Paul Tuns: I began my review of Ted Byfield’s 1999 collection of columns, The Book of Ted: Epistles from an Unrepentant Redneck: “The American columnist George Will once said that before there was Ronald Reagan there was Barry Goldwater, before there was Goldwater there was National Review, and before there was National Review there was William F. Buckley … The Canadian equivalent [...]
Paul Tuns: Pope Francis created a bit of a stir after he briefly commented about people who have pets instead of children. It was two sentences in a longer address on Jan. 5 about adoption and predictably the media reaction missed the forest for the trees. CNN ran a column by Alistair Currie who complained, “The Pope’s suggestion that failing to have [...]
Let us dissent from the orgy of praise for House of Commons and Senate passing the odious conversion therapy ban, Bill C-4, without any debate or hearings, a parliamentary manoeuvre that requires unanimous consent. When private companies agree to cooperate, it is called collusion; when politicians agree to cooperate, it receives hosannahs as bipartisanship. Politics is an arena in which ideas are [...]
Donald DeMarco Commentary In ancient Rome, the father dominated the family. As “paterfamilias” (head of the family), he had absolute rule over his household. If his children angered him, he had the legal right to disown them, sell them into slavery, or even kill them. Sons were preferred. The birth of a female, could be her death warrant. The father came first, [...]
Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality Helen Joyce (One World, $34.95, 311 pages) Helen Joyce’s Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality delivers exactly what the subtitle promises, juxtaposing the trans ideology with biological facts. Joyce begins her examination of gender identity in Weimar Germany where the discredited Institute of Sexual Science, founded by the gay Jewish drag queen Magnus Hirschfeld, offered hormones and surgery [...]
Paul Tuns Last month, Cardus, a Hamilton-based think tank, released a Family Policy Brief by Jon Peter Mitchell and Andrea Mrozek that examined “policy options to better serve families.” Mitchell and Mrozek note that “strong, stable families are irreplaceable and are foundational to a healthy society,” and that “our best social policies do not replace or attempt to replicate the family but [...]
Paul Tuns The centerpiece of the Liberal government’s spending plans over the next five years is a $30 billion commitment to child care. It is a relatively small amount among the $614 billion in program spending in 2020/2021, which is schedule to fall to $475.5 billion in 2021/2022 before levelling off in the vicinity of $430 billion in the years afterwards. But [...]
BY PAUL TUNS In his under-rated and under-appreciated sociological treatise, Passion and Social Constraint, Ernst van den Haag, notes that “though the culture of each society differs from that of others, some institutions are needed in all societies to perform, in however varied ways, functions essential to any social life.” He observed that “all societies that have offspring have the institution of [...]
What is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense Sherif Gergis, Ryan T. Anderson and Robert P. George (Encounter, $24, 136 pages) In 2013, Sherif Girgis, Ryan T. Anderson, and Robert P. George co-wrote a brief book, What is Marriage. Last year, the book was re-released and rightly so. Although the book was originally released during the height of the same-sex "marriage" debate [...]
Critics say the cookie-cutter program is unnecessary By Paul Tuns At the beginning of pandemic lockdowns in Canada schools and daycares closed, and children were at home with parents who all-of-a-sudden found themselves working out of their own houses. Feminists, unions, and Liberal and NDP politicians noted that working women could not as easily balance family and work responsibilities as their male [...]
By Interim Staff The Doug Ford government said it will amend Bill 213, Better for People, Smarter for Business Act, which amends 29 laws. It passed first reading in early October, but the Progressive Conservative government agreed to add wording that would have required individuals who officiate weddings to abide a provincial Code of Practice,” after independent MPP Belinda Karahalios (Cambridge) sent [...]
By Paul Tuns In late October, the news media was in a frenzy that the Catholic Church had apparently changed its doctrine on same-sex sexual relationships after the producer of a new documentary on Pope Francis released clips of his forthcoming film. Evgeny Afineevsky, screenwriter for Francisco, a documentary about Pope Francis, in a segment from his documentary suggested that the Pope [...]
By Paul Tuns Last November, Toronto Catholic District School Board trustee Michael Del Grande offered a reductio ad absurdum motion to amend the board’s code of conduct to include sexual proclivities such as bestiality and vampirism, in response to the province’s pressure to add sexual orientation, gender identity, and family status to the list of protected classes in the board’s code of [...]
Pro-family, faith groups concerned about broad implications of C-6 By Interim Staff On Oct. 28, the Trudeau government’s C-6, which, if it becomes law, prohibits conversion therapy for unwanted same-sex attraction and gender dysphoria, passed second reading in a 308-7 vote, with the unanimous support of the Liberals, NDP, Bloc Quebecois, the Greens, and vast majority of the Conservative Party caucus. C-6 [...]
Amusements Rick McGinnis With the end of the coronavirus lockdown in sight as I write this, we’ll finally get to see how the greatest social experiment of the 21st century will finally play out. By the time you read this you may be able to visit your elderly relatives or sit in a restaurant or watch a movie in a [...]