Last month, a number of legal, medical, and civil rights lobby groups appeared before an Ontario legislative committee in an attempt to persuade legislators to amend Bill 84 to protect the conscience rights of doctors and other medical professionals who refuse to participate in “medical assistance in dying” (MAID). The Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs heard submissions by the Catholic [...]
Law Matters John Carpay Like homophobia, Islamophobia is a dangerous word. Both words are dangerous because they are ambiguous. Uncertainty about the meaning of words makes it impossible to have honest discussion and debate. Without honest debate, democracy and society function poorly. Undermining the citizen’s ability to communicate with others results in misunderstanding and fear. Dictionaries define “phobia” as “an [...]
On Feb. 7, Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould and Heritage Minister Melanie Joly announced the Liberal government would resurrect the Court Challenges Program, the federal fund for third parties to challenge the constitutionality of laws. The CCP was created in the 1970s by the Pierre Trudeau government to launch court challenges to laws based on equality and language rights. The Harper government nixed [...]
Law Matters John Carpay Campus free speech hits a temporary road block in October, wih an Ontario court ruling against Students for Life at Ryerson. Since 2013, these pro-life students have been denied their right to set up a campus club by the Ryerson Students’ Union (RSU). Without status as a registered campus club, the students cannot set up a table on [...]
How sad it is that the Netherlands, a country which heroically resisted the Nazi euthanasia program, is now saddled with a government so steeped in the culture of death that it plans to extend legalized assisted suicide to any healthy elderly person who has voluntarily resolved that he or she has simply had a “completed life” (voltooid leven) and wants to die. [...]
On Nov. 18, the House of Commons passed Bill C-16, An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code to include transgender rights in the country’s hate crimes and human rights laws. It was overwhelmingly passed on a voice vote -- that is, there is no record of who supported and opposed the bill. Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould [...]
Gwen Landolt opposes Wynne government's redefining family relationships. Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal government introduced Bill 28, the “All Families Are Equal Act,” which, if passed, will legally redefine “mother” and “father” as “parent” to accommodate homosexual couples who adopt or conceive children through artificial means. REAL Women vice president Gwen Landolt criticized the Ontario government for “ramming through a revolutionary bill [...]
On Oct. 19, the Liberal government’s Bill C-16, which will amend the Canadian Human Rights Act, making it illegal to discriminate on the basis of gender identity and expression, passed second reading in a 248-40 vote. C-16 also amends the Criminal Code’s hate crime laws to include gender identity and gender expression so that crimes thought to be motivated by prejudice against [...]
Law Matters John Carpay Alberta’s education minister has launched a formal inquiry into two Edmonton-area Baptist schools, ostensibly to ensure a “welcoming, caring, respectful and safe learning environment to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) students.” This inquiry has its origins in Bill 10, passed in a matter of hours, without public consultation. This new law requires every school [...]
There is a certain intellectual consistency, at least, between the expedient fluidity of liberals’ positions on women, gays, and Islam, and their affectation that gender is a matter of private whim. For progressives, after all, neither words nor states of being are ever objectively fixed. Thus marriage is not a union between a man and a woman as determined by immemorial custom [...]
Carla Qualtrough, who serves as the Minister for Sport and Persons with Disabilities, is holding consultations as she prepares to draft Canada’s first national accessibility legislation. The creation of such a law is referenced in her 2015 mandate letter from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau outlining Qualtrough’s ministerial responsibilities. In September, Qualtrough was interviewed by Jonathan Charlton of the Saskatoon StarPhoenix. Asked about [...]
Barack Obama While reassuring the world that “it has nothing to do with Islam,” whenever the Mullahs behead infidels, massacre Christians, stone immodestly dressed women, and castrate gays (in the Middle East, if you want a sex-change operation, your local shariah council will provide it free of charge), President Barack Obama has finally drawn a line in the sand against [...]
REAL Women of Canada has launched a petition calling on Parliament to counteract the “discrimination currently being experienced by Christians in Canada” and is gathering signatures for its September presentation in the House of Commons. The petition asks the government “to permit Christians to robustly exercise their religious beliefs and conscience rights,” which are protected under the Charter and the Canadian Bill [...]
On June 29, the Ontario Court of Appeal allowed the Ontario legal profession to exclude graduates from Trinity Western University’s proposed law school. TWU, a British Columbia Christian university, said it will appeal the decision. The Law Society of Upper Canada said it would not permit graduates of TWU’s law school, which is not operational, because the private universities Community Covenant requires [...]
On May 16, whilst celebrating the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his government would introduce new “transgender rights” legislation, Bill C-16. This bill would enlarge the Criminal Code’s hate speech laws to include gender identity and expression, and make it illegal to bar a person from employment on these bases. Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould, who [...]