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NDP MP SVEND ROBINSON

When Alliance MP Larry Spencer expressed his views on homosexuality (see article Alliance MP Larry Spencer and Freedom of Speech), homosexual NDP MP Svend Robinson (Burnaby-Douglas, BC) was quick off the mark to condemn Mr. Spencer and the Alliance party. Mr. Robinson called the Alliance party "a gang of Neanderthals." He called Mr. Spencer a "bigot" and his comments "absolutely disgusting and unacceptable" (CBC News Online staff, Nov. 27, 2003). He also stated that there was other "slime" when one moves the Alliance rock away (CBC National Radio, Nov. 27, 2003).

In short, Mr. Robinson was just being his regular, mean-spirited self. He feels free to attack and to exhibit incredible intolerance to anyone who does not agree with him.

Homosexual Bills

In his sojourn in the House of Commons, since 1979, Mr. Robinson has been unceasing in advancing the homosexual agenda as well as the anti-family, anti-life agenda. He "came out" as a homosexual in 1988, and has never ceased flaunting it or his own personal agenda on the issue since then. Mr. Robinson, incidentally, came late to his homosexuality, as he was married to his high school sweetheart, Patricia, from 1972 until 1978, and described his sexual relationship with her as good. (See Saturday Night Magazine, May 1989.)

The innumerable bills on homosexuality introduced over the years by Mr. Robinson have covered all aspects of the homosexual agenda, such as amending the federal Human Rights Act to provide protection on the grounds of sexual orientation, providing same-sex benefits under the Income Tax Act and Canada Pension Plan, amending the Criminal Code's hate propaganda section to protect homosexuals as an identifiable group (bills by Mr. Robinson on this particular issue began back in 1991), and allowing homosexual partners to marry.

Anti-Family Bills

Mr. Robinson's anti-family, anti-life bills include those prohibiting the spanking of children by the removal of S.43 of the Criminal Code, which currently allows physical discipline of children if it is reasonable under the circumstances; and those enforcing abortion on demand, and ensuring that "medicare-funded hospital and clinic abortion services" are available across Canada. Mr. Robinson has also introduced innumerable bills in support of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. In this regard, it is noteworthy that Mr. Robinson was front and centre in the campaign by Sue Rodriguez to allow physician-assisted suicide. Mr. Robinson was present when Ms. Rodriguez' life ended in 1994 under mysterious circumstances. She had Lou Gehrig's disease and, therefore, could not have ended her life herself. Mr. Robinson claimed that a BC doctor, whom he refused to identify, was present when Ms. Rodriguez died. Mr. Robinson refused to say how Ms. Rodriguez died or whether it was the doctor who killed her. No charges were ever laid in that case.

Mr. Robinson's Controversial Career in Parliament

Mr. Robinson's controversial career in Parliament began for all intents and purposes, on January 29, 1981, when he proposed to the Joint Parliamentary House and Senate Committee on the Constitution that the equality section (S.15) of the Charter should include protection on the grounds of sexual orientation. The vote was 22 opposed and only 2 in favour of Mr. Robinson's motion, the two votes in support being those of Mr. Robinson and his NDP colleague, Lorne Nystrom.

Mr. Robinson has tried to get around the overwhelming vote by the Committee to reject sexual orientation in the Charter by alleging that a House of Commons Committee in 1985 voted in favour of it. However, that Committee's recommendation was ignored by all governments since then and was never acted upon.

It is significant that former Prime Minister Chrétien who was the Justice Minister at that time, stated not once, but seven times, that his government did not want the words "sexual orientation" included in the Charter.

Mr. Robinson next created a stir on February 17, 1987, while serving on a House of Commons committee to review the Criminal Code provisions on child abuse. On that date Mr. Robinson:

• Moved that the offense of buggery in the Criminal Code be removed as a separate specific offense. This motion was defeated by the Committee.



• Moved that the age of consent for buggery or sodomy (set at 21 years) be reduced to age 14, allegedly to conform to the age of consent for other sexual activity. (If accepted, this, of course, would have provided access to 14 year old adolescent boys by homosexual adults.) This motion was also defeated.



• Moved that the word "buggery" in the Criminal Code be changed to the words "anal intercourse." This was accepted by the Committee.



• Moved that no one under 18 years of age consenting to anal intercourse be guilty of a criminal offense. (This would have had the effect of permitting those under 18 years to freely engage in consensual anal intercourse.) This motion was defeated.

The Committee finally agreed that anal intercourse would remain an offense for any person under 18 years of age (thereby reducing the age of consent from 21 years to 18 years). This was passed into law in June 1987.

