have been operating under a different set of assumptions in Toronto. Primary among these is the assumption that students are dangerous, and that we need officers in our schools to confront dangerous students head on. Many will therefore assume that the young man was dangerous, and needed to be threatened and restrained for his non-compliance. Sadly, confrontations like this one go against the very purpose of the SRO program.

When the idea of police in schools was being debated, police chief Bill Blair was quoted as saying, “I do not intend to have my police officers be hall monitors. For us it’s not only about keeping the schools safe but about building relationships with all those young people.” He also said at that time he expected his officers’ roles to be “casual and low-key.”  The chief knew that officers cannot replace school staff, and that students who fear or mistrust the police wouldn’t benefit from power struggles about absences and skipping class.

It is also very unfortunate that the young man in this case is black. Whether it is stated openly or not, young black men are a specific target when it comes to any program meant to improve relationships between police and civilians. I used to oversee a youth pickup basketball league at a downtown community centre. The police were always eager for an opportunity to come shoot around with the mostly black young men who played four times a week. It was the only time I ever got to see officers and young men interacting in the absence of guns, handcuffs, uniforms and badges. It built relationships and trust.  No one should be surprised if the incident at Northern Secondary has shaken students’ trust in the police.

I have never been comfortable with the idea of armed officers in Toronto schools, but they are there now and they have an important role to play. I think students need more than respect for  authority to be happy, healthy and safe. There’s a long list of people I’d like to see more of in our schools – educational assistants, guidance counsellors, public health nurses, social workers. This incident makes me wonder if I should add hall monitors to my list. Heck, someone has to issue late slips and check washroom passes – they just don’t need to be packing heat.

Under Ignatieff, the Liberals have yet to distinguish distinct policy alternatives to Harper’s Conservatives. In April Ignatieff made the strategic mistake of publicly suggesting a Liberal government would have to raise taxes in order to reduce the multi-billion dollar federal defecit. When the media ran the story, Ignatieff said they misunderstood him. What he meant was that he wouldn’t raise taxes, a position he and the Prime Minister share.

In late June Ignatieff was interviewed by Gary Mason of the Globe and Mail about Liberal party prospects in Western Canada, specifically in Alberta. Employing one of the most clever metaphors our politics have seen in a while, Ignatieff defended Alberta’s Oil sands development:

This is a national industry. It’s pumping something like $8-billion into the federal treasury. So it’s slightly bad faith to beat the goose that lays the golden egg over the head with a stick. The goose is a little messy. The goose needs to be cleaned up. The goose needs to make better use of the yard, but let’s make this a sustainable industry that all Canadians can be proud of.

Oscar…er, Genie! A commendable performance, and one close enough to the current government’s stance to be palatable to voters in Alberta, assuming any of them are listening.

Ignatieff’s most forceful and frequent attack against Harper has focused on the slumping economy. But despite job losses numbering in the hundreds of thousands since late last fall, the Liberals are unwilling to make Employment Insurance a ballot issue. One senior Liberal recently said EI is not a “defining issue” worthy of a fall election. Given that Canadians are experiencing the most serious job losses in decades, and that many of the jobless do not even qualify for EI, one wonders what issue could be more pressing.

Of course, issues don’t necessarily dictate election calls or campaigns. If you’ll remember, the previous election in our country had to do with a thing called “leadership,” which denotes the ability to shout across the aisle of the House of Commons in comprehensible English, the ability not to lose debates outright, and the ability to look statesmanlike  in a sweater vest. While most would agree that it isn’t hard to follow Stephane Dion’s leadership performance, Ignatieff has also failed to convince Canadians he is sweater vest material. A recent Ipsos Reid poll suggests not only that Canadians think Harper is a better leader than Ignatieff, but also that he is better suited to improve the economy and represent Canada’s international interests.

