John Carpay, founder of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms. The routine censorship of pro-life speech at Canadian universities has now expanded into a new realm. In early April, the Men’s Issues Awareness Society launched a court action against the Ryerson Students’ Union for having denied this student group official recognition as a campus club. Without official club status, MIAS cannot [...]
In a decision with potentially wide implications for freedom of speech on Canadian campuses, the British Columbia Court of Appeals has upheld the University of Victoria’s decision to ban a campus pro-life demonstration. The case goes back to 2013, when the University of Victoria’s student society had denied the pro-life club, Youth Protecting Youth, club status over its pro-life messaging. As a [...]
Advocates on both sides unhappy Justice MinisterJody Wilson-Raybould (left )and Health Minister Jane Philpott (right). On April 14, Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould and Health Minister Jane Philpott, held a press conference in Ottawa to announce the contents of the government’s proposed “medical assistance in dying” bill, C-14. The bill, formerly known as “An Act to amend the Criminal Code and [...]
The government introduced its assisted-suicide legislation, C-14, and immediately made both sides unhappy. The pro-life and disabilities communities are concerned that doctors are going to become assassins, abandoning their mission to heal in order to kill. The pro-euthanasia side does not like that there are restrictions on who can be killed, wanting a broader law with fewer restrictions. National Post columnist Robyn [...]
After months of grassroots engagement at the riding and regional level, the National Policy Committee of the Conservative Party of Canada took it upon themselves to scuttle socially conservative proposals to the party's convention in Vancouver in late May. One resolution was reportedly reconsidered and nixed after the intervention of interim Conservative Party leader Rona Ambrose. The Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) [...]
“The federal government casts a wide net in its list of lives that are not worth living, including people with a serious and incurable disease, condition or disability, those losing autonomy and those with persistent physical or psychological suffering Aubert Martin of Living with Dignity and Catherine Ferrier of Physicians’ Alliance against Euthanasia “How dare we ask our doctors and nurses to [...]
After governing for 17 years, the NDP government in Manitoba was defeated by the Progressive Conservatives. The Tories more than doubled their seat total from 19 to 40 on the strength of 53 per cent in the popular vote, as the NDP fell to just 14 seats. The provincial Liberals won three seats, tripling their previous total. Premier-designate Brian Pallister [...]
Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall may have federal aspirations. Brad Wall’s Saskatchewan Party easily won re-election in the Prairie province, garnering 62 per cent of the vote and winning 51 of 61 seats. The NDP won the other ten. Premier Wall answered Campaign Life Coalition’s questionnaire in which he said he was “pro-life” but claimed the Canada Health Act dictates there [...]
Rona Ambrose, interim leader of the Conservative Party The Interim has learned that a last minute intervention by interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose will prevent any debate on the party’s abortion policy at the upcoming convention in Vancouver May 26-28. This past Thursday, at Ambrose’s request, the National Policy Committee of the CPC voted to block a resolution that would have [...]
Canada On March 1, the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Sheilah Martin granted permission to an unidentified Calgary woman with Lou Gehrig’s Disease to have a doctor in British Columbia assist in her death “if she so chooses.” Martin held the hearing in closed court, considered statements from two doctors to be sufficient evidence, and did not require an assessment of [...]
Right to Die Society of Canada founder Hofsess admitted in an article published after taking his own life in Switzerland that he killed eight Canadians including the poet Al Purdy. Canadian right-to-die activist John Hofsess, who was euthanized in a Swiss clinic on Feb. 29 at age 78, confessed posthumously in an article published by Toronto Life that he killed [...]
Mary Wagner Abortionist Ninia Lupovici tried to forcibly remove Mary Wagner from her abortion center but fell instead, a Toronto court heard March 10 on the first day of Wagner’s trial. Wagner, 42, is charged with two counts of breaching a probation order and one of causing mischief, following her December 12, 2015 arrest outside the Bloor West Village Women’s [...]
"The children are our future” is probably among the most sententious phrases you can utter in politics, a sure tell that the person using it has no plan that will immediately have an impact on the children – yours or anyone else’s – or the future. So it’s reasonable to raise an eyebrow at a book that makes some dire claims about [...]
Light is Right Joe Campbell Church attendance of Britons has been falling for decades. The news is not all negative, however. Church attendance of bats is rising. Bats, it seems, are more committed to Christian churches than Britons are faithful to Christianity. Bats go to church because modernization has reduced their natural habitats. Britons don’t go because modernism has undermined [...]
National Affairs Rory Leishman What do Church leaders in Canada think about the legalization of physician-assisted death (PAD)? Not so long ago, the answer was clear. At Christmas in 1996, the Canadian Council of Churches (CCC), a group which includes every major Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant denomination in the country, issued a Statement of Convergence of Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide [...]