French Canadians have the habit of easy and quick canonization. After Claude Ryan's death on Feb. 9, the whole nation praised the journalist and politician, from Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte of Montreal to Quebec Premier Jean Charest. Many journalists participated, particularly from Le Devoir. Even the PQ leader, Bernard Landry, and the former PQ leader, Lucien Bouchard, were at the funeral. There was [...]
I answered the door and there was Prime Minister Paul Martin standing there. I expected him to be on time. "Are you the wise old sage I've been told can help me with the political disasters I'm facing?" "Wise old sage?" I laughed. "I've been called worse things than that. I give advice to politicians and sometimes they act on it and [...]
The other day, the guy on my local radio station mentioned that The Passion of The Christ was the number one movie in America. "So congrats to Mel Gibson," he said. "And it'll probably hold on to the number one slot until the new Starsky & Hutch opens." It's always useful to keep things in proportion. But, in fact, Starsky & Hutch [...]
In October of 2003, and for the first time in the United States, the abortion industry settled a malpractice lawsuit based on the link between abortion and breast cancer. The Cherry Hill Women's Centre in New Jersey failed to inform a woman of both the breast-cancer, as well as the mental, risks of induced abortion. The plaintiff, identified only as "Sarah" to [...]
There should be communication in the family. In spite of the different opinions which always occur in families, the family should be characterized by peace, love and joy. American author Dolores Curran's book, Traits of a Healthy Family, tells how she wrote a letter and sent it to 500 "experts" on the question of family living. In the letter, she gave 56 [...]
Anyone who has spent any amount of time in our movement knows how hard it can be to keep the batteries charged. I am, of course, talking about the many defeats we seem to experience - even though our cause is a righteous cause. After all, are we not trying to be a voice for the voiceless? None of us garner anything [...]
Once, in a washroom at Halifax Airport, I discovered that the paper towel dispenser was empty. The condom machine was full, but towels are better for drying hands. In Toronto last year, the condom dispensers in the lady's room were equally well stocked, but it was impossible to get cough drops in any of the terminal's many kiosks. On CBC radio last [...]
The Supreme Court of Canada judges have been described as tin-pot dictators who want to rewrite Canadian laws to align them with their own biased opinions. "Sexual orientation" is a fairly recent homosexual buzzword thought up by the homosexual public relations department and makes no more sense than "heterosexual orientation" would. Yet the judicial activist Supreme Court of Canada overruled Parliament and [...]
I am "stealing" the following article from an Irish magazine. Having read it, you may say, "Well, we can't all be like Mother Teresa." That's true. But we can all learn something from her, which could affect our lives and the lives of others. So here it goes. Apparently, she had been asked the secret of her success with the poor and [...]
Once again, a new year is upon us ... we look back to the old at the same time we glance forward. There are some interesting developments. On Nov. 27, the Planned Parenthood Association of B.C. changed their name. I have no idea why they felt that the name "Planned Parenthood" no longer warranted a letterhead. That is for others to speculate. [...]
Stalin would feel right at home with our electoral system. It can be bought, twisted and manipulated, as Ontario demonstrated recently. The truth is that people who don't vote are telling all the politicians, "None of you is worth getting off my duff to vote for!" (I'm quoting a disgruntled voter at the door.) But those people are voting. They're sitting on [...]
It was a CBC Radio call-in show in the early afternoon. The guests included an Anglican rector, and an articulate Anglican layman from Christ Church in Hamilton, where two lesbians had been "married" in August of this year. The host posed this question for the listeners: "What would you advise Anglican people to do over the same-sex marriage issue?" I tried to [...]
By Donald DeMarco The InterimKyrie and Brielle Jackson were born on Oct. 17, 1995, a full 12 weeks ahead of their due date. The standard practice, that time, at the Medical Centre of Central Massachusetts in Worcester, where the twins came into the world, was to place them in separate incubators in order to reduce the risk of infection. Kyrie's birth weight [...]
It's not often you find a trade magazine, the current National Post Business magazine, detailing a hilarious collection of goofs and mad goings-on in the staid business world. You have Allan Markin, chairman and co-owner of Canadian Natural Resources, taking a leave of absence while suing his stepson for $2 million dollars for allegedly taking possession of Molly, the family Dalmatian. (Heavens, [...]
The reason that the ALS Society of Canada, and other like-minded organizations, want the government to approve Bill C-13 is so that the Canadian Institutes of Health Research will fund pharmaceutical companies to do such research on human embryos using taxpayers' money. These pharmaceutical companies are eager for taxpayer dollars, too. But the fact that they are eager for government money highlights [...]