So what’s it all about? It’s about the NDP who, despite a provincial vitory in Nova Scotia last month, have far less money, support and momentum than the Liberals. In most of the pre-election standoffs in recent years, Layton has enjoyed the luxury of declaring his intention not to support the government even before it proposes anything. This time Ignatieff has acted first, leaving Layton to either support Harper and jeopardize credibility within his own party (Layton has clearly distinguished himself from Harper on EI, the oil sands, taxation, Afghanistan and many other issues) or force an election for which the NDP is ill-positioned.

It would be the first election since Layton led the charge for opposition parties to form a coalition to replace Harper. Canadians, to say the least, didn’t respond well to the idea, and Layton would have to hope they’ve forgotten how hard he fought to see it through. As political commentator Andrew Coyne also pointed out in an interview today, the NDP must now fundraise to find a replacement for outgoing Manitoba premier Gary Doer, whom Harper has smartly appointed as Canada’s ambassador to the United States.

Once again, our politics is being defined by opposition weakness rather than government popularity. Most people in this country want someone other than Harper to lead, but the number of opposition parties and the first-past-the post voting system makes the prospect of change unlikely for now. Time will tell if Jack Layton wants to gamble on an election, or attempt to strike a deal for his supporters that would extend Harper’s rule. By any standard, he’s been dealt a tough hand.

Now that we’ve handled formalities, a riddle: what do the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) and the news-making principal of a Brampton high school have in common? Whether intentionally or through ignorance, both parties have advanced the notion that we can discuss racism without actually referencing racist language. I disagree, and if you chose to keep reading this piece after its opening word, perhaps you do too. Words take on whatever power we give them, and our reluctance to use contentious language often sharpens its potential to do harm.

Last week the principal of a Brampton school decided to remove Harper Lee’s celebrated novel To Kill a Mockingbird from the reading list for his school’s grade 10 students after receiving a complaint from one parent, allegedly about the word nigger. Many major publications and broadcasters have lined up to criticize the principal and the complaining parent, yet most of them refuse to print it or utter the word they claim to defend. It reminds me of Tom Robinson, the black man in the story accused of raping a white woman. No lawyer in the town wants to defend him for fear of being labeled a “nigger lover.”

Given that removing one word or expression from its context qualifies as a legitimate complaint in this case, almost any word could be deemed offensive. The idea that nigger isn’t just any word still has its limitations – would a complaint about the appearance of nigger in a school dictionary, for example, be met with equal credibility? The implication is that the specific use of nigger in the novel is cause for concern.

It is possible this complaining parent has never actually read or heard of To Kill a Mockingbird, a narrative that critiques racism, stereotyping and systemic discrimination in the United States during the 1950s. The principal must certainly be familiar with the book and its distinction of the Pulitzer Prize in 1961. Debates about whether To Kill a Mockingbird deserves its critical acclaim or whether it is an essential resource for students are secondary. This is about a word that continues to incite such singular fear and division in our society.

As long as I have known it, I have recognized nigger as the most powerful word in the English language. A boy in my elementary school who spewed this insult at me did so under his breath, aware that it was too dangerous a word to be overheard.  My first copy of The Adventures of Huck Finn contained a foreword detailing the controversy Mark Twain ignited by employing nigger 215 times in his novel. Two years ago, the NAACP organized a mock funeral for the “N-word” in Detroit. Although the outside of the casket contained only a derivation of nigger, the NAACP’s press release confirmed the deceased was indeed inside the coffin. Kwame Kilpatrick, then mayor of Detroit, declared, “Die N-word, and we don’t want to see you ’round here no more.” (In fairness to Kilpatrick, using the actual word in that context would have been a poor PR move.)

It isn’t too late to launch an investigation to determine which poor member of the NAACP actually had to write nigger in that coffin. The organization’s merciless leaders must have forced a low-ranking member to do it, since they could never sully themselves. Maybe they hastily tossed in copies of Chris Rock’s Bigger and Blacker and Toni Morrison‘s The Bluest Eye. Or perhaps they secretly contracted out the dirty deed to a local rapper who uses it all the time anyway. (Not Eminem, though – the Detroit native has been quoted as saying the N-word is not a word he chooses to F-word with.)

