Mary Zwicker: The family, the basis upon which society is built, is faced with challenges and threats like never before, as an over-reliance on technology can leave families estranged while at the same time exposing its members to harms such as pornography, even at a young age. The Institute for Family Studies, an organization that is dedicated to strengthening marriage and families, [...]
Rory Leishman: Josh Alexander is the Grade 11 student in Renfrew, Ont., who was expelled from his Catholic high school for insisting that transgendered females -- that is to say, boys who think they are girls -- should not be permitted to use the girl’s washrooms. Alexander, of course, is correct. However, it is regrettable that in explaining his position to the [...]
The last canticle of Dante’s Divine Comedy begins with the poet taking stock of his unprecedented enterprise. Thus far, his imaginative journey has taken him, like the epic heroes of old, to the depths of the underworld. But, unlike them, he does not return to the world. Instead, he passes through the realm of forsaken souls to ascend the purgatorial terraces of [...]
How do contraception, abortion, transgenderism and euthanasia fit in? Paul Tuns Editor’s Note: Part I appeared in the March edition of The Interim. Technology, as the writer Sean Haylock points out in a 2017 essay in Crisis “is mechanistic (reductively focused on efficient causation), utilitarian (reasoning by a calculus and willing to treat persons as means to an end), and voluntaristic (taking [...]
Paul Tuns: Beginning April 1, British Columbia taxpayers will pick up the tab on most prescription contraception. In her Feb. 28 budget, provincial Finance Minister Katrine Conroy said that the provincial health plan would cover the full cost of most birth control pills, and all hormonal and copper intrauterine devices, Depo-Provera (an injectable contraceptive), Nexplanon (an implant contraceptive), and the morning-after pill [...]
By Angelica Vecchiato: Occupational licensing bodies— originally intended to uphold professional standards by regulating and overseeing work in a particular field— are increasingly being used as self-righteous vessels to quash dissenting, minority opinions. In the name of “holding people accountable,” the tyranny of regulatory bodies such as nursing associations has ramped up, especially over the past couple of months. Canadian academic Jordan [...]
Paul Tuns: Calgary city council voted to clamp down on protests in the wake of public opposition to drag events in the city. The new law, the Safe and Inclusive Access Bylaw, was passed 10-5 and prohibits protests within 100 metres of an entrance to a recreation facility or library. The council also amended an existing bylaw to add the word “intimidation” [...]
From the editor's desk: The Interim editor, Paul Tuns In January, something extraordinary happened: a National Hockey League hockey player, Philadelphia Flyer’s defenseman Ivan Provorov, took to the pre-game practice wearing his regular jersey. It launched hundreds of columns in both the sports pages and editorial pages and conversations on radio about the so-called homophobia problem in hockey. Provorov declined [...]
Interim Staff: Michelle Zacchigna is suing her medical team for not considering her mental health issues when they affirmed her self-diagnosis of gender dysphoria and permitting her to transition to become a male. Source: Zacchinga’s Twitter Michelle Zacchigna, 34, of Orillia, Ont., is suing eight health professionals who facilitated a change in her gender from female to male in 2010, [...]
Brain-dead women as ‘baby machines’ We have learned that a German molecular biologist, Hashem Al-Ghaili, is developing Ectolife, transparent artificial wombs where babies will be conceived and “housed” until birth, while their parents can look on as spectators. He said the technology could be used to reverse declining birth rates in countries such as Bulgar, Japan, and South Korea. LifeSiteNews reports that [...]
Rick McGinnis: Interim writer, Rick McGinnis, Amusements There’s an evergreen appeal to books about the world going to hell. There might be better or worse times to tell a story about civilization falling apart – the ‘30s and ‘70s were ripe for it; the ‘60s and ‘90s not so much. We’re in one of those doomsaying boom times again. I [...]
Donald DeMarco, Commentary: Herbert Marshall McLuhan (July 21, 1911-Dec. 31, 1980), as most Canadians may know, was a cornerstone to the study of the media. He was, in many ways, ahead of his field. Therefore, he was both widely misunderstood and widely praised. He was an enigma. He was dubbed the “guru of the electric age” and yet his basic philosophical vision was [...]
Paul Tuns: With the unleashing of the ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer) in November 2022, an artificial intelligence program that provides responses to questions based on its comprehensive scouring of the internet – everything that’s been written that is accessible online -- there are new worries about how close the world is coming to the transhuman or posthuman future, whether The Singularity [...]
Mary Zwicker: This month marks the third anniversary of the World Health Organization’s March 11, 2020 declaration of a global pandemic. This announcement kickstarted the emergency pandemic restrictions imposition in Canada and the United States, as well as across the world, the effects of which nations are still recovering from, and will be for a long time to come. Beginning in March [...]
Interim Staff: The Renfrew County Catholic District School Board (RCCDSB) in northern Ontario suspended high school student Josh Alexander, 16, for the remainder of the year because he protested the school's policy of permitting gender-confused males to use the girls’ washrooms. James Kitchen, chief litigator for Liberty Coalition Canada (LCC) said St. Joseph’s Catholic High School in Renfrew suspended Alexander because the [...]