If you didn't watch CBC's The National on Thursday night, you missed comedian Rick Mercer's amazing rant about government House leader John Baird.

Yesterday, Baird dismissed Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff and NDP leader Jack Layton as "Toronto elites" because of their support for the federal long-gun registry. (You may recall that in 2009, Baird told Toronto to "fuck off.")

The National ran a cheeky news report on the whole "Toronto elites" incident and brilliantly asked Mercer for comment.

Unfortunately, it's not possible to embed CBC news videos, so here's what Mercer had to say about Baird:

"He has a chauffeur! He's beating people up for being elite?"

and:

"You wanna know what elite is? It's John Baird in a tuxedo, going to the National Arts Centre with the prime minister's wife on his arm, complaining that the food is not good enough. That's John Baird right there in a nutshell." 

>> Watch the segment at cbc.ca (fast forward to 2:10 min).

And with that, I leave you with this Rick Mercer Report classic, the "John Baird Home Alarm System":

At its national convention this weekend, the Green Party of Canada put forward a motion to decriminalize polyamory, the Ottawa Sun reported. The idea was presented first at a working group, which voted 14-8 on Aug 21 to introduce the motion at the next day's plenary. Plenary discussed it before rejecting the motion by a margin of 82 to 18 percent.

From the Sun report:

Party leader Elizabeth May says she used to practice family law and isn't convinced the Criminal Code makes polyamorous relationships illegal. She urged the party to reject the motion.

“I have huge issues with not knowing what this (motion) means,” she said.

“I'm very unclear as to what kind of rights would ensue to a polyamorous unit as a family and what that means for the interests of a child and how that gets judged in terms of custody issues.”

May said there's “a morass of questions” for which she's confident they don't have the answers.

When it comes down to it, this debate is about freedom of choice. Blackmore and Oler may be practising polygamy in unsavoury ways, but they remain part of the spectrum of nonmonogamy that informs so many queer relationships.

The dominant view — reinforced by Canada's polygamy law — is that relationships are for two people to the exclusion of all others.

In queer circles, terms like "open" and "polyamorous" are used to describe people who don't fit that template. Polyamorists who engage in multiple romantic relationships often distain polygamists, whose rigid sense of gender limits the possible permutations to one man and multiple women.

Queer Ontario is calling on the Harper government to reverse its recently enacted anti-sex-work provision.

Last week, the Conservatives quietly announced that operating a bawdyhouse will now be considered a "serious offence."

In a statement released today, Queer Ontario says the new provision puts sex workers' lives at risk:

Indeed, this new regulation highlights the government’s misunderstanding of the nature of sex work, which is based largely on the Conservative Party’s staunch moralism regarding sex and sexuality. Not only does the Conservative government fail to recognize the legitimacy of the consensual, self-determined work of sex professionals — not to be confused with the exploitative practices of human trafficking, a true breach of fundamental human rights! — It also flies in the face of growing evidence suggesting that centralized workplaces like bawdy houses are much more beneficial to sex workers than the street or private residences most professionals are forced to seek out as a result of these puritanical laws. That is: bawdy houses, when properly operated, have been proven to provide sex workers with clean, safe, and accessible work environments that make sex work less dangerous for professionals and their clients.

By criminalizing bawdy houses and the people who operate them, the government is only serving to endanger the bodies and lives of our nation’s sex workers, effectively working against a protection of their rights. Rights which should be granted and protected unconditionally, given the fact that the government has no legitimate reason to regulate what consenting adults choose to do with their own bodies in private.

The queer activist group calls on the government to move towards the decriminalization of sex work. 

"If their intent is to put a tighter grip around bawdyhouses, then that will affect sex workers, and it will affect their safety and their rights," Davies told Xtra. "We should be very concerned about what they're up to here." 

Read more:

• Conservatives find back door for anti-sex work provision

There was word from Vienna today that a group of about 50 activists staged a die-in and shut down the Canadian booth in the exhibition hall at the International AIDS Conference yesterday.

The protest came in response to the Harper government's ongoing refusal to support safe injection sites and other harm reduction measures adopted by the Vienna Declaration. Harper's delegates refused to sign the declaration on Monday.

"Given that some of the recommendations outlined in the Vienna Declaration are inconsistent with Canada's National Anti-Drug Strategy and current federal drug policy, Canada will not support the document," Charlene Wiles, of the Public Health Agency of Canada, wrote in an email, according to the CBC.

Chanting, "The war on drugs is a war on us! Support harm reduction now," the activists wrapped the Canadian booth in tape and covered it in signs and copies of the Vienna Declaration. 

"Canada has missed an important opportunity to show leadership in the struggle against HIV and AIDS," Canadian harm reduction activist Zoe Dodd said in a press release. "There is overwhelming evidence that harm reduction strategies are effective in combatting HIV transmission. Canadian criminalization of drug use is fanning the flames of the AIDS epidemic."

Xtra's correspondent at the conference, Phillip Banks, says a gay activist from Toronto was expelled from the conference for destroying the Canadian booth's banners.

(Photo by Daniel Grace)  

Gay activist John Campey is using YouTube and music to protest the Harper government's decision to axe the mandatory long-form census. Watch "Count Me In":