Angelica Vecchiato: Waterloo Catholic District School Board (WCDSB) trustee Wendy Ashby apologized after calling Christian males “the most dangerous creature on the planet” in a tweet, but only after facing parental backlash. The controversy continued for more than three weeks before Ashby finally resigned her position on the WCDSB. On April 24, 50 concerned parents erupted in protest calling for Ashby’s resignation [...]
John Carpay: In Canada in 2023, it takes remarkable courage to state the obvious. At a public meeting of the Waterloo Region District School Board in January of 2022, a teacher raised concerns about school library books promoting transgender ideology to children. In a shocking display of blatant censorship, Waterloo school board chair Scott Piatkowski expelled Carolyn Burjoski from this public meeting, after [...]
Interim Staff: New Brunswick Progressive Conservative Premier Blaine Higgs announced he would review Policy 713, the province’s public school Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity policy, arguing that the current policy denies parents their right to know if their child wants to change genders. The current policy, implemented by the Ministry of Education in 2020, states, “Transgender or non-binary students under the age [...]
Mary Zwicker: Between July 2021 and June 2022, the year before the Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade, the United States saw the second-highest number of abortions carried out by Planned Parenthood in its history, new data indicates, despite the total number of abortions in the United States trending downward since the 1990s. Under the theme of “Relentless,” the Planned Parenthood Federation [...]
Paul Tuns Two NDP members of provincial parliament in British Columbia and Ontario have introduced private member's bills in support of drag shows for children. In Ontario, NDP MPP Kristyn Wong-Tam tabled Bill 94, the Keeping 2SLGBTQI+ Communities Safe Act, 2023, which, if passed, would allow the Attorney General to temporarily designate addresses where drag shows are taking place as "community safety [...]
In museums, libraries, galleries, and concert halls, one can watch a similar drama unfold. An incipient style—of a period, of an artist—begins uncertainly, but it promises something more, an as-yet-unachieved maturity. Eventually, as the career of a style progresses, something permanent and distinctive is added to the sum-total of cultural achievements. One need only think of the qualities conjured by eponymous adjectives—like [...]
John Carpay: The more that people possess virtues like humility, wisdom, courage, and self-control, the less that people need regulations and laws to govern their conduct. In a society where most citizens possess a high degree of virtue, people have the capacity to cooperate with each other to achieve social, economic, financial, and community goals. Virtuous people don’t need thousands of laws [...]
Rory Leishman: In a startling headline on Jan. 24, Scotland’s largest newspaper, the Daily Record, exclaimed: “Transgender Scot found guilty of raping two women when she was a man.” When she was a man? Really? Robert “Robbie” Burns, revered by Scots as the world’s greatest poet, insisted, “A man’s a man for a that and a that.” Of course, that is no [...]
Poland’s family centered values The European Union constantly pushes EU countries into passing laws which devalue the family, increase abortions, and remove parental guidance by parents. Poland, like Hungary, is repeatedly attacked for its family affirming policies. Recently, Poland launched Education for Family Life, a required course in the standard curriculum of primary education. The objectives of the course are to teach [...]
Donald DeMarco: The word “potential” is mesmerizing. It conjures up a dreamland in which one can become anything he wants to be. It has not yet crossed into the realm of the actual where it loses its unsullied attractiveness. A young woman yearns for the perfect mate. She can maintain this yearning as long as it remains in dreamland. When she marries, [...]
On April 3, Reformation 21, a Reformed Church website, ran an important essay by Rosaria Butterfield, “Why I no longer use Transgender Pronouns — and Why You shouldn’t, either.” Butterfield, an erstwhile lesbian who found faith, wrote: “Trans identity and Jesus are not coterminous. It’s one or the other. Christians need to learn how to love their enemies, not pretend their enemies [...]
Josie Luetke: Interim writer, Josie Luetke, Talk Turkey My anonymous Twitter troll has seemingly finally moved onto bigger and better things (knock on wood), but in the past, (presumably) he would repeatedly demand I educate myself on the history of the pride flag – originally the gay pride flag. I recently declined to attend an alumni event at my alma [...]
Heterosexual students happier, healthier than LGBQ+ students The U.S. Centres for Disease Control has completed and released its annual Youth Risk Behavior Survey. High school students were grouped into heterosexual and LGBQ+ categories. (Subsequent assessments will include transgender students.) Here are a few of the disturbing results. Among heterosexual students, 22 per cent experienced poor mental health, in contrast to 52 per [...]
Donald DeMarco: Arthur Rubinstein begins his lengthy autobiography by paying tribute to his aunt Salomea Meyer. Mrs. Rubinstein had given birth to six children. It would be eight years before she would conceive her seventh. Given her situation, it may be understandable that she was reluctant to give birth to a seventh child. The distinguished pianist writes: “I was utterly unwanted by [...]
Rick McGinnis: Perhaps because no place makes us more anxious than the future, there’s a bottomless appetite for predictions about what happens next. Last year Peter Zeihan broke from the usual pack of prognosticators with The End of the World is Just Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization, a thick but very readable book about the world-changing crisis he says has already [...]