Columnist

Conservative Policy Convention shocker: Ambrose, Rempel scuttle policy process, pro-life Tories to be silenced at convention

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 [...]

Paul Tuns2016-04-30T18:46:18-04:00April 30, 2016|Abortion Law, Announcements, Features, Paul Tuns, Politics|

Waking up from the ‘American Dream’

"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 [...]

Paul Tuns2016-04-14T06:38:00-04:00April 16, 2016|Announcements, Features, Marriage and Family, Rick McGinnis|

All creatures great and small

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 [...]

Paul Tuns2016-04-14T06:32:45-04:00April 14, 2016|Joe Campbell, Religion|

Christian churches and euthanasia

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 [...]

Paul Tuns2016-04-14T06:27:23-04:00April 14, 2016|Announcements, Euthanasia, Features, Religion, Rory Leishman|

Death of dignity

Light is Right Joe Campbell I get the impression that the phrase “doctor-assisted dying” is becoming a media favourite. Don’t journalists know that we’ve been dying unassisted since time immemorial? We don’t need help dying. It comes natural to us. If anything, we need help living. I thought that’s what doctors were for. Doctor-assisted living, I understand. Doctors routinely help us [...]

Paul Tuns2016-03-15T11:14:28-04:00March 15, 2016|Assisted Suicide, Joe Campbell|

Legislators must pass conscience rights laws

National Affairs Rory Leishman On Jan. 26, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario decreed that any physician who declines for reasons of conscience or religion to provide physician-assisted death upon request must promptly refer the patient to a readily available physician who has no compunction about killing a patient or assisting a patient in committing suicide. A similar [...]

Paul Tuns2016-03-09T13:46:16-05:00March 9, 2016|Human rights, Rory Leishman|

Jian Ghomeshi and the sexual revolution hangover

Former CBC host Jian Ghomeshi leaving a Toronto courtroom with lawyer Marie Henein. As I write this, the trial of former CBC Radio host Jian Ghomeshi is in recess until the judge hands down a verdict later this March. What was supposed to be an open and shut indictment of the onetime media darling turned out to be a hugely [...]

Paul Tuns2016-03-09T13:42:17-05:00March 9, 2016|Announcements, Features, Rick McGinnis, Society & Culture|

Babel

I didn’t really mean it. Honest I didn’t. I was only fooling when I suggested that Canada make aboriginal languages official. I never dreamt that anyone would take seriously what I wrote in The Great Canadian Comedy, a 2008 collection of essays. If not the book, I thought that at least the title betrayed a humorous intent. Nevertheless, seven years later, Perry Bellegarde, Chief [...]

Paul Tuns2016-02-19T20:11:07-05:00February 19, 2016|Joe Campbell|

Arresting portraits and good examples

In his latest book, Telling Lives, Ian Hunter, emeritus professor of law at Western University, presents an entertaining and inspirational series of sketches of 10 people with “effective, forcible, striking” personalities. The book begins with an intriguing essay entitled “Jesus: The Evidence.” Drawing upon decades of experience as an award-winning teacher and practitioner of criminal law, Hunter applies his expertise on the rules of [...]

Paul Tuns2016-02-19T20:01:35-05:00February 19, 2016|Cover stories, Rory Leishman|

Hollywood goes boldly pro-abortion

Since I began writing this column almost seven years ago, I have had a few mantras – dictums that I’ve thought you can rely on when judging popular culture and its baleful evolution. One is that cheaper usually beats better (as in mp3s or video on cellphones versus high end audio gear and movie theatres). Another is that there’s no such thing [...]

Paul Tuns2016-02-19T20:03:29-05:00February 19, 2016|Abortion, Rick McGinnis|

On the Pill

Light is Right Joe Campbell The pill – you know the one – may be better at preventing conception in fish than in people. What’s more, the fish don’t need a prescription. They get the pill’s synthetic estrogen from sewage that municipalities discharge into rivers and lakes. By feminizing males, the synthetic hormone can limit fish reproduction to the point [...]

Paul Tuns2016-01-20T14:13:44-05:00January 20, 2016|Joe Campbell|

deVeber memoir delights, inspires

Few Canadians have been more widely revered for a lifetime of benevolent accomplishments than Dr. L.L. (Barrie) deVeber, professor emeritus in Paediatrics and Oncology at Western University. So who, exactly, is this exemplary intellectual and physician -- some kind of saint? Well, not quite. Just ask his younger brother George. In Barrie: The Memoirs of Dr. L.L. deVeber as told to S. [...]

Paul Tuns2016-01-18T07:08:25-05:00January 15, 2016|Announcements, Bioethics, Features, Rory Leishman, Society & Culture|

Digital darkness

Light is Right Joe Campbell My latest laptop, the snooty MacBook Pro that distains communicating with its elders, had a nervous breakdown recently. “Well,” I said, when I took it to the Apple store for repairs, “it serves you right. You treated my beloved Macintosh SE despicably. Now it’s your turn to suffer.” I haven’t yet got over the shock [...]

Paul Tuns2015-12-18T08:46:33-05:00December 18, 2015|Joe Campbell|

Election guidelines

National Affairs Rory Leishman More than 70 per cent of voters in the 2015 federal election supported candidates and parties committed to unrestricted abortion on demand. What can account for such appalling disregard for the sanctity of human life? While politicians, intellectuals and journalists bear much of the blame, church leaders should also be called to account. According to Statistics [...]

Paul Tuns2015-12-18T08:43:36-05:00December 18, 2015|Rory Leishman|

They don’t make Christmas movies like they used to

They still make Christmas movies, as far as I can tell, but we’re a long way from Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney singing Irving Berlin tunes for a war-weary generation. This Christmas, for instance, we have the very wry Bill Murray spoofing the holiday TV special in A Very Murray Christmas, and The Night Before, a seasonal buddy film where Seth Rogen, [...]

Paul Tuns2015-12-17T09:35:46-05:00December 17, 2015|Announcements, Features, Marriage and Family, Movie Review, Religion, Rick McGinnis|

Previous 394041 Next