So, Ernie Will Stand Up For The Lords' Prayer(Just not for anything that matters)

THIS IS WHY WE PAY THE GUY THE BIG BUCKS...

Ernie can't stand up for the conservation lands in the area, and Ernie can't stand up for poverty, nor will he fight for stable funding for the learning disabled but there is one thing, one little thing that Ernie can do, and that is to stand up for the intangible God thing.

This week Ernie announced that he would take the government to task over the Lords'prayer in the form of an online petition(http://www.erniehardemanmpp.com/) that he intends to read in the Ontario legislature (if he gets enough signatures) that demands that the Lords' prayer be kept in the Ontario legislature. The petition is worded like this...

PETITION
TO the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:
Whereas, the current Liberal government is proposing to eliminate the Lord’s Prayer
from its place at the beginning of daily proceedings in the Legislature, and;
Whereas, the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer has opened the Legislature every day
since the nineteenth century, and;
Whereas, the Lord’s Prayer’s message of forgiveness and the avoidance of evil is
universal to the human condition: it is a valuable guide and lesson for a chamber that is
too often an arena of conflict, and:
Whereas, recognizing the diversity of the people of Ontario should be an inclusive
process, not one which excludes traditions such as the Lord’s Prayer;
Therefore we the undersigned ask the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to preserve
the daily recitation of the Lord’s Prayer by the Speaker in the Legislature.

Ernie believes that we residents of Ontario have been wronged by Mr Mcguinty,(he may be right and everyone in the province could say they've been wronged by him...but removing the Lords Prayer from the operations of government doesn't count.) and he intends on doing something about it...afterall, Ontario could very well end up in the pits of hell if he doesn't take this mess up.

For the past year and a half, Ernie has been consulted on many matters,with no effect and certainly no action. On the issue of Standard tube and Burgess parks, Ernie said there was squat he could do for the community even though the land is covered under provincial legislation, he still refused to do anything. He also claimed that the on the issue of Info Energy, there was nothing he could do as it isn't proper for him to deal wqith the municpal tier.(even though his self claimed "extensive knowledge" of the Ontario Municipal Act might have come in handy during the investigation process which is still ongoing...but heck no, he can't be involved, 'cuz that would look like he's interfering in the operations of the municipality once again.)

On the issue of Autism, Ernie said before the last election that he would support any intitatives that would assist parents of these children to gain a better education for their learning disabled kids, but no, Ernie doesn't say nothing about that.

Instead, Ernie(in this day and age of secular government)decides that ensuring the right of the intangible "lords"prayer to exist in peace in the daily operations of government would be more important than anything else he could come up with....like say a petition to save the family farm, or say a petition to ensure that all school age children have access to dental treatment, or say how about seeing cancer treatment centres expanded into smaller communities. or what about all of those big election plans that he and everyone else had? What about taking coal plants offline? I don't see a petition on that one. Or what about the widespread poor conditions in seniors' homes? No, I don't see Ernie there either.(Although he appears to look like he should be in there.)

One thing that is interesting to look at is the reduction of religion in daily life in the past 20 years.

The fastest growing religion in Canada is Islam, and this religion is expected to surpass Judaism and Buddhism before the next census is analyzed. Perhaps they should be installing kneeling rugs or whatever they are called in the legislature.

Group Membership % of total population
Roman Catholic
12.8 million 43.2%

No religion
4.8 million 16.2%

United Church
2.8 million 9.6%

Anglican
2.0 million 6.9%

Other Christian, Apostolic, Born-again, Evangelical
780 thousand 2.6%

Baptist
729 thousand 2.5%

Lutheran
607 thousand 2.0%

Muslim
580 thousand 2.0%

Other Protestant
549 thousand 1.9%

Presbyterian
410 thousand 1.4%

I am wondering how any of these alternative religions (especially the one that says no relgion)are well served in Ontario by ensuring the Lords' prayer remains intact in the legislature? Not too many.

No, Ernie won't stand up for Oxford on many measures, but he will stand up for some old fashioned prayer in the governments' house, when there are thousands of important things that could be accomplished instead of bickering over who owns the best religion.