In September, the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children held its national conference in conjunction with the annual meeting of the International Right to Life Federation. Conference participants were thus treated to international experts from all corners of the globe who spoke about the challenges to defend human life at all stages. SPUC, which describes itself as the world’s first pro-life [...]
Our son, Paul, was the first of our five children to marry. He and his wife, Fran, wanted to become parents soon after they had become husband and wife. That is to say, as soon as it was proper and reasonable. But children, of course, are not conceived to order. A couple of childless years passed and the hopeful couple began praying [...]
One of Canada’s most committed pro-life politicians, Stanley Haidasz, passed away August 6 at the age of 86. Haidasz, a Liberal, served in Parliament for nearly a half-century. First elected in 1957, he lost his re-election bid the following year, but regained his Parkdale seat in Toronto in 1962 and was then re-elected five times. In 1978, he was appointed [...]
If you’re going to be a crook, Canada’s the place to be. Not Zambia, where the government isn’t printing any more of its worthless money. Or Somalia, where they haven’t had a central government in 10 years. Or Saudi Arabia, where thieves get their hands cut off and adulterers get stoned. Or Iraq, where your coloured voting finger gets cut off by [...]
Health care reform bills introduced by Congressional Democrats and backed by the White House include federal taxpayer funding of abortion and open the door to rationing care for the elderly and other vulnerable persons, in order to realize savings in the overall health care system. These controversial measures have led to a backlash against President Barack Obama’s goal of broadly [...]
At the beginning of another school year, the parents of children in the public schools of Canada might well earnestly reflect upon what their children are likely to be taught about the vital issues of faith and morality. Fifty years ago, there was little reason for concern. Parents could have confidence that teachers in the publicly funded Catholic and non-denominational [...]
The critical success of the show Mad Men, which has just returned for its third season, is probably due to how seductively easy it is to write about. Writers on deadline are ravenous scavengers and, when they run out of things to say about its pre-Beatles 60s setting, its slick period aesthetic or the New York advertising world where most of its [...]
Once again the assembled chiefs of police in Canada have called for an increased number of officers to deal with what they describe as a “spiralling increase” in the amount of child pornography on the internet. They explained to a press conference that a quarter of a million separate internet addresses in Canada are actively downloading the most horrendous scenes [...]
Last month, the National Post reported that one in five schools in the Toronto public school system is at least 40 per cent empty and that the board hopes to save $10-15 million by consolidating or closing some of those institutions. West Toronto Collegiate cancelled its Grade 9 program this year because there were too few students enrolled in first-year high school. [...]
In the spring, the National Assembly of Quebec passed Bill 34, a law that mandated minimum safety and sanitation requirements for private health care facilities that perform surgeries. It mandated, for example, sterile operating rooms and separate ventilating systems, as well as outlined procedures to protect patients who use non-hospital facilities for medical care. In August, three Montreal abortuaries said they would [...]
Charles Gonthier, a former justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, passed away recently at the age of 80. Appointed by Brian Mulroney in 1989, he developed a reputation as a conservative during his 14 years on the country’s top court. The Canadian Press reported in its obituary that Gonthier offered “a more conservative interpretation of the individual rights guaranteed [...]
Some of America’s leading billionaires met secretly recently to consider how their wealth could be used to “slow the growth of the world’s population.” Attending on the initiative of Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, they discussed joining forces to overcome political and religious obstacles to change. Other participants included David Rockefeller Jr., the patriarch of America’s wealthiest dynasty, Warren Buffett and George [...]
It’s helpful to learn, in these difficult financial times, the problems we share with the very wealthy, who have to experience getting along on considerably less income. Ruth Madoff is one of those persons, the celebrity wife of an epic swindler, Bernard Madoff, a financial adviser who was found guilty of purloining $170 billion in a gigantic Ponzi scheme. Her husband’s estimated [...]
As the huge costs of caring for Canada’s rapidly aging population become ever more apparent, more and more Canadians are finally beginning to realize that the collapse of the birthrate in Canada over the past 40 years threatens the economic prosperity of future generations. In a recent report, “Faster, Younger, Richer? The Fond Hope and Sobering Reality of Immigration’s Impact [...]
Vampires are back. Not that they ever went away, but they’ve been given a pop culture revival that strives to make them even more appealing than ever before. For tweens, there are the painfully attractive, but misunderstood, nightwalking misfits of Twilight, the Stephenie Meyer novel that was recently adapted into the first of a series of films, and for adults, there are [...]