Ignatieff pushes abortion as Harper calls for G8 to help world’s poorest The numbers are staggering. A half-million women die during pregnancy every year. Nine million children in the developing world will die before their fifth birthday. That’s one pregnant mother and 18 children every minute of every day of the year will die prematurely, unnecessarily. Their dire circumstances cry [...]
Former Planned Parenthood loses 99 per cent of federal funding An Interim investigation has found that over the past half decade, the Canadian Federation for Sexual Health has had its federal government grants cut by more than 99 per cent. The federation, formerly the Planned Parenthood Federation of Canada and still the Canadian member of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, has charitable [...]
In November, the House of Representatives passed the Stupak-Pitts amendment (240-194) prohibiting direct or indirect federal taxpayer subsidies for abortion through the comprehensive health care reform bill before the House. The battle then moved to the Senate where senators Robert Casey Jr. (D, Penn.) and Ben Nelson (D, Neb.) fought for a similar amendment in the bill brought forward by [...]
Ontario’s Family Coalition Party is riding a wave of enthusiasm as it prepares to enter 2010 by welcoming its third leader in its 22-year history. Phil Lees, a Hamilton-area educator and municipal family issues activist, was acclaimed to head the party during its leadership convention at the Hamilton Convention Centre on Oct. 24. He succeeds Giuseppi Gori, who took over [...]
Gut Mitges, a pro-life former MP who passed away on Nov. 1 at the age of 90, is being mourned by the Canadian pro-life community. Mitges spent more than two decades representing the rural southwestern Ontario ridings of Grey-Simcoe and Bruce-Grey, distinguishing himself by voting against the repatriation of the Canadian Constitution because it did not protect the right to [...]
On Nov. 2, a column by Steven Fletcher appeared in the National Post about C-384, a private member’s bill that would legalize euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide. Fletcher’s opinion could be influential; not only is he a Conservative MP and cabinet minister, he is a paraplegic confined to a wheelchair since a 1996 automobile accident, He said more should be done to improve the lives [...]
By a vote of 239-46, the House of Commons passed C-268, a private members bill which would provide a minimum five year sentence for traffickers of children. Every Bloc Quebecois MP and three NDP MPs voted against the stricter penalties for child traffickers. The three NDP MPs were: Libby Davies (Vancouver East), Bill Siksay (Burnaby Douglas) and Megan Leslie (Halifax). Davies and Siksay [...]
On Oct. 2, Bill C-384, Francine Lalonde’s private member’s bill to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide, received its first hour of debate. The bill was introduced on May 13 by the Bloc Québécois MP, in her third attempt to get such legislation passed in Parliament. Two previous attempts were scuttled when an election was called. The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition has led the [...]
At the age of 25, Andrew Scheer ran for office under the banner of the new Conservative Party of Canada in the NDP stronghold of Regina-Qu’Appelle, defeating former NDP leadership candidate Lorne Nystrom by just under 900 votes. Although he was confident he would win, he told The Interim in a recent interview, “There was an element of ‘wow.’” Scheer, [...]
Health care reform bills introduced by Congressional Democrats and backed by the White House include federal taxpayer funding of abortion and open the door to rationing care for the elderly and other vulnerable persons, in order to realize savings in the overall health care system. These controversial measures have led to a backlash against President Barack Obama’s goal of broadly [...]
In the spring, the National Assembly of Quebec passed Bill 34, a law that mandated minimum safety and sanitation requirements for private health care facilities that perform surgeries. It mandated, for example, sterile operating rooms and separate ventilating systems, as well as outlined procedures to protect patients who use non-hospital facilities for medical care. In August, three Montreal abortuaries said they would [...]
The New Brunswick government has revealed it will not pursue a further appeal to the Supreme Court to prevent abortionist Henry Morgentaler from suing the province to pay for abortions at his Fredericton abortion mill. In May, the New Brunswick Court of Appeal dismissed the province’s appeal of a Court of Queen’s Bench ruling that gave Morgentaler status to pursue a lawsuit [...]
Charles Gonthier, a former justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, passed away recently at the age of 80. Appointed by Brian Mulroney in 1989, he developed a reputation as a conservative during his 14 years on the country’s top court. The Canadian Press reported in its obituary that Gonthier offered “a more conservative interpretation of the individual rights guaranteed [...]
Pro-life MPP Frank Klees finishes strong second The early frontrunner for the Ontario Progressive Conservative leadership ended up winning, but the pro-life evangelical who finished second surprised many both in and out of the party. On the eve of the June 27 announcement at the leadership convention in Markham, one news broadcast said that the convention would crown either MPP [...]
Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Barack Obama’s appointee to the Supreme Court, refused to make her opinion on abortion explicitly known during four days of Senate confirmation hearings, despite several attempts by senators on both sides of the issue to sound her out. She dodged various questions by Senators Tom Coburn (R, Okla) and Arlen Spector (D, Penn.), stating only that she considered [...]