The arrival of the first warm days brings with it the summer blockbuster, a seasonal indicator as venerable as crowded cottage weekends, sandy beach towels, the chemical cocktail of bug spray and sunscreen and the smell of gas generator exhaust and cotton candy at a fairground. The summer blockbuster has been declining with the general fortunes of Hollywood lately – this summer [...]
Rory Leishman As recently as 50 years ago, it was still a serious criminal offence punishable by up to life in prison for anyone in Britain, Canada or the United States to commit an abortion. And much the same was true everywhere else in Western Europe where stringent laws protected human life in the womb Today, of course, that is [...]
Law Matters John Carpay I’m only 49, but I remember when socialists still respected religious freedom, free speech, and freedom of association. I remember when the Left, advancing its case for bigger government and the forced redistribution of income, appealed to facts and logic. The Left opposed economic liberty, and while that is no small thing, the Left was otherwise [...]
Medical matters confuse me. Among the most confusing are diseases with patients’ or doctors’ names. I didn’t know what to think when neurologists said that Lou Gehrig might not have had Lou Gehrig’s disease. I thought the disease belonged to him. Apparently it didn’t. It may belong to someone else. I don’t know who. I don’t even know whom. Maybe only medical [...]
Just at the zenith of their political, cultural and social influence, it has become fashionable to turn a corrosive eye on the Baby Boomers, that huge generational cohort born somewhere between the final years of the Second World War and the beginning of Beatlemania outside of Britain. Keep in mind that very little of this is self-critical; the generation preceding the Boomers [...]
Light is Right Joe Campbell I’ve been wondering, of late, why congregants mark July 1 by singing “O Canada” at the end of Mass. I haven’t noticed legislators mark Dec. 25 by singing “O Little Town of Bethlehem” at the end of their proceedings. I realize the dates are not strictly comparable. Although Canada Day celebrates the birth of the [...]
Law Matters John Carpay Rachel Dolezal made headlines in 2015 after she was exposed as a white woman who had been representing herself as black for many years. Dolezal was removed as head of the Spokane chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and kicked off a police ombudsman commission. She also lost her job teaching [...]
Thanks to judicial distortion of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms over the past 30 years, freedom of religion in Canada has come under such severe restriction that an otherwise law-abiding, and conscientious citizen could now lose his livelihood or even end up in jail simply for steadfastly upholding the traditional principles of Judeo-Christian morality. Faithful bakers, florists, printers and Christian [...]
Patrick Deane Patrick Deane, president of McMaster University in Hamilton, has joined other Canadian university presidents in silencing the debate of controversial ideas on campus. University of Toronto psychology professor Jordan Peterson was invited to speak at McMaster on March 17, about freedom of speech and political correctness. Peterson has gained national – and even international – notoriety for his [...]
Light is Right Joe Campbell I was surprised to learn that Canada has no official bird, fish, flower, fruit or mineral. Officially, our nation has only three: the maple tree, the beaver and the Canadian horse. Even Prince Edward Island, our smallest province, has four. The other provinces and territories have from three to eleven each. Nationally, the paucity of [...]
Rory Leishman National Affairs How could the Netherlands, a country which heroically resisted the Nazi euthanasia program during the Second World War, now embrace one of the most extensive regimes of legalized euthanasia in the Western world? Most people in the Netherlands would resent such a question: They insist that there is no moral equivalence between the current Dutch model [...]
Culture is one of those words – like marriage, society, science, family and gender - that we use a lot these days. And like those words, if you stopped the argument where it’s being used, it’s unlikely that everyone using it would share the same definition. I’m sure this has been the case for at least a generation now, but I’ve slowly [...]
Law Matters John Carpay Like homophobia, Islamophobia is a dangerous word. Both words are dangerous because they are ambiguous. Uncertainty about the meaning of words makes it impossible to have honest discussion and debate. Without honest debate, democracy and society function poorly. Undermining the citizen’s ability to communicate with others results in misunderstanding and fear. Dictionaries define “phobia” as “an [...]
National Affairs Rory Leishman In recent years, there has been an appalling increase in the number of newborn Canadian babies who suffer acutely from opioid drugs that were passed on to them in the womb by their drug addicted mothers. According to a recent article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, literally thousands of Canadian newborns have suffered in recent [...]
Light is Right Joe Campbell "Don’t call it sin,” he declared, and proposed that, to describe someone’s immoral behaviour, I write objectively disordered. Preserve us from word-watchers, I thought. His lecture was a reminder of how much verbal clutter irritates me. Oh, I understand why he complained. I just don’t understand why he thought it necessary. It wouldn’t bother him [...]