At that Committee hearing, Minister of Justice Ramon Hnatyshyn explained to the committee (Committee Proceedings 17-2, 1987:1:30) that the differences in age of consent for homosexual (anal sex) and that of other sexual activity was due to the fact that physical and psychological harm could be caused by anal intercourse because of the heightened danger of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases since anal tissue is more susceptible to physical damage [than vaginal tissue]. Also, there was uncertainty as to the age at which sexual preference is defined, which may be only in the later teen years. Consequently, he concluded that the reasons for the differences in the age of consent for sexual intercourse were practical ones, and had nothing to do with the equality issue.

In May 1994, Mr. Robinson began to lobby the House of Commons Board of Internal Economy. He posited that "as a matter of principle", homosexual employees and Members of Parliament should have their same-sex partners treated as "spouses" for free travel, French language training, dental care, hospital and pension benefits, etc. That year, the then-fortyish Mr. Robinson met a 25-year old Cuban, Max Riveron, during a vacation in Cuba. Mr. Robinson sponsored his youthful lover to Canada as a landed immigrant on "humanitarian and compassionate grounds." Mr. Riveron soon joined the Parliamentary Spouses Association as a "travel partner" and now flies frequently across Canada at the taxpayers' expense. According to Public Accounts, MPs travel expenses released on November 4, 2003, Mr. Robinson's travel expenses in 2002 travelling to and from his riding were listed at $224,399, the fourth highest for all MPs.

Mr. Robinson's Other Activities

The Calgary Sun (June 10, 1999) stated:

[Mr. Robinson] never met a parade of the trendy left he wasn't happy to lead - at least until his attention wandered off to the next cause.

For example:

• In 1994 Mr. Robinson was jailed 14 days for contempt of court due to his protest against logging on Clayoquot Sound for violating an injunction that banned interference of a road leading to the Clayoquot Forest (approximately 200 km. NW of Victoria).



• In 1985, Mr. Robinson was fined $750 for taking part in a similar blockade on the Queen Charlotte Islands.



• In June 1999, Mr. Robinson presented, on behalf of the Humanist Association of Canada, a petition in the House of Commons to erase God from the preamble of the Charter of Rights. Mr. Robinson followed this up with an appearance on CTV Canada AM in support of the petition. NDP party leader, Alexa McDonough, his party boss, was not amused and banished him to the backbenches while affirming her party's support for the reference to the "supremacy of God" in the Charter's preamble. Svend Robinson then accused Ms. McDonough of ineptitude and of making a major political blunder for reprimanding him after he tabled the petition. He urged in a letter to Dave MacKinnon, the NDP's president, that "the executive of the party review the issue to ensure that Ms. McDonough and the caucus 'take all steps necessary to repair the serious damage' done to him and the party.



• In April 2001, Mr. Robinson participated in the street riots at the Summit of the Americas meeting in Quebec City. Mr. Robinson subsequently called for a public enquiry into allegations of undue force and violence used by the RCMP in responding to the "peaceful demonstrators" at the Summit.

On the International Scene

• In April 1987, when President Ronald Reagan addressed the Canadian Parliament, Mr. Robinson, to the intense embarrassment of Prime Minister Mulroney and most Canadians, heckled Mr. Reagan calling out, "Stop Star Wars now."



• In 2002, after a junket to the Middle East, Mr. Robinson enthusiastically endorsed the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, condemning Israel as a "terrorist state … guilty of murder and torture." NDP party leader, Alexa McDonough, removed him as Foreign Affairs critic for the party as a result of the outburst.



• In October 2003, Senator Jerry Grafstein wanted Canada to commemorate September 11, 2001 as "America Day." Mr. Robinson loudly and sneeringly objected, claiming it should be called "Chile Day" instead to mark the day in 1973 when the U.S. backed military ousted Marxist Chilean President, Salvador Allende. This position is in keeping with Mr. Robinson's support of Marxist Castro's Cuba. He has sponsored and spoken at several pro-Castro rallies across Canada, and has aided organizations attempting to export goods to Cuba in contravention of U.S. law.



• Mr. Robinson was an apologist for Iraq's Saddam Hussein for many years, claiming the country was a veritable Eden with "an extensive health care system, clean and abundant drinking water, sewage-treatment plants … free education at all levels, and a comprehensive network of social services." He thereby overlooked the hideous truth of terror, torture and murder that stalked that country under Hussein.