In any case, the word is far from dead. The NAACP funeral denotes an unhealthy obsession with nigger, a term that has likely crossed over to the realm of the undead, unaffected by our every mortal attempt to banish it to language hell. The problem with allowing words which make us uncomfortable to be isolated, decontextualized and demonized is that we also end up avoiding words we really need. One casualty of this timidity is the word racism. Despite frequent instances of racism in our public institutions and mainstream media, we are at best suspicious of the idea of racism as a cultural reality. Racism, too, has become a bad word, one we’d rather deny that discuss.

When U.S. President Barack Obama was campaigning against Senator John McCain, he never once used the word racism to describe claims that he was a “secret Muslim” or an associate of terrorists, even though the implications were clear. More recently, when a Boston police officer arrested a black Harvard professor in his own home after suspicions the professor had broken in, Obama weighed in but again refrained from referencing racism or racial profiling. He spoke instead of “troubling aspects of our society” and “teachable moments.”

Obama’s opponents are eager for him to drop the “R-Word,” which would allow them to counter that he has played the “race card,” a term that has become household in American politics as steadily as racism has become taboo. Even blatantly racist claims, such as the notion that Barack Obama is not an American citizen, are framed in the false dichotomy of “racism vs. race card.” Media outlets rarely qualify events as racist; they prefer to speculate about whether or not a given event was or was not racist, as if the word has no accepted meaning or application. Like the word nigger, we trivialize racism as something that may no longer be relevant in modern public debate.

Obama’s political motivations for avoiding the word racism are obvious enough. But Obama cannot lead an honest social debate about racism because his current position prevents him from calling a spade…well, you get it.

Our attempts to purge ourselves of ideas and words, no matter how undesirable, lend them a supernatural power they do not deserve. When words become unspeakable – when we lose any ability to detach ourselves from our fears through literature, art, music, satire, and journalism – we engage in denial instead of engaging our social problems. The conviction that words like nigger or racist are among the worst in our language is no excuse to stop using them or to stop exploring the ideas that activate them.

We cannot address our challenges by plugging our ears, humming a tune or banning a book.  What we can do is speak and listen without shutting down dialogue, challenge ourselves about words and perspectives that make us uncomfortable, ask more questions, take more deep breaths. The students who are being shielded from Mockingbird are 14 and 15 years old. I’d be stunned if any of them have never heard the word nigger. It’s up to us whether they also learn what it means, where it comes from and how it affects our culture.

Although most people are uncomfortable with nigger, they are generally more comfortable when it comes from a black speaker or writer; it’s a lasting function of the word’s history. However, one cannot own a word any more than one can own a person. So long as we refrain from using language to degrade ourselves and others, we are all entitled to it. Harper Lee is a white woman from Alabama who had the courage to write what she experienced. Nearly 50 years after its publication, To Kill a Mockingbird contains lessons which are – to a word – still worth the challenges necessary to acquire them.

But I suppose there is one small, and admittedly dwindling crowd whose lives got a little less interesting last week. I’m referring to that special interest group that lives to cringe, the linguistic masochists among us who revel in the pain caused by dangling participles, excessive exclamations, and curious quotation marks. For Sarah Palin has mastered them all – and not by accident, I’m inclined to believe.

Consider a line from the online version of her resignation speech, which attributes her success to the people around her: “It’s because of the people… good public servants surrounding the Governor’s office, with servants’ hearts and astounding work ethic… they are Alaska’s success!” Now, is it possible that among this dedicated group of civil servants, there is not one individual charged with the task of editing Palin’s public communications before posting them online? The speech of about 2,500 words is rife with cringeworthy errors and baffling turns of phrase. Especially perplexing is the constant misuse of quotation marks, as if the speaker is parodying English instead of using it to communicate.

