Much Ado About Religious Accommodation

Much is being made of a decision by Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) managers at Toronto's Pearson airport to allow a small group of Hindu priests to avoid screening by female border guards to comply with their religious beliefs.

Apparently some female CBSA officers feel that they were discriminated against by this decision. I could understand an outrage if female officers were only allowed to deal with female visitors but this was a small exemption made for a special case. Why all the fuss about this when so many more significant examples of religious discrimination are entrenched in our laws and practices in the name of freedom of religion.

For example an employer being allowed to designate higher profile positions for males only and more subservient positions for women only. This is a clear violation of all Canadian employment legislation and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms but still allowed in the name of freedom of religion.

What about persons delegated by the state the right to perform legal marriage ceremonies being allowed to discriminate in terms of who they will marry on the basis of their personal religious beliefs.

And much more serious, medical practitioners, such as doctors and pharmacists, being allowed to refuse to provide medical treatment or services on the basis of their personal religious beliefs.

Perhaps one of the most outrageous examples of discriminatory religious accommodation, a clear violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but constitutionally allowed, is the public funding of religious-based schools for one religious group only (and not even the largest group at that) - a huge government subsidy to one religious group that all political parties are afraid to deal with because of the risk of losing that groups votes.

If we are to be outraged by inappropriate religious accommodation let us be outraged by matters of substance, not by attempts to accommodate a small groups religious preference that has little impact on others' rights.

Postscript

This post sees the return of the Fifth Column after an interregnum, not caused by a lack of ideas but simply a lack of motivation to make the effort to write them down. Hopefully my posts will be more regular from now on.

We Must Stop Stephen Harper and the 20% from Destroying Canada

There has been lots of discussion about how Stephen Harper's majority only represents 40% of voters because of the way our electoral system works. But, in reality, his agenda has much fewer supporters.

We must remember that the Conservative Party is a coalition. It is not a coalition in the sense that the proposed Liberal-NDP coalition (with an accord with the BQ) was. That proposed coalition was the product of compromise and an agreed to written common program.

This Conservative coalition is a coalition of perceived necessity where the old Progressive Conservative Party supporters have been convinced that the only way to keep the Liberals out of power is to support a Reform Party Canadian Alliance dominated Conservative Party. It is clear that Stephen Harper's agenda does not represent the values of the former Progressive Conservative Party, but it did get elected with the votes of it's supporters.

So now we have a ReformaTory government dominated by the 20% of Canadians who support the extreme right wing American-centric Reform Party Canadian Alliance ideology of Stephen Harper.

And they want to turn Canada into a mirror of our American neighbour, clearly a failed state if there ever was one. Have no doubt about it. Stephen Harper was not lying when he said we would not recognize our Canada when he was finished with it.

Stephen Harper's values are not Canadians values.

Canadians chose Tommy Douglas as the Greatest Canadian because he gave us Medicare, our public health care system, and we have consistently stated (as documented by public opinion polls) that public health care is the most important Canadian value and the most important thing that defines us as Canadians.

Stephen Harper wants to destroy our national health care system. He is on record as wanting to eliminate the Canada Health Act provisions that require provinces to meet national standards to receive federal funding. The next step will be to eliminate all federal funding, likely under the guise of trading tax points for direct federal funding. He has stated, using constitutional provisions as a justification, that the federal government should turn health care completely over to the provinces. We all know he wants to do that to promote more privatization and weakening of the public system and it's deterioration into a two-tier system, or worse.

Stephen Harper and the 20% do not represent Canadian values and what the vast majority of Canadians want when it comes to our cherished public health care system.

Stephen Harper believes that there are Canadians whose lives are less worthy of protection than other Canadians. He believes this because he believes in dividing Canadians into good people and bad people and those that are addicted to drugs are bad people that should be punished rather than provided with the treatment they need.

He opposes harm reduction measures (more properly called lifesaving measures) for addicts such as safe injection sites and needle exchange programs, even though they have been proven to save lives and even help rehabilitate addicts, because these programs may inconvenience or offend "good Canadians". He knows the "bad Canadians" these programs serve do not vote Conservative, because they do not vote.

But this is all part of the ReformaTory Conservatives war on drugs and tough on crime agenda that has been proven to be such a failure in the United States that even right wing governments and politicians in states like Texas are abandoning it. But Stephen Harper likes it because it fits in with his anti-science anti-fact ideology-based strategy that preys on peoples fears.

