Bill C-16 seeks to amend “the Canadian Human Rights Act to add gender identity and gender expression to the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination” and to amend the Criminal Code so that gender identity and gender expression are listed under the definition of “identifiable group” for protection against hate propaganda and are listed as aggravating circumstances for hate crimes. It passed [...]
Dr. Scott Masson Dr. Scott Masson is an associate professor of English at Tyndale University College in Toronto. He was the founding chairman of the Westminster Classical Christian Academy. His articles and commentary have been published in numerous journals, newspapers and magazines. Dr. Masson will soon be launching a news aggregator website at www.veracrux.com He is a husband and father of two. Campaign [...]
Light is Right Joe Campbell "Don’t call it sin,” he declared, and proposed that, to describe someone’s immoral behaviour, I write objectively disordered. Preserve us from word-watchers, I thought. His lecture was a reminder of how much verbal clutter irritates me. Oh, I understand why he complained. I just don’t understand why he thought it necessary. It wouldn’t bother him [...]
On Monday, March 13, at the age of 101, Monsignor Vincent Foy passed away peacefully in his room at Providence Villa in Toronto. He will be warmly remembered as a tireless advocate of the pro-life cause; as the headline of a recent Catholic Register profile put it, Foy was “pro-life before there was pro-life.” He was, in particular, an ardent defender of [...]
Liberal MP Iqra Khalid (Mississauga-Erin Mills) introduced M-103, a motion condemning “Islamophobia” and calling on Parliament to form a committee to study ways to battle “systemic” anti-Muslim sentiment. Tory MPs and conservative pundits condemned the motion, saying it was a threat to free speech, but Liberal MPs said it was necessary to combat growing intolerance of Muslims in Canada. Conservative MP David [...]
Rev. Brent Hawkes “It’s like a David and Goliath story, right from the start,” said the wife of the complainant. Only, this time Goliath won. She was reacting to the Jan. 31 acquittal of Rev. Brent Hawkes, senior pastor of Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto, on historical sexual assault charges from the mid-1970s when he was a teacher and coach. [...]
Lawyer Clayton Ruby questions victim’s memory Editor’s Note: The story below contains colloquial and graphic details of an alleged sexual assault. Also, the decision in the historic sexual assault trial of Rev. Brent Hawkes, originally scheduled for Jan. 18, was postponed till after The Interim went to press. Because Associate Chief Judge Alan T. Tufts needed more time, the matter was adjourned until [...]
Q: The allegations date back to the mid-1970s. Some leaders fear that even after retirement somebody disgruntled somewhere will bring up a complaint out of nowhere. Why do we even prosecute historic sexual assault? A: Regardless of whether they’ve held authoritative roles, most observers would recognize that allowing minors to drink in one’s home would be most unusual for a teacher and [...]
"In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered” (Lk 2:1). St. Luke’s account of Christ’s Nativity begins with the appearance of Imperial power for good reason. Besides being the story of a King’s birth, Christmas is also the story of the effects of that birth: of the old order that this King upsets, [...]
Limited space permits just a brief consideration in these pages of the Institute for Catholic Education’s Catholic lens of the controversial 2015 Health and Physical Education (HPE) curriculum document for Ontario schools. For a detailed treatment visit www.viewyourenvoymediasite.ca. When the controversial 2015 HPE curriculum for Ontario schools was released, parents with children in the Catholic school system were reassured by bishops, trustees, [...]
Christmas is upon us. We’ll be trimming our trees, putting wreaths on doors, eating sumptuous meals, singing carols (or having them sung to us) and opening presents. I’ve recommended Christmas-themed books, animated specials, and DVDs to Interim readers in the past. This year, my focus will be on a talented cartoonist with strong Christian principles, Johnny Hart. Hart’s work was published in [...]
Jason Kenney defends Baptist schools from NDP's pro-LGBQT mandates. Jason Kenney is in a running war of words with Alberta Education Minister Dave Eggen over Christian schools that refuse to implement the NDP-mandated pro-LGBTQ policies. On the campaign trail for the Progressive Conservative leadership, Kenney blasted Eggen for “lobbing rhetorical bombs” at the schools, which are run by the Baptist [...]
Rory Leishman Like other trendy Protestant Churches, the Anglican Church of Canada has conformed its teachings over the past few decades to the current pattern of the world on everything from contraception and abortion to same-sex “marriage” (SSM). This once influential denomination has lapsed into a state of theological confusion, ecclesiastical disarray, and near-terminal decline. The chaos came to a [...]
Clouds as a gateway to God Red Lodge Montana I spent 20 years of my life running from God. I won’t go into the reasons here – for a long time I blamed poor religious education, but that was just an excuse – but I began my adult life in full flight from questions about God, faith and spirituality. Obviously [...]
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 [...]