Canada Must Help Reclaim Christendom's Cathedral

Susan Korah

July 15, 2020

Turkey’s decree turning Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia into a mosque was as predictable as an earthquake. Canada’s silence about potential aftershocks is eerily baffling, Susan Korah writes.

In 2014, Pope Francis, in a gesture of goodwill to the Islamic world, prayed along with the Grand Mufti (leader of the Muslim community) of Istanbul at the Blue Mosque, which is a short walk from the Hagia Sophia In a joint press conference with Nicos Anastidades, President of Cyprus, Greek Prime Mi...

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Countering Counter-Factual COVID Confusion

Sarah Hamersma

July 10, 2020

We don’t know what we don’t know, and we will never know what we can’t know, but by insisting on properly designed studies we can know if pandemic policies are working, Sarah Hamersma notes.

 The study uses data on daily COVID-19 case counts for every county in the United States for most of March and April  The study is designed to develop smart counterfactuals, comparing each policy-affected county to multiple alternatives: both similar counties at the same time without that policy and...

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Free At Last Once More

Edward Tingley

July 9, 2020

Conservatives and progressives alike require recalling to the Christian origins of Western freedom so they stop treating liberty as the enemy of the Good, Edward Tingley writes.

Mockery of stereotypes by ironically claiming a stereotype had been declared by the Court perfectly within our freedom (a bit of human cleverness that humans are allowed), but only three years later this liberal victory is denounced as a mistake and a setback by advocates of a different thinking ent...

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Losing Liberty in Post-Liberal Times

Edward Tingley

July 7, 2020

In the first of two reflections on Canada’s shaken political foundations, Augustine College Dean Edward Tingley argues liberals and conservatives alike have turned against our primary principle of freedom.

Liberty as a principle, the principle that defines Canada as a free country, has come under attack from defenders of the Good and seekers of social justice ...

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Getting the Anti-Racism Agenda Right

Peter Stockland

July 3, 2020

There’s no question Canadians must call out systemic bigotry, Peter Stockland says, but he cautions we must also be systematic in making sure we call the right things by that name.

The original complaint against him for disputing the claim of “genocide” exploded into a cherry picked “uncovering” of virtually every word he’s published during the past 20 years either at C2C or in his days as editor of the Byfield family’s unabashedly conservative Alberta Report All of which cons...

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COVID is No Excuse to Close Immigration

Matthew Lau

June 29, 2020

Matthew Lau rejects as false and logically faulty the argument that Canada should keep out newcomers until the country’s employment levels return to pre-pandemic levels.

An immigration ban, according to the True North column, “will allow our economy to recover and prioritize new jobs to out-of-work Canadians, helping to reduce our historic high 13.7% unemployment rate This idea, then, that an immigration ban is needed to “allow our economy to recovery” and protect j...

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Le Québec théâtre d’un conflit de symboles

Andrew P.W. Bennett, with Beryl Wajsman, Maxime Huot Couture

June 26, 2020

En ce jour de la Fête nationale, mieux connue sous le nom de Fête de la Saint Jean-Baptiste, les Québécois Maxime Huot Couture et Beryl Wajsman font part au révérend Andrew Bennett, directeur de l’Institut sur la liberté religieuse Cardus, de leurs impressions concernant la loi provinciale adoptée il y a un an en vue de déterminer qui peut porter en public des vêtements religieux et selon quelles modalités ils peuvent être portés.

Mais la vraie question est de savoir comment l’interdiction du port de symboles religieux imposée à la plupart des fonctionnaires peut promouvoir le bien commun? Si la réponse est qu’elle promeut la laïcité de l’État, d’accord! Mais comment la laïcité de l’État promeut-elle le bien commun? Comment a...

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Les défis à venir concernant l’interdiction par le Québec des symboles religieux

Andrew P.W. Bennett and Robert Leckey

June 26, 2020

Il y a un an, l’Assemblée nationale du Québec a précipitamment adopté une loi limitant le port de turbans, de hijabs, de croix et d’autres symboles spirituels dans l’espace public. Robert Leckey, doyen de la Faculté de droit de l’Université McGill, explique au révérend Andrew Bennett que le combat juridique ne fait que commencer.

