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... here goes:
Folks may recall a thread well over a year ago in which "Male Circumcision", and its' legality and morality was discussed ad nauseum. Renewing the topic is not my intention, and I do not want to open this whole can of worms all over again, so please be circumspect in any comments you may wish to make.
After exhaustive search (and research) it would appear that there is not now, nor likely was there ever, a Dominion Law respecting circumcision of males in Canada; but, this is where it gets interesting, in 10 Provinces, 1 soon to be Province and past territory, and two of four remaining Territories under the Dominion, governing Regulations have been (or are in the final stages of being) fully enacted which disavow any, or all, charges being allowed under, and made by, Provincial or Territorial Health-care programmes under the National Medicare programme for the provision of male circumcision.
In 2010, in Canada, if a family wants their male child circumcised they must pay for it out of their own pocket. Period. Unless of course your reside in one of the two Territories where the practice is still paid for by the public purse. Interestingly enough all Territories in the Dominion fall under Administrative control of their respective Territorial Councils which in turn report directly to the Dominion Parliament, this being the situation because they do not meet the minimum population requirement to be declared organized territory and thus achieve Provincial status.
So, in essence, it would appear that 10 Provincial and three Territorial Regulations are now legislating away a practice where no prior Legislative Mandate to the contrary seems to have existed in the first place. In other words Laws (in this case Regulations to Provincial and Territorial Health Acts) have been enacted which outlaw policies that had (apparently) never been enacted at all. There has to be some logic that one; but, I'm afeared that I don't see it.
If the Regulation had existed at all, or so I'm reasonably informed, it likely died in the conflagration that consumed Parliament Hill on February 3, 1916. Whilst, entirely through luck, and circumstance, the main body of the Library of Parliament survived the fire, as did the Tower, many lesser troves of documentation held elsewhere throughout the building were lost. This still doesn't explain away why the practice was "assumed" to have been policy, and therefore universally applied throughout the Dominion; nor does it explain away why it's been necessary to enact regulations to do away with the practice, if and when it would now appear that it was never policy in the first place. We Canadians have a catch phrase that explains both away, this being, LOL, "Only in Canada, you say?". Well, apparently it is so.
A side note to this conundrum, the policies, or absence of policies, respecting Male Circumcision in Canada, are not the sole victims of this rather murky culture of Legislative "greyness"; our Income Tax Act, is actually no Act at all; but, like those now governing the non-practice of circumcision in Canada, simply a series of Regulations to a Privy Council Order made during the early years of World War I, whereby the War Measures Act of Canada was empowered (the same Act Pierre Trudeau invoked to deal with Terrorism in Canada during the 1970's in the wake of the James Cross and Pierre LaPorte kidnappings and murders) to raise, and levy, charges against personal income, in the cause of our support and funding participation in that war. These provisions, enacted nearly a century ago have never been revoked, and are varied annually solely through governing Regulations to an Act that doesn't exist, and for all pretense and purpose has never existed, on paper. This perhaps explains why under our Parliamentary system, provided a majority is held by one party, Parliament does not ever need to be convened, excepting once every 5-years under a dissolution order from the Governor-General of Canada which is a requirement under our Election Act; or when a change in the previously struck Budget is required and a money Bill needs to be presented to Parliament. In essence, if the ruling party is capable of running the country according to the terms of the "last" budget struck and approved by the previous Parliament, Parliament does not need to be called to session. Aside from the Election Act or the need for more money to run the country, the only other requirement to call Parliament into session by a ruling party is to declare war. So it would appear that so long as no more money is required, that we're not going to go to war, or an election is looming, the ruling party can govern the country strictly through Orders of the Privy Council. And historically we're not likely to ever know, what some of those may have been in the past century and a half or so.
Warren C. E. Austin
The Gay Deceiver
Toronto, Canada
[Updated on: Sun, 25 April 2010 15:55]
"... comme recherché qu'un délice callipygian"
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