And even though crime is declining in Canada, the reporting of crime in the media is increasing, as is it's depiction on American television shows, and some Canadians do fear our country, and especially our cities, becoming the crime-ridden places they see portrayed in the media.

Of course logic would say that if you were really concerned about crime your policies would emulate those countries where crime is lowest, not the country where crime is highest. But facts and logic are not part of Stephen Harper's ideology. Fear and the desire for revenge are better vote-getters, so Stephen Harper thinks.

Stephen Harper and his 20% of supporters are clearly out of touch with Canadian values. What we have seen so far is only the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. If he is elected to another majority, no matter how phony a majority it is, he will see it as a mandate to finish the job of destroying the Canada that we all know and love.

Stephen Harper and his 20% must be stopped. We must put our political differences aside to save our country.

We need a one time electoral coalition agreement for the next election that provides that Liberals and New Democrats do not run against each other in any constituencies that the Conservatives have any chance of winning.

This coalition agreement should be short term only to allow for the election of a government pledged to undo the worst of the Harper ReformaTory measures and bring in democratic and electoral reforms that will see the next election run under a form of proportional representation.

Because it will be short term, with an agreed to program, and will be followed by an election under proportional representation, neither the NDP nor Liberals need worry if the candidate selection process is not perfect. There is no need to let partisan protectionism come before the necessity of saving our Canada from Stephen Harper's desire to destroy it. That is what it is about and we must put all partisan differences aside to save our country.

The next election will then be run under proportional representation and will be the first to elect a truly representative House of Commons. I have my own ideas on how such a proportional representation system should be structured which I will write about in a future post.

This election will, in all likelihood, not produce a majority government because all Canadians do not think the same way, but most do share similar values and the elected representatives will reflect this.

This new way of electing governments will require parties and Members of Parliament to work together. It will eliminate one party, and more importantly one despotic leader, from having complete authoritarian control of the government. Indeed it will, no doubt, reduce the powers of all party leaders and increase the powers of individual Members of Parliament.

We have, not only a chance to not only save our country from Stephen Harper, but a chance to reform our electoral system so that 20% of the people that want to destroy our country will never be able to seize power again.

We must seize that opportunity or our children and grandchildren will never forgive us.

Rant For Canada

Are You Voting For Canada

The Debate: Canadian Values Win

The most interesting thing I noticed about the debate was where all the leaders, or at least all of the federalist leaders, agreed.

These were on what I would consider to be the most basic of Canadian values, but values that many of us suspect are not dear to the heart of Stephen Harper, yet he provided vigorous defences of them - public health care and multiculturalism.

It speaks well to their broad support among Canadians that not even Stephen Harper would publicly oppose them knowing it would be political suicide.

The other issues I particularly noticed were the ones that were only raised by Jack Layton, electoral reform, particularly proportional representation and aboriginal issues.

Jack also gets some points for language, being the only leader to use the term ""hashtag" in the debate and "commentariat" during the post debate scrum.

The American Dream and Lazy Poor People

As a Canadian I find it very difficult to understand the attitude of many Americans, and not just the extreme right, that the poor do not deserve health care and particularly that their hard earned tax dollars should not pay for it.

The only reason I can come up for this is that they really do believe in the America Dream - literally and completely. That dream being that if you work hard you can become rich. If you follow that reasoning to it's logical conclusion then, if you are not rich you did not work hard, and if you are poor it is because you are lazy.

While that may seem absurd, a lot of things Americans believe are pretty absurd by Canadian standards, as seen by the results of this public opinion poll.

Buses Speaking Truth to Power

Imagine these buses rolling down American streets.

Names of the Dead

Talking to Americans About Health Care

A Message From The Fifth Column To Our American Friends And Neighbours

As a Canadian, who like the vast majority of Canadians, would never give up my public health care system, I find the debate in the United States over health care to be quite perplexing. In fact in Canada whenever the prospect of a parallel private system is brought up the public quickly makes it known that a two tier system is unacceptable and any increased private role in the system is undesirable.

Indeed when I observe what is happening in the United States it sometimes appears that the best that can be hoped for is a compromise, a compromise that in all probability will not have the efficiencies of a universal single payer public system and a compromise that may end up being simply a government subsidy to the insurance industry.

