Patrick Brown proudly admitted he scuttled pro-life and pro-family policies from online forum where members can vote on party policy. On Oct. 13, Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Patrick Brown announced the provincial Tories would not consider any socially conservative policies put forward by members in the online vote ahead of a policy convention scheduled for November 23-25 Campaign Life Coalition’s [...]
The rancid feast that is the news cycle served up a pair of groaning platters recently when the death of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner was quickly followed up by the destruction of the public reputation of Harvey Weinstein, a Hollywood producer and the founder of Miramax studios. Hugh Hefner, founder of Playboy and champion of sexual license and abortion rights, died [...]
This cartoon was originally published in The Interim September 1994. When a half dozen Members of Provincial Parliament sat and (presumably) listened to the dozen and a half presenters on the anti-free speech bubble zones before the standing committee on general government on Oct. 19, they left the impression of merely going through the motions of listening to experts and [...]
Editor’s Note: Genevieve Carson, coordinator of Mississauga 40 Days for Life, read the following statement before the standing committee on general government on Oct. 20 during hearings on Bill 163, An Act to enact the Safe Access to Abortion Services Act, 2017. Genevieve Carson of Mississauga 40 Days for Life speaks to committee on Liberal bill banning pro-life witness at abortion [...]
Ontario enacts bubble zone law. Last month all three official parties joined forces to swiftly pass Bill 163, the Safe Access to Abortion Services Act, 2017, stifling the free speech, expression, and assembly rights of pro-lifers. The law, passed on Oct. 25, creates a bubble zone around abortion facilities of at least 50 meters -- and as much 150 meters [...]
Silent No More, midwives, and a city councilor among presenters On Oct. 19, 17 stakeholders and other interested parties made presentations to the standing committee on general government to speak for or against Bill 163, the Protecting a Woman’s Right to Access Abortion Services Act, 2017, which was introduced by the provincial Attorney General two weeks earlier and was being fast-tracked to [...]
The “reconciliation” process that would have allowed Republicans to eliminate Obamacare’s forced abortion coverage mandate and $500 million tax dollars going to Planned Parenthood ends Sept. 30. The GOP has failed to secure majority support in the U.S. Senate after Sen. Susan Collins of Maine effectively killed the bill when she announced her opposition Sept. 25. The bill, which President Donald Trump [...]
Talk Turkey Josie Luetke In a YouTube video published on July 25, as part of a series called “Philosophy Time,” featuring actor James Franco and his friend Eliot Michaelson, Princeton University philosophy professor Liz Harman tries to justify the view that early-stage abortions are morally neutral. Her argument, in a nutshell, is this: If a fetus does not have moral [...]
Law Matters John Carpay In Canada today, if you want to shut down the conference, rally or speaking engagement of someone whose opinion you disagree with, all you need to do to is accuse your opponent of being far right, racist, fascist, white supremacist, Islamophobic, or homophobic. The accusations need not be true, as long as they are shocking and [...]
In Extreme Measures: Finding a Better Path to the End of Life, Jessica Nutik Zitter, a Montreal-born physician and specialist in critical care medicine, gives a graphic insider’s account of how well-meaning critical care specialists like herself are all-too-apt to inflict futile, unnecessary and agonizing suffering upon dying patients in an intensive-care unit (ICU). To begin with, Zitter describes her first attempt [...]
In 2002, Richard Florida published his book The Rise of the Creative Class and made a career for himself as an urban theorist, traveling the world lecturing and advising on how struggling, economically challenged cities could revive themselves. His “creative class” – a loose coalition that included artists, tech workers, academics and, interestingly, gay men and women – were rebuilding decimated downtown [...]
The recent populist electoral convulsions in the U.S. and Europe has led to a lot of dubious analysis, but one insightful book about what is happening in the west is David Goodhart’s The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics (Hurst, $27.50, 278 pages). Goodhart looks at British politics and finds that the division is less about left [...]
There is a new book out by Globe and Mail columnist Doug Saunders called Maximum Canada: Why 35 Million Canadians is Not Enough (Penguin, $27.95). In brief he argues Canada has too much land and too few people. In some ways he is counter-intuitive, saying that more people are necessary for Canada to become an environmental leader. Typically, more population is seen [...]
There was a time when many Progressive Conservatives and Republicans supported so-called abortion rights and many Liberals, NDP, and Democrats were pro-life. (The joke used to be that all those right-wing politicians needed abortion to be legal so they could cover up their mistresses’ pregnancies.) The early pages of The Interim featured advertisements for both Liberals for Life and Tories for Life. [...]
As Donald Trump’s approval ratings appear to slump, the Democrats are hoping to take back the House of Representatives in 2018. Their strategy, unlike that of Canada’s Liberal Party or New Democratic Party, will not exclude pro-lifers. Though the 2016 Democratic platform called for support for Planned Parenthood, opposition to abortion restrictions both in the United States and around the world, and [...]