AB: Dans quelle mesure croyez-vous que cela puisse constituer la réponse de gens qui sont culturellement catholiques lorsqu’ils sont placés devant d’autres communautés plus profondément religieuses? Si on parle des Juifs hassidim ou de musulmans ou d’autres groupes qui sont plus visiblement religieu...

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Sounding Out Quebec’s Clash of Symbols

Andrew P.W. Bennett, with Beryl Wajsman, Maxime Huot Couture

June 24, 2020

On today’s Fête Nationale, also known as Fête de la St-Jean-Baptiste, Quebecers Maxime Huot Couture and Beryl Wajsman give Rev. Andrew Bennett, director of the Cardus Religious Freedom Institute, their take on province’s one-year-old law controlling how and by whom religious garb can be worn in public.

Beryl framed it around the role of religion within the public square and how cultural and religious differences should be accommodated within Quebec culture and Quebec society  Are we seeing in Quebec, and generally within Canada, a contraction of the public square for people of faith to not simply ...

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Challenges Ahead for Quebec's Ban on Religious Symbols

Andrew P.W. Bennett and Robert Leckey

June 23, 2020

One year ago, Quebec's National Assembly hurriedly passed legislation limiting public wearing of turbans, hijabs, crosses and other spiritual markers. Robert Leckey, Dean of the Faculty of Law at McGill University tells Cardus’ Rev. Dr. Andrew Bennett the legal fight has just begun.  

AB: How much do you think that might be a response from people who are culturally Catholic looking at these other communities that are more deeply religious? If we speak about Hasidic Jews, if we talk about Muslims or others who were more visibly religious in the province, is there maybe a sense amo...

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Memories of Mosul Must Spark Action

Susan Korah

June 17, 2020

Six years after the fall of Iraq’s second largest city to ISIS terrorists, religious persecution goes on while the world has moved on, Susan Korah writes.

 A motion introduced by Rona Ambrose, then leader of the Opposition, in June 2016 to declare ISIS atrocities against Christians and other Middle Eastern minorities a genocide was defeated by the Liberal government The world was slow to wake up to this unfolding genocide, says Nuri Kino, a Syriac Chr...

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No Diving Allowed

Peter Menzies

June 15, 2020

As yesterday’s heroes are toppled and today's rules are re-written tomorrow, Peter Menzies advises on how to leave logic behind and chill in the shallow end of history.

Being in tune with the times, Vaughan saw no need to acknowledge either the disproportionately high number of black people dying from COVID-19 or that what he and the Prime Minister were doing was exactly – precisely – what they had been telling the public to not do under any circumstances for the p...

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Showing Up or Showing Off

Peter Stockland

June 9, 2020

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s appearance at an anti-racism protest in Ottawa wasn’t questioned for his support of the worthy cause, but for his ambivalence toward the sacrifices of Canadians during COVID-19, reports Peter Stockland.

That very characteristic, alas, is what makes so disconcerting Prime Minister Trudeau’s choice last Friday to participate in a mass anti-racism protest in the streets of Ottawa and on Parliament Hill Or he stood with the millions of Canadians who’ve kept the common good in the forefront despite the ...

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Facing the Root of Racism

Peter Stockland

June 5, 2020

It's human failure that allows racism to run rampant in Canada, writes Peter Stockland, and it's human atonement—rather than erasure—that can build a better future.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of what happened to Stockwell Day, the most unfortunate moment this week was Prime Minister Trudeau’s failure to make use of exactly that personal experience as reminder, as a gesture of leadership, in combating the systemic racism-bigotry-prejudice that assails us Sho...

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A Saskatchewan Legacy

Alan Hustak

May 22, 2020

This month marks the centennial of Athol Murray College of Notre Dame in Wilcox, Saskatchewan. Alan Hustak reports on the school's legacy.

Celebrations planned this month to mark the centennial of Athol Murray College of Notre Dame at Wilcox, Saskatchewan, had to be postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic, but the campaign to raise $20 million Centre for Teaching and Learning on the prairie campus remains the focal point of the h...

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