But no matter what happens, the bottom line is that I do hope that our American neighbours at least end up with a system that does not see the middle class continuing to face losing their homes and having to declare bankruptcy due to health care costs and the poor continuing to die prematurely due to lack of health care.

What, of course, upsets us most in Canada are the misrepresentations and lies about the Canadian health care system (and public health care systems in general) that have become part of the debate in the United States.

It seems, and I do not want to get sidetracked into a different debate here, that some of the opposition to health care reform is driven by other agendas, and shall we say an inability of certain groups to accept the results of the recent United States election.

But I do want to raise one philosophical difference between Canadians and the Americans that health care opponents are trying to take advantage of.

This is the fact that Americans see themselves as more individualistic than Canadians and see government in a much less positive light than Canadians. Canadians on the other hand think in much more social and collective terms and see government as a means for the people to do things collectively.

At least that is the stereotype that the opponents seem to be using in decrying any government role in health care as being socialism and thus evil. Socialism is not a dirty word in Canada, and neither is liberalism. We like our single payer public health care system – call it socialized medicine if you like.

Interestingly enough, one of the differences in our political history, and one that relates directly to the establishment of Medicare (as we call our public health care system) in Canada has been the role of religion in politics. As a Canadian I find the role of the so-called Christian right in American politics to be perplexing, indeed absurd at times. While there are right wing Christian influences within our Conservative Party, the most significant religious influences in Canadian politics have come from the left, from the Social Gospel, led by preachers like J.S. Woodsworth, Stanley Knowles and Tommy Douglas from the CCF and NDP, who first proposed such things as public welfare, public pensions and Medicare, all of which have become part of the Canadian social fabric.

Indeed,Tommy Douglas, who, as Premier of Saskatchewan, first established Medicare in Canada, over the objections of the health care and insurance industries, even battling a doctors strike, was chosen by Canadians as The Greatest Canadian.

So how does Canadian Medicare work.

The Canada Health Act sets out the basic principles of Canadian Medicare.

Administration: - All administration of provincial health insurance must be carried out by a public authority on a non-profit basis. This authority must be accountable to the province or territory, and their records and accounts are subject to audits.

Comprehensiveness: - All necessary health services, including hospitals, physicians and surgical dentists, must be insured.

Universality: - All insured residents are entitled to the same level of health care.

Portability: - A resident that moves to a different province or territory is still entitled to coverage from their home province during a minimum waiting period. This also applies to residents which leave the country.

Accessibility: - All insured persons have reasonable access to health care facilities. In addition, all physicians, hospitals, etc, must be provided reasonable compensation for the services they provide.

What that means is that you go to your doctor and you get taken care of. You go to the hospital and you get taken care of. You are not asked for payment and you receive no bills. Yes you pay through your taxes and sometimes through premiums, depending on the province's funding system.

You choose your own doctors and you and your doctors decide what is the best treatment option. There is no one from the insurance industry approving your treatment. There is no one from the insurance industry denying you treatment because you've been sick before. There are no "co-pays" or payment caps. The minimum wage earner or welfare recipient receives the same quality of care as the corporate executive. No one can pay extra to jump to the front of the line. And the quality of care is excellent.

My last visit to the hospital involved a migraine that would not go away, and though I had a doctors appointment booked later that week I decided to go to the emergency department because I was getting fed up with the pain. I did have to wait awhile to see the doctor, then I got put on an IV pain reliever and waited some more, while the pain decreased. The doctor then saw me and referred me for a CAT scan and said it might be a few hours before they could take me, but actually it was about 15 minutes. The CAT scan was clear so no worries about brain tumours. We talked about putting me on beta blockers, which I was already discussing with my family doctor, but just waiting for test results to confirm I did not have asthma (from another hospital visit where I arrived early for my appointment and was able to have the test done right away). After seeing my family doctor I was put on beta blockers and have hardly had a migraine since.

I could relate all sorts of stories of the excellent care received by myself, my family and friends from our public health care system.

The most important benefit of public health care, especially for the poor is regular preventative care. When you have to decide between providing the necessities of life for your family or paying for a routine check-up, more often than not the routine health care is ignored, in some cases until it is too late. People die because of that. This is particularly important for healthy baby check-ups. When you have to decide between buying food for your baby or taking him to the doctor for a routine check-up what do you think the decision will be.

