Canada Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau held a “Ladies Night” fundraiser on Nov. 7 in Toronto in which he invited women “to (really) get to know the future prime minister,” during a Q&A focusing on women’s issues. Conservative and NDP MPs complained it was sexist and sexually suggestive, but American feminist icon Gloria Steinem defended Trudeau’s pitch: “If the problem is that [...]
Canada In its submission on Bill 52, “An Act Respecting End-of-Life Care,” to the Quebec committee on health and social services, the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, said, “the proposed changes reflect a fundamental transformation in the doctor patient relationship which runs contrary to the established ethic and values of the medical profession throughout Quebec, Canada and around the world.” The EPC also stated, [...]
Canada Stephen McNeil, the leader of the Liberal Party of Nova Scotia, has said his party “will allow our elected candidates to freely voice their opinions on matters of personal conscience.” In a letter to Campaign Life Coalition Nova Scotia, McNeil acknowledged that both among the public and within the political class “there are a wide variety of opinions” on moral issues [...]
Canada In July, federal Liberal leader Justin Trudeau called for the legalization of marijuana to help keep the illicit drug out of the hands of children, saying that criminalization has not worked. In August, Trudeau, who says he does not drink coffee, admitted to smoking pot “five or six times” including at a dinner party in his home since becoming an MP [...]
Canada Statistics Canada released its Fertility Overview report that from 2009 to 2011, Canada’s fertility rate dropped steadily from 1.67 to 1.63 to 1.61. Demographers consider 2.1 children per woman to be replacement level fertility, a rate Canada has not attained in more than four decades … The family of Irene Dube, a woman who died at the Ramsey Lake Health Centre [...]
Canada Premier of Ontario Kathleen Wynne has called end-of-life decisions, including euthanasia, “the great health care issue of our time” in an interview with the Toronto Sun. The baby boomer generation is nearing retirement and will require more health resources as they age. By 2036, approximately one out of four Ontarians will be aged 65 or older. “I don’t think it’s something [...]
Canada The B.C. Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal of Cecilia “Sissy” Von Dehn and Donald Spratt’s 2011 conviction in provincial court following a 2009 arrest for standing inside the bubble zone outside the Everywoman`s abortuary in Vancouver as they distributed copies of the B.C. Access to Abortion Services Act (which governs the bubble zone) and wearing a sign reading: “Warning! You [...]
Canada The Québec Federation of Planned Parenthood and Dr. Audrey Gonin of the University of Québec in Montreal are attacking the province’s pregnancy help centres, attempting to locate those who visited one to share information about being dissuaded “from considering the option of abortion” by contacting them. Gonin said the centres give out “biased” information, namely that abortion may cause breast cancer [...]
Canada The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, an intervener in the Carter assisted suicide case which was heard in the B.C. Court of Appeal from March 18 to March 22, is requesting that the 2012 B.C. Supreme Court ruling permitting assisted suicide be reversed ... The Council of Canadians with Disabilities and the Canadian Association for Community Living argued in favour of banning assisted [...]
Canada Joyce Arthur of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada wrote to the Abbotsford, B.C., city council demanding that a pro-life display of white crosses on private property be removed from a field along the TransCanada Highway: “The city should foster a community culture that respects women’s rights and freedoms by not approving initiatives that directly oppose these values and existing law.” [...]
Canada The Toronto Star published a column by University of Ottawa political science professor Paul Saurette and graduate student Kelly Gordon that purports to expose the Canadian pro-life movement “rebranding” itself using feminist language and issues, including sex-selective abortion, to undermine public support for abortion, especially among young women. Saurette and Gordon say progressives must vigorously defend the status quo on abortion [...]
Canada The Rasouli case, in which doctors from Sunnybrook Hospital are in conflict with Hassan Rasouli’s family over whether to remove his ventilator, was heard on Dec. 10 at the Supreme Court of Canada. Rasouli was deemed to be in a persistent vegetative state by doctors after suffering a post-operative infection that damaged his brain. Rasouli’s status, however, has since been upgraded [...]
Canada Abortion has generated discussion among columnists in The National Post. Matt Gurney suggested that the reason why a recent Forum Research poll indicated 60 per cent of Canadians thought abortion should always be legal was the abortion controversy surrounding M-312 and the U.S. election campaign. “Fiery rhetoric will kill your cause,” he counselled, looking at supposed gaffes by Republicans south of [...]
Canada Canadian Physicians for Life issued a statement against provincial funding of abortion, stating, “it is our strong belief that no abortions are medically necessary (and) the funding of this procedure by governments represents an extreme waste of health care resources” … In June, Ontario Education Minister Laurel Broten called for feedback on a ministry paper, Modernizing Child Care in Ontario. On [...]
Canada Political pundit Lawrence Martin wrote two columns for iPolitics.com and the Globe and Mail focusing on Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s “evangelical creed as being at the root of much of Conservative policy-making” in which he compared Harper’s membership in the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church to “Mackenzie King’s table-rapping séances and spiritualism” … Womanspace is launching an initiative to attack M-312, [...]