Pubdate: Sun, 10 Aug 2003
Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer (WA)
Copyright: 2003 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Contact:  http://www.seattle-pi.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/408
Author: Les Leyne, Special To The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Note: Les Leyne is a writer for the Victoria Times Colonist's Legislature 
Bureau.

SEX, DRUGS AND ROCK 'N' ROLL? BLAME CANADA

In the 20th century, good old boring, gray Canada was ... well, who knows 
what it was? Not many Americans ever noticed or cared.

But the 21st century Canada is a fast-breaking new story, going recently in 
a direction that has startled Canadians as much as it has everyone else.

In May, Canadians still shaking off the effects of winter awoke one day to 
find the federal government had introduced a bill that will decriminalize 
possession of small quantities of marijuana, making it a trivial violation 
on par with getting a $150 traffic ticket.

Then in June, an Ontario court ruling that will go unchallenged across most 
of Canada declared that same-sex marriages are legal. Gay couples started 
flocking into Toronto City Hall and other municipal offices to get marriage 
licenses. More than 300 of them have obtained legal licenses at Toronto 
City Hall alone at last count, including 49 from the United States, even 
though their ceremonies are not recognized back home.

Running concurrently was the news that the government retained the services 
of the Rolling Stones for a massive outdoor concert late last month to 
banish the lingering economic effect of SARS in Toronto. That's another 
first; who would have thought a government would ever enlist Keith Richards 
in a public health campaign?

In short order, Canada touched all three bases on the fabled road to ruin: 
sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll.

The gay marriage and marijuana stories continue to develop. The British 
Columbia court recently reversed itself and followed Ontario's lead. Within 
an hour, a gay couple on the courthouse steps got legally married for the 
first time in British Columbia (after changing bride and groom on the 
bureaucratic form to spouse). They sealed it with a passionate kiss carried 
on provincewide television.

Then the federal government announced the marijuana it has been growing in 
a remote northern mine shaft for a pilot medical-use project will be 
couriered to doctors and made available to people with medical certificates 
for $5 (Canadian) a gram.

Gays getting legally married, pot decriminalized, Ottawa dealing dope -- 
what's the deal?

If you compare catchphrases -- the United States' "life, liberty and the 
pursuit of happiness" from the Declaration of Independence versus Canada's 
"peace, order and good government" from the Constitution Act of 1867 -- you 
wouldn't think Canada would be breaking new ground on social-policy fronts. 
This is the country that brought the world televised curling.

But it is now looking positively European in some aspects. The old, faintly 
perceived image of being cold, cordial and cloistered is fading. Canada has 
gone from cold to cool. From cordial to beyond friendly (look for magazine 
cover teasers such as "When Mounties Marry -- Each Other"). And from 
cloistered to wide, wide open.

Mild-mannered Canadians, innately polite and orderly, seem to be taking it 
in stride so far. Religious leaders from various denominations have 
expressed serious reservations about legalized same-sex marriages. National 
organizations representing Catholics, Muslims and Orthodox Jews want the 
historic Biblical definition of a union of a man and a woman retained. More 
liberal faiths are going along, and some denominations are split right down 
the middle.

But religion holds far less sway in Canada than in the United States. A 
recent (Toronto) Globe and Mail headline about Canada's churchgoing rate (a 
laggard 20 percent, half the U.S. rate) read: "God is Dead: Whatever."

It's ironic, says the minister who performed British Columbia's first legal 
same-sex marriage. Tim Stevenson is the first openly gay ordained Canadian 
minister, the first openly gay Cabinet minister in Canada (in a previous 
government) and is now a Vancouver city councilman. Partnered for 21 years 
and co-father of three children, he laughs at the new image Americans may 
have of Canada: "The pot-smoking queers have taken power!"

Oddly enough, for an ordained minister, Stevenson said the lessened 
religious influence is a positive in Canada. Despite the U.S. history of 
welcoming people fleeing oppression, some of it religion-based, he says the 
irony is the United States now sometimes resembles a theocratic, religious 
republic.

But Canada is prepared to ignore its religious leaders, put aside Biblical 
injunctions and redefine marriage for the 21st century. The federal 
government will soon rewrite the law to recognize the court decision, and 
Canada will be only the third country in the world to legalize same-sex 
marriages, after Belgium and the Netherlands.

"There are very significant U.S.-Canadian differences, and these moves will 
accentuate those," Stevenson said. "I don't think it's any accident that 
the liberal European countries are much more aligned with us than the 
United States."