Yes there are problems. Wait times for elective and non-urgent procedures can be longer than they should be and we currently have a shortage of family doctors. These are not problems caused by the nature of the public health care system. Indeed adding a private option would only divert resources from those that need it most to those that can pay to jump to the head of the line. These are problems that to some degree require more funding and to some degree require the training of more doctors and specialized technicians.

There is one problem that I do consider systemic and that is the lack of coverage for prescription drugs outside of hospitals as part of the national system. That being said, private insurance coverage for prescription drugs is a fairly common employment benefit at a reasonable cost and the provinces do have programs to pay the drug costs of low income earners or residents with high drug costs in relation to their household income. But a national Pharmacare program is necessary to complete Canada's Medicare System

The other argument that is made in favour of the American completely private health care system is that only private for profit health care provides research and innovation. Have these people never heard of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (or for that matter NASA). Indeed more research is probably done in government facilities than in private ones. When it comes to hospital research, it is not whether it is a for profit hospital that determines whether research is done, but whether it is a teaching hospital. Indeed Canada, and other countries with public health care systems all have internationally respected teaching hospitals that are doing leading edge medical research.

Public health care is at the top the list when Canadians are asked what it means to be a Canadian, Indeed the idea of for profit health care or anyone getting better or faster health care because of their wealth or income is something Canadians consider to be unethical and immoral. Universal single payer public health care is a basic Canadian value.

And just so that I am completely clear, despite the lies that Americans have been told, there are no government bureaucrats involved in Canadians personal health care decisions and no death panels. There are no insurance companies denying care due to pre-existing conditions, There are no "co-pays" and there are no payment ceilings.

Final Words

I would hope that Americans do not let the misrepresentations about the Canadian health care system prevent the implementation of health care reform in their country. Indeed, I fear that the opportunity to implement single payer universal public health care for the United States has already been lost. And the public option is threatened by the massive lobbying campaign that is dominating the media. Health care reform is something that may not be attainable if left to the politicians. If the American people want health care reform they must stand up and demand it. Now is the time for the silent majority to be heard.


I have not included any statistics or links with these comments as I wanted to keep it to my own words but for those that are interested in further information I am providing the following:

Canadian Medicare and the Canada Health Act

Canada's Health Care System (Medicare)

Canada Health Act - Health Canada Information

Canada Health Act (text from Justice Department)

Canadian Health Coalition

Canadians (and Americans Living in Canada) on Canadian Health Care

Former Conservative Prime Minister Mulroney supports Obama's health-care fight

Defending Canada's Health Care: Truths and Lies - Jack Layton

Keep Canada Out of the U.S. Health-Care Debate - Bob Rae

Canadians Defend Their Health Care System

Universal Health Care Message to Americans From Canadian Doctors & Health Care Experts

Debunking Canadian health care myths

A puzzled Canadian ponders surreal U.S. health-care debate

Americans Who Can't Go Home

What they don’t want you to know about Canadian health care

My brain and the Ontario health-care system

The Truth About Canadian Health Care

Debunking the profiteers' lies about healthcare

What Shona Holmes wants for you......Here are the facts

Tommy Douglas

The Greatest Canadian - Tommy Douglas

Prairie Giant: The Tommy Douglas Story

Kiefer Sutherland introduces the Tommy Douglas Showcase

Tommy Douglas Showcase

Douglas, Thomas Clement - The Canadian Encyclopedia

Summer Blogging Frustrations and The War on Workers

Summer Blogging Frustrations and The War on Workers

Those who have followed The Fifth Column from the beginning will know that summer is a slow time for the blog when I find my time taken up with other things and the blog becomes intermittent.

This summer has been particularly frustrating because while preoccupied with other things I have found myself thinking about things to blog about but too frustrated to do it. This is primarily because we are in the middle of the War on Workers in this country at the same time as our American friends are battling the War on Health Care and, in particular, the War on Canadian Health Care.

I found myself vacationing in Sudbury when the vote results from Local 6500 came in. As a student at Laurentian University I worked for INCO and was a member of Local 6500 and walked the picket lines with my brothers and sisters who depended on working at INCO for their livelihood.

I call upon all readers of the Fifth Column to give their full support to my brothers and sisters in Sudbury.


Please feel free to use the following on your blogs or web pages.

Support Local 6500 Sudbury

Hillary Should Go Back To Arkansas...