In a recent interview, conservative journalist David Frum compared U.S. president Barack Obama to Johnny Carson, calling him “better than his material.” No one can say the same for Palin, whose acutal delivery of this poorly-conceived speech is even more grating than the written version. The online copy of the address is proof that Palin and her advisors are pushing a brand of communication defined by intentional errors and the ire they provoke.  Those of us who criticize obvious mistakes are labelled elitist and out of touch. Too many of Palin’s opponents have overreached in taking this bait, and their characterizations of her as an unqualified half-wit only energize her thriving base of social conservatives. Palin wants and needs to be defined by liberal ridicule, scoffing and disdain, so that she can be even more tenacious in her defense of all things apple pie and ordinary.

Like Palin, I’m not ashamed to be myself. I think language matters, especially when it is published for mass consumption. The question of Palin’s intellectual capacity is far less important than her stated ability to surround herself with competent people, a claim I reject based (among other things) on the publication of her resignation speech. Palin’s alleged status as a commoner doesn’t excuse her inability to communicate in something resembling proper English, especially on a government website.

However, as an admitted linguistic masochist, my days will be duller without her unique style of political voice and theatre (although Palin herself will be back in some form before you can say “doggone it!”). In memoriam, then, a sampling of puzzling proverbs from Sarah Palin’s farewell from politics, unedited of course:

So I choose, for my State and my family, more “freedom” to progress, all the way around… so that Alaska may progress… I will not seek re-election as Governor.

I wish you’d hear more from the media of your state’s progress and how we tackle Outside interests – daily – special interests that would stymie our state. Even those debt-ridden stimulus dollars that would force the heavy hand of federal government into our communities with an “all-knowing attitude” – I have taken the slings and arrows with that unpopular move to veto because I know being right is better than being popular.

And this political absurdity, the “politics of personal destruction” … Todd and I are looking at more than half a million dollars in legal bills in order to set the record straight.

And a problem in our country today is apathy. It would be apathetic to just hunker down and “go with the flow”. Nah, only dead fish “go with the flow”.

These Troops and their important missions – those are truly the worthy causes in this world and should be the public priority with time and resources and not this local / superficial wasteful political bloodsport.

Let me go back to a comfortable analogy for me – sports… basketball. I use it because you’re naïve if you don’t see the national full-court press picking away right now: A good point guard drives through a full court press, protecting the ball, keeping her eye on the basket… and she knows exactly when to pass the ball so that the team can win. And I’m doing that – keeping our eye on the ball that represents sound priorities – smaller government, energy independence, national security, freedom! And I know when it’s time to pass the ball – for victory.

We need those who will respect our Constitution where government’s supposed to serve from the bottom up, not move toward this top down big government take-over… but rather, will be protectors of individual rights – who also have enough common sense to acknowledge when conditions have drastically changed and are willing to call an audible and pass the ball when it’s time so the team can win! And that is what I’m doing!

You can read the entire speech at http://www.gov.state.ak.us/exec-column.php

That’s what happens when you mix a pretty standard human behaviour with moral messaging. It’s worth noting that the Bible does not condemn masturbation (there’s no “thou shalt not stroke” commandment). However, the creators of that textbook, as well as the school board that sanctioned it, felt this was need-to-know info for all 8th graders. We needed to understand that even though masturbation happens, it is still wrong.

Recent amendments to Alberta’s Human Rights Act (Bill 44) have me reflecting on my childhood sexual mis-education. The Act now mandates prior warning to parents whenever  “subject-matter that deals explicitly with religion, sexuality or sexual orientation” will be addressed in school. This guarantees parents the opportunity to pull their kids out of class during any such lessons. The fact that the Alberta School Act already requires schools to notify parents before sex ed. lessons was apparently not enough protection. Now the Alberta Human Rights Commission will weigh in when parents feel their rights have been violated.

Supporters of these changes are thanking the government for affirming “choice” in the education of Alberta’s children. It is a parent’s responsibility, they argue, to teach children about these sensitive issues. But is it also their right not to teach their children about religion and sex at all? Is the Alberta government really saying that even the most basic lessons about religion, sexuality and sexual orientation are not fundamental pre-requisites for a legitimate public education?

