For more than three decades, The Interim and Campaign Life Coalition have reminded readers and supporters of the responsibility of all citizens, but especially Christians, to prioritize life issues above all else when they vote. This is not to deny the importance of alleviating poverty, the ability of middle class couples to support their families, how to address crime, Canadian foreign policy, [...]
A weed, by definition, is just a plant in the wrong place. Dandelions on a green lawn and oak trees in an apple orchard are only weeds because the gardener’s wishes make them so. Last month, Canada legalized RU-486, the abortifacient drug sometimes known as “the human pesticide.” This lethal, murderous drug has no place in a civilized society; it is a [...]
It is easy to forget amidst the extensive coverage of the federal party leaders, that on Election Day we do not in fact vote for prime minister. We mark our ballots for members of Parliament. As the jaded observations has it, MPs have become Ottawa’s representatives to their constituents rather than their constituents’ representatives in Ottawa. Increasingly, MPs participate in their own [...]
The pro-life movement owes a debt of gratitude to the 25 pro-life MPs who, sadly, are not running again. They all voted for pro-life and pro-family legislation, and many of them spoke up in the House of Commons and stood with the National March for Life on the steps of Parliament; some of them introduced pro-life and pro-family legislation. On behalf of [...]
Few issues in public discourse are as prominent as concern for the climate. Celebrities, politicians, and activists preach an apocalyptic gospel of environmental repentance because there is a crisis, we are told, just slightly out of the reach of our senses. Carbon emissions and average temperature are used to substantiate fears about a looming disaster which can be felt everywhere but seen [...]
L anguage is rooted in our common experience of the world. As every toddler quickly learns, each thing has a name, and every object within the range of the child’s eye and pointing finger has a word by which it can be called. After a time, the same vocabulary that clothes the visible world with language is used to dress the otherwise [...]
A philosopher once pithily observed that “the map is not the territory.” The same can certainly be said of statements about the Roman Pontiff made in the mainstream media: they do not offer trustworthy maps for navigating the territory of what Pope Francis actually did or said on any occasion. One always needs a ressourcement, a return to the sources, when judging [...]
In a statement issued last month, the Ontario Civil Liberties Association (OCLA) declared its opposition “to the evident statutory and institutional bias that exists in Ontario against the free-expression rights of pro-life campaigners.” We are grateful for their clear-eyed recognition that the institutions which ought to have protected our Charter rights have failed us so flagrantly. The violation of the rights of [...]
Before the last of the confetti had fallen on Patrick Brown’s victory celebration, political reporters had already filed their stories: another moral Neanderthal had ascended to the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario’s top spot. To judge from their reports, one might conclude that Brown, and his erstwhile rival, Monte McNaughton, spoke incessantly (and insensitively) about social conservative issues, with members of the [...]
Progress is not a Christian notion. Writing to the Church at Ephesus, Paul could have offered triumphal assurances of eventual victory, or at least the prospect of earthly ease. Had Christ not conquered sin and death? Weren’t His followers now spreading His message with vigor and zeal? Paul, however, does not conjure dreams of immanent success but offers, instead, only a chastening [...]
“And blessed is he that shall not be scandalized in me.” (Mt 11:6) The recitation of the Lord’s Prayer has been a standard part of political meetings in this country since its beginning. The Christian hands which laboured tirelessly to build up our country up from a British outpost into a nation glorious in its own right knew that their stomachs were [...]
The Liberal Party has heeded that old adage of advertising: if you have a problem, feature it. After decades in the ascendancy as the most winningest party in the West, they have all but collapsed. A string of feckless leaders – Martin, Dion, Ignatieff – have left the Natural Governing Party without their aura of inevitability. But their very desperation has attuned [...]
The first appearance of the word “euthanasia” in English occurs in Francis Bacon’s discussion of incurable diseases. He exhorts doctors to tend to the terminally ill, for the “office of the physician” is “not only to restore health, but to mitigate pain and dolors,” even when it may only “serve to make…de euthanasia exteriore.” That doctors should assist their suffering patients in [...]
The Supreme Court of Canada’s recent declaration that our country’s prohibitions against euthanasia and assisted suicide “unjustifiably infringe” on the rights articulated in Section 7 of the Charter – those rights, ironically, to “life, liberty and security of the person”– is a flagrant affront to the will of the people. As recently as 2010, our elected officials rendered a clear and firm [...]
The rhythms of the year are unsurprising and predicable; as inevitable as winter snow and spring showers is a declaration of the death of the pro-life movement. This year’s annual pronouncement ran in the National Post shortly following the floor-crossing of several MLAs from the Wild Rose Party to the Progressive Conservatives in Alberta. The party’s then-leader, Danielle Smith, explained that this [...]