...And Become "The Greatest American"

Think about it. What could be the most important policy change for America - universal public health care. Both the Democratic Party candidates appear to believe in it yet neither has put real Canadian style "Medicare" in their platform. Why is that. One can only speculate that it is because they believe it would not be possible to implement in the United States.

Hillary Clinton should step back and read some Canadian history. Where did Canadian "Medicare" originate. In Saskatchewan, one of the poorest Canadian provinces. Hillary should go back to Arkansas and convince the state Democratic Party to run on a platform of implementing real "Medicare", get elected Governor and do it.

I know the American political system is different but for something that important it is worth a try, even if just to put pressure on the federal Democratic Party.

That would be a legacy much greater than being just being another President.

Tour Nortel 2008 - Hardest Tour Nortel Yet

Every year I participate in the Tour Nortel as part of a team of mountain bikers raising funds for the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO). For the last few years I have rode on a team sponsored by the Ottawa Mountain Bike Association (OMBA).

(click to enlarge)
After a couple of nice sunny years, this year it was raining, evident by the smaller number of riders that seemed to be there for the start of the tour. They also raised the length of the long route from 70 to 80 kilometres. But I have rode in the rain before, the first two years I rode were rainstorms, and another 10 kilometres is no big deal, as I have ridden up to 120 kilometres in one ride. Something else would cause my struggle this year.

I started out riding with the main OMBA group and soon realized that perhaps I should add more layers, as the cold and wet was becoming noticeable, but I didn’t want to leave my group. However, I ended up dropping behind the group going up the infamous Corkstown Road Hill, which was probably a good thing, since I now had no reason not to pull over and add more layers. This year I was wise enough to carry extra clothes in my backpack.

I found the rest of the start a real struggle and was contemplating turning around at the 35 km turn around point and just doing the shorter route. But I was revitalized when I got to it and met up with the rest of the OMBA riders who encouraged me to keep going. At that point I joined Cat and Mario and Gabrielle’s group as they were going a slightly slower pace than the main OMBA group. I seemed to get my second wind and the ride to the 80km turn around point was a “breeze”. The group stopped just prior to the turn around point and we got to share “OMBA baker” Chris’s goodies that he had baked for the group and were in my backpack.

When we turned around I then realized the “breeze” that was at our back was a brutal headwind that was now facing us. I ended up having to slow my pace and drop back from the group for the rest of the ride, which, at this point, was a real struggle. But, finally the wind was at my back again when I got to that first section that had caused me problems and I realized that it had been a headwind that caused my original struggle.

Revitalized I was on track again, at least until myself and a few other riders came to an intersection back in the urban area without a Tour Nortel direction sign. One of the riders used his intuition to take what I later realized was a bit of a shortcut to get us back on the official route.

I ended up getting back at 1:15 after all the festivities were over and headed home for a warm bath and rest. Despite all the struggles I never had to walk my bike, not even up the killer Huntmar Hill.

(click to enlarge)
It was another great day of riding with my OMBA friends. I rode a total of 82.7 kilometres in four hours and nineteen minutes with an average speed of 19.1 kilometres an hour and a maximum downhill speed of 54.4 kilometres an hour. At least that is what my GPS says.

I raised $625 and the three OMBA teams raised $6, 441 for the Tour Nortel and CHEO.

Help Sick Kids - Sponsor Me in the Tour Nortel and Support CHEO

OK, this is a blatant request for you to sponsor me in the Tour Nortel on May 4, 2008.

Each year the Tour Nortel raises hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario and related charities.

It is one of the most important events of my year and the only fund raiser that I participate in. This year I will be participating in the 80 km tour as part of the OMBA Ramblers, made up of members of the Ottawa Mountain Bike Association. We are hoping that the snow and salt will be gone soon so we can get some riding in before the Tour.

Should Bicycle Helmets be Mandatory

This column was inspired by a discussion on MTB Kanata

Whenever I see someone on a bike without a helmet, whether on the trails or the road, no matter how expensive or fancy the bike might be, I always assume the rider is not a serious cyclist, because a serious cyclist would be wearing a helmet.

So should we be legislating common sense and requiring everyone to wear a helmet by law. I think we can all agree that legislation on it’s own is not the answer. We simply do not have the enforcement resources. Public education and changing attitudes is always the best answer. That is ultimately what reduced impaired driving, though increased sentences, as a sign that society’s attitudes had changed, was a big part of that.