• In November 2002, Mr. Robinson was banned from speaking at Concordia University in a debate on the Israel-Palestinian problem. Mr. Robinson claimed the injunction, obtained by the university, due to an uproar that arose when pro-Palestinian students prevented former Israel President Benjamin Netanyahu from speaking there, was "an outrageous assault on freedom of speech." He would know.

In November 2001, Mr. Robinson tabled his infamous Bill C-250, which, if it had passed, would have amended the hate propaganda section of the Criminal Code. The effect of this amendment would be to prevent the freedom of speech of many Canadians on the homosexual issue. This would be the obvious result since homosexual activists, and especially Mr. Robinson, have a very broad interpretation of the word "hate," even if spoken in debate in the House of Commons where speech is supposedly privileged.

Examples of Mr. Robinson's interpretation of hate are as follows:

• On September 20, 1994, Hansard, p.5910, Liberal MP Roseanne Skoke, when speaking to a proposed amendment to the Criminal Code to increase sentences for hate motivated crimes because of sexual orientation, stated in part:

  Such a special recognition of sexual orientation in our federal legislation is an overt condonation of the practice of homosexuality which is being imposed on Canadians. It has the effect of legislating a morality that is not supported by our Canadian and Christian morals and values.
  
  Canadians do not have to accept homosexuality as being natural and moral. Homosexuality is not natural, it is immoral and it is undermining the inherent rights and values of our Canadian families and it must not and should not be condoned.

  MP Svend Robinson, sponsor of Bill C-250, stated in response as follows:

  My question for the hon. Member is a simple one. Will she now stand in her place and retract those hateful comments she made suggesting that people, homosexualists as she called them, were promoting and advancing the homosexual movement which is spreading AIDS. That kind of fear mongering, that kind of hateful conduct has no place in this House.
  
  I want to ask the hon. Member to stand in her place and take this opportunity to withdraw those hateful words. Failing that, I want to ask other members of the Liberal caucus when will they end their silence and when will the Prime Minister end his silence and say that this woman has no place in the Liberal Party of Canada? (Emphasis ours.)

  Ms. Skoke responded:

  … I stand here in my place as a member of Parliament and under no circumstances would I ever retract the statements I have made. I have a right as a Canadian. I have a right as a Christian to defend the values of our country and to defend the traditions and to exercise my rights of freedom of expression on this issue.
  
  My learned friend raised the issue that there were hateful comments. They are not hateful comments. They are true comments shared by the majority of Canadians with respect to issues regarding morality.

  Not satisfied with this response, on September 27, 1994, Mr. Robinson stated, in a letter to Prime Minister Jean Chrétien:

  … unless she [Ms. Skokes] retracts her statements in the House and stops this homophobic hate-mongering, surely there should not be a place for her in the Liberal Government Caucus. I urge you to take speedy action on this very serious matter. (Emphasis ours.)

• On October 23, 2002, MP Svend Robinson accused Opposition Leader, Stephen Harper, of a "thinly veiled homophobic attack" in the House of Commons, when Mr. Harper suggested photos of Mr. Robinson were being posted "in much more wonderful places than in a police station." Mr. Robinson's naked photograph, however, had been posted on the internet in June 2001 in a fund-raising appeal by a marine conservationist group, called the Georgia Strait Alliance. The web site, called "Hunks for Habitat," included Mr. Robinson's naked image covered with seashells. Each $50 donation to the fund resulted in a shell being removed from his image. Under these circumstances, it is difficult to understand why Mr. Harper's statement of fact would be construed as "hateful" - especially when Mr. Robinson called his fellow parliamentarian, Stephen Harper, a "scumbag" for his comments.



• On December 7, 1999, MP Svend Robinson seized a sign on which were written quotes from Catholic teaching on the homosexual issue. The sign was held by a Catholic priest, Father Anthony Van Hee, who protests outside Parliament on a daily basis. Mr. Robinson broke the sign and threw it over the wall, claiming it was "hateful," even though the sign merely quoted Catholic teachings.

Although no person supports the promulgation of hate against anyone, there is well-justified concern that those who may wish to challenge homosexual conduct as unhealthy, immoral or sinful, would be obliged to answer to a hate crime charge under Bill C-250. That is, if mere innuendo, such as Mr. Harper's comments, or the expression of Christian beliefs in privileged comments by an MP during Parliamentary debate, or a Catholic priest protesting outside Parliament merits Mr. Robinson's outrage, one can imagine the eagerness with which Mr. Robinson would attempt to bring a prosecution under the Criminal Code (S.319 - hate propaganda) to silence anyone else who might disagree with him.

The above is just a short list of the assaults on logic, common sense and reason exhibited by Mr. Robinson over the years in the relentless advancing of his own agenda.

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