Farmers know full well that the operation known as castration is performed for good reasons. But why some bureaucracies choose to act as if they’ve had such operations performed upon them is beyond me.
In Alberta, an Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner has been set up. Its main task seems to be to issue orders that are not worth the paper they are printed on. (Its website is a failure too – orders are missing, including ones relevant to this column. What a coincidence!)
Let’s backtrack a spell.
Many months ago, after some investigative reporting, a nurse in a rare moment of courage, sent to the dear folks at the former Alberta Report magazine a memo dealing with late-term abortions being committed at Calgary’s Foothills Hospital. Readers might remember that these are “genetic terminations.” If you are a good little Nazi, they are also known as eugenic abortions.
Abortions at this stage are done for “abnormalities,” meaning someone, somewhere doesn’t like a society filled with children who have Down syndrome. This is ironic, because I imagine the moral IQ of the children with Down is probably higher than that of the doctors who feel it is their calling to rid the world of them.
But I digress.
The fine folks at Alberta Pro-Life put in a request for info, using the province’s freedom of information law. They asked for info surrounding these abortions. At first the group was put off. I won’t go into the stalling that took place on behalf of the hospital – that’s to be expected. Why would you want anyone to know about the eugenic practices of the Third Reich being practiced in your institution? That would present problems for fundraising efforts.
At any rate, the hospital refused, and the case eventually went to the illustrious office of the information and privacy commissioner. His office in March ordered the hospital to release certain “statistical” information surrounding the late-term abortions and the babies who often survive them.
Did someone say “order?” I know, “order” is such a harsh-sounding term. But there, in black and white, under section V (that’s five, for those of you who went to public school) is the word “order.” Under the word “order,” the text states: “I request the Calgary Regional Health Authority to provide the applicant with the statistical information the public body has described and that it can create using its normal computer hardware and software systems and technical expertise.”
Hence, the problem. The commissioner, Mr. Frank Work, Q.C., is now insisting that it’s not really an order after all. He’s just asking nicely – pretty please, and all that. “Order” is too harsh a word. “Request” is also judgemental.
Enter the hospital. You could readily guess that this fine institution, which kills babies in late-term abortions when they don’t meet up to someone’s elitist qualifications, would refuse to give any more info.
When Mr. Frank Work, Q.C., gives an order, he means it. Really! Honest! He has “ordered” the material to be released. But since the hospital says “No,” a problem exists. Enter Bill Clinton.
Order doesn’t mean order. No such order was issued. A “request” was made. Why an information and privacy office even exists, when its “orders” mean nothing, is beyond me. Why even bother with it, Frank, Q.C.? Go home. No one is listening to you, and your suggestions are not worth the paper they are printed on.
Now, if you have trouble figuring out this one, there’s more that makes the story interesting ¼
At the time the story of the eugenic abortions was being made public, and as the hospital was desperately trying to list in an injunction anyone who had seen the nurses’s secret memo revealing the identities of the doctors who would rid the world of imperfect children, a nice lady by the name of Elizabeth Denham was working for the Calgary Regional Health Authority. She worked there as one of the individuals dealing with freedom of information requests, and was a media spokesperson who told everyone why it was no one’s business what happens to babies who survive abortions.
Anyway, guess where she works now? Come on, guess. Why, naturally, she works for the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta. But you knew that, didn’t you?
Conflict of interest? It all depends what you mean by “of.” It’s just another example of what Abortion, Inc. will stoop to in order to hide from the public what the word “choice” means.