The implications are shocking. For example, I wonder how many Albertan mothers (and fathers, for that matter) teach their daughters (and sons, for that matter) about the clitoris. Bill 44 asserts not only that you don’t need to know about the clitoris to get on in the world, but that being told about the clitoris without your parents’ permission is a violation of human rights. Other optional pieces of reality include the existence and experience of transgendered people, Canada’s legalization of same sex marriage, and the difference between a Muslim and a Mormon.  These topics are too controversial to be considered mandatory learning, especially given the apparent “liberal bias” of most educators.

Definitions are critical here. A class test on the 206 bones in the human body is biology. But a test about testicles is sexuality, and therefore controversial enough to be the subject of a human rights complaint. And while some form of education about racial diversity is the norm is Canadian schools today, a lesson on religious diversity necessitates a warning. No need to warn parents about today’s lesson on critical thinking, though – due to the lack of material to discuss, analyze and criticize, the lesson is canceled.

I suppose children who want to learn about these things can wait until they are adults. By then, they’ll be so utterly horrified and confused by religious and sexual diversity that they will instinctively plug their ears…and the ears of their children. At least I got to learn what masturbation was before my textbook demonized it.

Meanwhile soldiers from Alberta are fighting and dying in Afghanistan, allegedly so that Afghan women and girls can get an education. I hope they can come home soon – their own childrens’ education is facing an insurgency.

1) Unions negotiate their own labour.

Workers can’t make decisions about their own compensation! Only politicians, business executives and mercenaries have the moral authority to do that. Everyone else should be grateful for whatever they get. Think of the noble Wal-mart shopping cart wrangler: loyally supporting her employer by shopping exclusively at Wal-mart, using breaks to scour the parking lot for half-scratched Keno tickets, smiling that charming, toothless smile as I pass. Who would interfere with this humble existence?

2) Unions go on strike.

If you don’t like your contract – or if your management is too busy with real tasks to renegotiate your contract – you can’t just walk off the job. People with any integrity see poor working conditions as an opportunity to guiltlessly steal that cool correction tape stuff, pay for Lavalife accounts with the company card, or change the hold music to Soulja Boy’s Greatest Hits. What you lose in compensation, you gain in passive-aggressive sabotage and decreased productivity for the employer you love to hate.

3) Unions form picket lines.

If you’re on strike, shouldn’t you stay home or something? Why would you stand outside your place of business in the sun, chanting, waving a half-tree, shuffling around in circles like a pigeon struck by a bumper? Public protest is aggresive, juvenile and obnoxious. If I want the straight goods on your motives, I’ll read online comments.  Hardworking, ordinary folks are pros at sifting through the complexities of collective bargaining, getting straight to the personal attacks that help me understand issues…and their usernames remind me that I love Canada.

4) Unions only help their own members.

Unions are completely selfish. They only look after their own flock. What’s worse, they promote a culture of selfishness that incites other whiners to form their own unions and pursue their own unique forms of selfishness. Soon, entire sectors have unions selfishly competing to maximize their own interests. This is in direct opposition to capitalism, the greatest unifying force the world has ever known.

5) Unions collect dues.

Employing a tax-and-spend socialist ideology, unions charge dues that get redistributed for the “common good” of all members. Of course, ordinary people in free markets can decide how to spend their money better than any union. For example, the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) claims on its website that its employees get access to legal counsel, training and discounted benefits through their dues. Someone should inform these hacks that plasma flat-screen technology is driving our economy – think how many TVs their members could have bought with that money! Forget a lawyer – I want Law and Order: Criminal Intent in fifty-two glorious inches of high definition.

So you see union bosses, it’s no use. Your fringe values will always separate you from the mainstream. You live in a fantasy world that can never exist. When will you join the honest masses, who yearn for the day we can all suffer in silence, together?