Josie Luetke: Interim writer, Josie Luetke, Talk Turkey Pulling straight from Wikipedia: “Body positivity is a social movement focused on the acceptance of all bodies, regardless of size, shape, skin tone, gender, and physical abilities, while challenging present-day beauty standards as an undesirable social construct.” It’s dominated by social liberals, which, given the above buzz words, may be unsurprising, but, [...]
Paul Tuns From the editor’s desk: Cardus, a Canadian think tank, released a report, “Needs Improvement: How Public Schools Teach About Religion,” authored by Andrew P.W. Bennett. The study looked at how religion is taught in elementary and secondary schools in British Columbia, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, and Ontario. It found that approaches varied, with Ontario being a “stand-out example of a more [...]
Rick McGinnis: Interim writer, Rick McGinnis, Amusements The ‘90s don’t get a lot of love. The last decade of the 20th century is often seen as a kind of pregnant pause – a political and social interregnum between an event that put an (apparently) full stop on the conflict that had shaped much of the previous century (the Cold War) [...]
Whatever Happened to Tradition: History, Belonging, and the Future of the West by Tim Stanley (Bloomsbury Continuum, $38, 266 pages) Tradition and especially traditionalism has a bad reputation. It is often conflated with the old-fashioned and nostalgia, which barely begin to scratch the surface of the richness of tradition. Tim Stanley, an editorial writer for the Daily Telegraph in London comes to [...]
Paul Tuns, From the editor's desk: Christine Rosen, senior writer for Commentary, wrote the magazine’s January cover story, “The New Misogyny,” on how women are denigrated by the transgender ideology. Under the guise of a “liberationist philosophy,” she writes, this “progressive” spirit is actually “an audacious form of woman-hatred” that “comes in the guise of opening up womanhood.” This new misogyny “insists [...]
Rick McGinnis: Interim writer, Rick McGinnis, Amusements If you want to feel bad about the future, the best place to start is modern science fiction. This probably isn’t where it was supposed to be going, but it’s where we are now, based on the most popular and acclaimed sci fi literature being published. A previous column discussed recent sci fi [...]
By John Carpay: A friend of mine, a priest I have known for 32 years, recently told me to stop complaining about vaccine passports and various lockdown measures (masks, anti-social distancing, etc.) because they exist for the common good and are intended to save lives. Referencing the encyclical Diuturnum Illud, my priestly friend says that disobeying the law is a sin, unless that [...]
By Andrew Lawton: I hold a somewhat unique position in Canadian politics as the only candidate, to my knowledge, to have the support of both the Campaign Life Coalition and Marc Emery in the same campaign. When I ran for Ontario’s PC party in 2018, I was given a green light by the CLC for my on-record pro-life stance. Emery, the infamous ‘prince [...]
Rick McGinnis The biggest news since the tentative re-opening of movie theatres is the smashing success of the movie Dune – nearly $400 million worldwide for a film that only tells the story of half the novel it’s based on, and which was delayed for release for a year during lockdown. Critics are predicting the movie could create a franchise to overtake [...]
Paul Tuns I listened out of both duty and interest to the oral arguments before the Supreme Court, and followed along on Twitter and a number of people live-blogging the proceedings. Since the Court accepted the case, I’ve assumed that it would uphold Roe v. Wade but amend it by permitting supposedly severe restrictions before the commonly accepted point of viability point [...]
Rory Leishman Judging from the questions and comments during oral arguments in the Supreme Court of the United States on Dec. 1 in the Mississippi abortion case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, it seems likely, although far from certain, that the Court will finally decide in its ruling in Dobbs next June to reverse the calamitous judgment in Roe v. Wade [...]
Josie Luetke Interim writer, Josie Luetke, Talk Turkey On Nov. 24, Bill 48 was passed in Saskatchewan, establishing “access zones” of 50 metres from the property line of every hospital in the province, within which it will be illegal to protest (except in a labour dispute) or in any way try to dissuade someone from accessing or providing a “health [...]
Josie Luetke Interim writer, Josie Luetke, Talk Turkey “Every woman in Canada has a right to a safe and legal abortion,” according to none other than Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. “Access to safe, legal abortion is a fundamental right of women, irrespective of where they live,” according to a 2006 publication from the World Health Organization. One of Campaign Life Coalition’s [...]
Paul Tuns Review The Critical Temper: Interventions from The New Criterion at 40 edited by Roger Kimball (Encounter, $39.99, 561 pages) The idea of the culture wars is much derided by pundits, often considered distractions from real issues. I would argue there is nothing more important than to go to (metaphorical) war over than culture. A field general in the war over [...]
Rory Leishman As rising numbers of critically ill COVID-19 patients threatened to overwhelm Saskatchewan’s intensive care units (ICU) wards last October, the Saskatchewan government called upon the Canadian military to airlift 19 of the province’s ICU patients to hospitals in Ontario. This was not an isolated incident. Earlier in the pandemic, critically ill COVID patients in some regions of Ontario also had [...]