However legislation can be an important part of a public education campaign. The example of seat belts is an excellent example of how that works. We have mandatory seat belt laws. The police do not devote extensive resources to enforcement but occasionally do blitzes as part of the public education campaign. We see these less and less as public attitudes have changed and we now have extremely high seat belt usage in Canada as a result of this combination of legislation and public education. This is how mandatory bicycle helmet legislation would work.

One of the biggest ant-helmet law argument is the individualist argument, or the right to be stupid it does not affect you argument. We live in a country with a social contract. This is not the capitalistic individualist United States. We have Canadian values that include caring about each other. But we also have a much more practical stake. We all contribute to a publicly funded universal health care system - and opting out is not an option. So we all have a practical stake in preventing needless deaths and injuries. As cyclists we also have a stake in keeping injuries down to avoid excuses to put restrictions on cycling. Mountain bikers, in particular, know the impact concerns about injuries and liability have on trail access.

Some have suggested we only have legislation for children, which is what we have now and it is not enforced and completely ineffective. The main reason it is not effective is because it is hypocritical. Children and young people do not respond well to hypocrisy. It is like the parents you see on the trails or paths everyday telling their children “don’t worry you only have to wear your helmet now when I’m watching, when you get older like me you won’t have to wear a stupid helmet”, which is what they are telling their children when they go out riding with their children and do not wear a helmet themselves. We teach best by example, and worst by hypocrisy. That is why we see so many young people, for some reason mostly girls, riding their bikes with their helmets dangling from their handlebars.

A huge part of public education in today’s society is the influence of role models. This is what started the discussion on MTB Kanata. Stunt riders performing at the Tour Nortel, ironically a fund raiser for the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO), were doing dangerous stunts without wearing helmets, setting the worst example you could find (unless the idea was to create future business for the hospitals head and brain injury wards). Yes, I’m shaking my head too. There was actually controversy about whether this was a bad idea with the suggestion if children follow the example of their heroes and get injured it is their own fault for being stupid and having parents that raised them to be “morons”.

Children, and adults too, are highly influenced by role models, their heroes, particularly in today’s mass media society. I remember seeing a photo of Lance Armstrong riding without a helmet in the Tour de France. It was explained to me that, while helmet use is mandatory during most of “The Tour” at certain stages it is not (apparently because the risk is less at those stages). This just sends mixed messages, particularly when you have photos of the world’s number one cycling hero riding without a helmet. If everyone always wears a helmet you would have a level playing field and you would be sending a message that hard core riders always wear their helmets, rather than the message that they do not, leaving children wanting to imitate their heroes, such as the helmetless riders at the children’s hospital fundraiser.

So if public education is the answer who should be doing the education. Public authorities such as schools certainly have a role to play, and the probably are not doing enough. You would also expect an organization that calls itself Citizens for Safe Cycling (CFSC) to perform that role. While CFSC does do rider safety training, their main emphasis, when it comes to helmet use, is to mount an extensive campaign against mandatory helmet laws while paying lip service to the benefits of wearing a helmet. Their position on bike lanes, that I and many other cyclists agree provide a safer and much less scary riding experience, is also really perplexing.

CFSC, and others, argue that requiring people to wear helmets will deter people from riding because of the helmet costs. Helmets meeting safety standards can be purchased for $20. They also argue that it will scare people away from cycling because they will think it is dangerous. Would anyone argue that young (or old) hockey players should not be required to wear safety equipment because it might scare them away from the sport. The fact is cycling does have risks, but learning how to cycle safely and wearing a helmet will make it a relatively safe activity. That is what should be promoted, not underplaying the risks to encourage people to cycle.

Read more about CFSC policies.

Then there is the “I only wear my helmet when it is dangerous” argument. I can remember an experience riding on a relatively tame trail (Old Quarry) with a much more experience hard core rider than me and he crashed on this easy trail. Of course he was wearing a helmet. We tend to concentrate more on the dangerous stuff and less on the easy stuff, which actually balances out the risk. You cannot predict when you are going to need your helmet to protect you.

One of the best reasons to always wear your helmet because if you do you will always have it on when you need it. Developing a habit is the best way to avoid forgetting to wear it when you need it. Let me tell you a story about a rider who always wears his helmet, except that he decided he did not need it riding his trainer in the basement over the winter. On the way back from his first ride of the season on his mountain this helmet use proselytizer discovered he was not wearing his helmet. Luckily I did not need it on that ride.