George Jefferson from TV show All in the Family. Until I did some research, it hadn’t occurred to me that there might be a cache of racial slurs that target whites. Well, apparently there are plenty of the allegedly offensive epithets. I say “apparently” and “allegedly” because I’ve never heard of most of the entries, and the ones I know [...]
Andrew Lawton This summer marks one year since the implementation of Bill C-16, the legislation that catapulted Professor Jordan Peterson to fame and galvanized a much-needed discussion about freedom of expression in Canada. Though we have yet to see the first public prosecution under the bill, its free speech implications are still very much alive. The bill updated the Criminal [...]
There’s a visual shorthand you see in movies and on TV shows that’s meant to let you know you’re in the presence of Roman Catholics, and probably Irish ones. It’s a picture of John F. Kennedy hanging on the wall of someone’s bedroom, dining room or living room, or in some bar, barber shop or police chief’s office. It might be accompanied [...]
During its July 6-8 Global Assembly in Warsaw, Amnesty International delegates voted in favour of advocating for abortion-on-demand. Since 2007, the international human rights group has supported abortion in limited cases such as calling for decriminalization of abortion in cases of rape or when the mother’s life or health were at stake. Previous to that, its abortion activism was limited to criticism [...]
Grassroots pro-life and pro-family delegates scored a number of victories at the Conservative policy convention in Halifax, August 23-25. Campaign Life Coalition vice president Jeff Gunnarson, said, “overall, the pro-life-and-family movement had a hugely successful convention,” despite missing out on what he called “the top prize” of deleting Article 65. That article, added to the policy handbook in 2016, commits a Conservative [...]
A scourge for individuals and society In February, the New York Times Magazine ran a long cover story, “What Teenagers Are Learning From Online Porn.” Based on interviews with boys selected to take part in the porn literacy class in a peer-leadership program for Boston teenagers, the article relates in depressing detail the habits of teenage users of pornography and how what they view [...]
Ontario Premier Doug Ford In July, the Doug Ford government confirmed it would repeal the 2015 Kathleen Wynne’s sex-ed program, fulfilling a leadership and campaign promise to rescind the controversial curriculum while the government carried out a new, inclusive consultation process. The rollout was botched, with no details of what the consultations would look like and Education Minister Lisa Thompson [...]
Talk Turkey Josie Luetke Not-so-breaking news: The Progressive Conservatives won the Ontario election and nine pro-life PC candidates whom CLC green-lighted now have seats in the legislature. I’m sure their activities will be closely monitored and reported on over the next four years, so at least for this column I want to direct my attention to those pro-life candidates who [...]
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the release of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, a film widely regarded as one of the best and most important in the history of cinema. I’m not here to dispute this judgment – I’m a big fan of the film, and have been since my brother-in-law took me to see a road show screening [...]
The background Pope Paul VI There was a great deal of moral tumult in 1968. The sexual revolution was in full swing, with Playboy founder Hugh Hefner declaring the year before, “I am in the center of the world.” Canada legalized divorce and was on the verge of legalizing contraception and homosexual acts, and permitting abortion-on-demand. Three [...]
Andrew Lawton This year will mark a departure from the usual political boredom summer brings, with a cultural battle brewing and a September deadline looming. At stake is when – not if – Ontario’s controversial sexual education curriculum will be repealed. During the Progressive Conservative leadership race and the general election campaign, Doug Ford was clear: if he wins, the [...]
Conservative MP Ted Falk shouted out that abortion "is not a right" during Question Period in the House of Commons. On May 9, Ted Falk, a pro-life Conservative MP from Provencher, raised a stir in the House of Commons about abortion when he shouted at the Prime Minister that it is “not a right.” It set off a fury of [...]
It was incredibly disappointing to see Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Doug Ford throw Tanya Granic Allen under the bus after the Liberals released videos showing the former PC leadership contender and PC candidate for MPP in Mississauga Centre saying some politically incorrect things about the gay community (see page three for the story). We would have obviously preferred to see Ford stand [...]
Tom Wolfe (Photo Rick McGinnis) Reading the obituaries for writer Tom Wolfe, who died last month, it’s hard not to think of the overused word “enigmatic,” which seems odd for a man who was neither reclusive nor reticent with his opinions. Wolfe flamboyantly embodied a collection of contradictions that only seem unusual now that his sort of public intellectual seems [...]
Philip Roth Novelist Philip Roth passed away May 22 at the age of 85. Roth is certainly in the pantheon of famous and accomplished 20th century American authors. During the 1990s, he won a National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and a Pulitzer Prize for literature for three different novels. Roth had a number of early successes with a collection [...]