In March, the media obtained an e-mail from the Prime Minister's Office that told cabinet ministers and senior bureaucrats that their communications were to be vetted by the same Prime Minister's Office. Many noted that this is the kind of heavy-handedness the Conservatives often criticized in Jean Chretien's PMO. We will take a slightly (but only slightly) more forgiving view. We understand [...]
In January, a study prepared for the Justice Department recommended that polygamy be legalized. Months earlier, in 2005, the president of the Canadian Islamic Congress called polygamy a “positive family force.” Now, a new television series on the American cable giant HBO, entitled Big Love, portrays the polygamous marriage of one man and his three wives. HBO says that the show “explores [...]
When you get to the bottom of the issue of organ donation, there are two main arguments used against pro-lifers in their concerns about the practice: dying patients don’t need organs anyway and improving another person’s life is a truly pro-life position. Neither argument holds any water. Regarding the first argument, the moral principle is simple: it is never permissible to purposely [...]
Even before Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that parliamentarians would be allowed to “interview” his appointee to the Supreme Court of Canada, the chattering classes were in apoplexy over the “politicization” of the judicial appointment process. The chief justice of the Canadian Supreme Court, Beverly McLachlin, warned Canada’s new prime minister not to “politicize” the appointment system to the court. She told [...]
From the editor's desk Covering elections is difficult in the best of circumstances. The best circumstance, in my mind, is that of a daily paper with dozens of reporters, dozens more editors, and a multi-million-dollar budget – the type that can afford the $3,500-a-day price tag for a media bus ticket that the campaigns charge. Less than ideal circumstances are two-writer/editor outfits [...]
Throughout the course of the winter campaign, then-prime minister Paul Martin frequently taunted Stephen Harper about his supposed “hidden agenda.” Such rhetoric jeopardizes deliberative debate - it prefers innuendo and suspicion to facts and arguments, it is used to scare voters and it panders to their misplaced sympathies and irrational fears. But it is also shrewd. Martin’s rhetorical campaign against the Conservatives [...]
Elections are opportunities – opportunities to speak up on the vital issues of the day and to influence the political process by choosing our elected representatives. Between elections, it can often seem that we, as citizens, are powerless. Too many political leaders ignore what Canadians want and pander to noisy special interest groups or manoeuver to get themselves re-elected, with little concern [...]
The situation in Parliament is volatile. It is quite possible that an election will be called between the time we put this paper to bed and the time you receive it. So we remind you simply of your obligation to vote pro-life and pro-family on election day. While there are other important issues, none are as important or as urgent as restoring [...]
Sadly, each year the list of Scrooges and Grinches grows, as more public spaces remove the vestiges of Christmas during this holy season and new retailers announce policies that replace well-wishes of Christmas cheer with politically correct pap about “happy holidays.” The great irony is that the government seeks to be “inclusive” by turning its back on our Christian heritage and rejecting [...]
As we put the November issue to bed, we have learned that there is a move afoot among his fellow scribes to have The Interim’s Queen’s Park columnist, Frank Kennedy, removed from the press gallery of the Ontario legislature. The complaint against Frank, who has held an associate (part-time) membership since 1990, is that he distributed pro-life literature through the mailboxes of [...]
Bev Desjarlais quit the NDP and chose to sit as an independent MP after being ousted from the party for being the only member of her caucus to vote against same-sex “marriage.” In the nomination contest in her riding of Churchill (Manitoba), NDP leader Jack Layton supported Niki Ashton, a recent university graduate, who subsquently defeated Desjarlais. Most political observers believe Layton’s [...]
It is too-common, although understandable, that many pro-lifers are suffering from abortion or same-sex “marriage” fatigue. Informed social conservatives and people of faith have been barraged by news, debates and other information about redefining marriage to include homosexual couples over the past few years. Many pro-lifers have been reading not only The Interim, but our daily online service, LifeSiteNews.com, and other pro-life [...]
When he was a candidate for the Liberal leadership in 2003, Paul Martin promised to do something about the “democratic deficit.” He said he would implement an accountable and transparent process to appoint judges and end the practice of rewarding political cronies with plum appointments. On both counts, he has broken his promise. In August 2004, Martin appointed a pair of radical [...]
The problems at the United Nations – from the 1975 resolution declaring Zionism a form of racism to the massive oil-for-food scandal that enriched Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein (as well as several UN officials and their business associates), to its inaction in genocides in Rwanda and Sudan, to the sexual abuse of locals at the hands of its peacekeepers in west Africa [...]
Chris Kempling, the British Columbia teacher suspended by the B.C. College of Teachers, must be shaking his head. In 2003, he was punished for writing letters to the editor of his local paper voicing concern over the promotion of homosexuality in the classroom. The British Columbia Federation of Teachers, his union, was eventually forced to fund Kempling’s legal bills, although it repeatedly [...]