Some Canadians are worried about the clout the United States can bring to 
bear if it is moved to make its views about Canada felt. U.S. drug policy 
director John Walters already has warned Canada against the new pot laws, 
which could make for delays at already clogged border crossings.

And in the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning sodomy laws, Justice 
Antonin Scalia issued a dark, dissenting warning that the country is 
"heading down the road for judicially imposed homosexual marriages, as has 
recently occurred in Canada."

But not everyone is making much of this recent liberal lurch, or any 
emerging U.S.-Canada social gulf.

Keith Martin, an Opposition Member of Parliament from Vancouver Island, 
said: "There's a huge mythology that Canada is a more liberal, socialistic 
place. There is an erroneous perception that the U.S. is a monolithic, 
hard-right, intolerant Republican place.

"But large parts of the United States would fit comfortably into the 
Canadian approach. The picture is a lot more nuanced than that."

A dozen U.S. states have relaxed pot-possession laws, and large segments of 
the population don't support the administration's continued "war" on drugs, 
he said. By one estimate, 30 percent of the U.S. population lives under pot 
laws as or more lenient than the one introduced in Canada.

Marijuana activist Philippe Lucas, who openly sells marijuana to people in 
Victoria with doctor's certificates saying they need it, agrees.

"The U.S. is actually far ahead of Canada in allowing the medical use of 
marijuana at the state level," he said. Eight states, including Washington, 
already recognize that special use.

Lucas dismisses the new pot law as not going nearly far enough. "The 
original intent of the law was probably good, but it's a step backward. We 
had a chance to do something progressive, and we took a step backward."

The decriminalization of small amounts (under a half-ounce) simply reflects 
the reality; street cops using discretion opted out of arresting people for 
that offense years ago. There are two cafes in Vancouver where people smoke 
it openly -- no sales are allowed -- with minimal police interest. 
Ticketing is actually being touted as a way to increase enforcement; cops 
will issue fines, rather than lay charges.

"No one has 'gone Dutch' yet,' " said Lucas, meaning buying and selling 
openly, as well. "It's not something we'll see on the West Coast for a 
while yet.

"Even if the bill passes, which is very questionable, it still puts us far 
behind Europe in terms of progressive reform. They are miles ahead of us."

The Liberal government's pot law could die in Parliament. Its passage 
depends on whether outgoing Prime Minister Jean Chretien is serious about 
establishing that as a legacy, or just introduced it to make mischief for 
his likely successor, former Finance Minister Paul Martin, with whom he had 
a bitter falling-out last year.

It's widely presumed that Martin will win the current leadership race and 
be prime minister by early next year, when Chretien retires. In a recent 
interview in Victoria, Martin said even if the pot law doesn't make it 
through Parliament, he would continue with decriminalization, coupled with 
a crackdown on the biker gangs who deal in it.

"Society evolves," he said. "It's the responsibility of government to 
reflect that evolution. There's a book ("Fire and Ice: The U.S., Canada and 
the Myth of Converging Values" by Michael Adams) talking about the 
different perspectives that occur between Canadians and Americans over the 
past decade.

"The argument was, contrary to what people might normally think, the 
greater integration of the two economies has not led to an integration of 
perspectives or insights. In fact, Canadians are clearly going the other 
way. I think that's right.

"Whether this is because there's always been a greater collective sense of 
responsibility in Canada than in the U.S. -- there's a different history in 
the two countries -- I don't really know. But there's no doubt that that is 
a fact."

One theme common to the decriminalization and the same-sex marriage issues 
is that both were spurred by court rulings over the years flowing from the 
21-year-old Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The country relied for its 
charter on British law up until 1982, so the constitution is still in its 
infancy. And gays and marijuana activists made determined and ingenious use 
of it and other legal arguments over the years in pushing their respective 
causes.

Americans looking northward will notice other recent developments. Canada 
opted to sit out the U.S.-led war in Iraq, and the government enjoyed 
considerable support in making that decision. The government is also 
pursuing a stringent national gun-control regime, even though it has been 
established to be scandalously inefficient and monstrously over budget.

Inside Canada, it's startling to note both the recent swerves originated in 
Ontario, although the flaky Left Coast (the California of Canada) is 
supposed to be in the vanguard of social change. Wherever it's coming from, 
central Canada, the charter of rights or newly discovered fundamental 
social differences with the United States, it's been a remarkable few 
months on the social-policy front.

If some of these attitudes start creeping over the 49th parallel, Americans 
are advised to start singing the Oscar-nominated song from the "South Park" 
movie of a few years ago: "Blame Canada."
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MAP posted-by: Derek