To Be Human
September 17, 2019
The hand of the artist dips the paintbrush in and out of paint with patience and ease.
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Raindrops
September 17, 2019
The water droplets are as ephemeral as one's glance towards them.
The water glistens on the surface of the bright green blades of grass, bubbly and smooth and utterly fragile ...
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What’s Wrong With Canada’s Child Care Picture?
Peter Stockland with Peter Jon Mitchell
September 17, 2019
Peter Jon Mitchell, acting director of Cardus Family, details a new report showing how federal and provincial child care policies distort the way Canadians care for their kids.
Are people paying attention to this and saying, "Okay, we need to take child care into account as a serious election issue?" That means there's 40 per cent out there who aren't in a daycare and the ones in child care are in diverse forms of care PS: You chose to look at the federal child care appro...
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The Princess Bride and Impossible Challenges
Kevan Chandler
September 16, 2019
Kevan Chandler tells the story of reading The Princess Bride and draws out from it the theme of impossible challenges and what it means to overcome them.
It’s a message we can all relate to because, at the end of the day, everyone faces impossible challenges, and the question is, what will we do with them? MacPherson had nothing below the knees, but his life didn’t stop there As I overcome (or even simply deal with) my own struggles, I invite others ...
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Why the Public School Monopoly?
Ray Pennings
September 13, 2019
The argument that Canadians must oppose public funding for non-government schools is nonsensical, writes Ray Pennings.
So, why the phobia against any public support for non-government delivery of public education? As Convivium has reported, in recent decades many parents have found it necessary to supplement public school education with private tutoring In British Columbia, 65 per cent of parents with kids in a non-...
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The Better Way For Elizabeth May
Raymond J. de Souza
September 13, 2019
Father Raymond de Souza recommends the Green Party leader stop apologizing for her Christian faith and recognize that politics won’t save the world. Christ already has.
Yet as a former divinity student, May should have known that forcing Jesus into the categories of modern politics is, to borrow the phrasing of St How central is May’s faith in Jesus to her? At the conclusion of the interview, when asked what job she would do if not in politics, she spoke about a vo...
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Licking The Immigration Numbers Game
Matthew Lau
September 12, 2019
Matthew Lau argues setting the ideal annual number of newcomers to Canada makes as much sense as predicting the number of ice cream cones Torontonians will eat on the weekend.
Why then, when it comes to a much more important and complex question than ice cream cones – namely, the number of people who should be allowed to immigrate to Canada annually – should anybody have any faith in the federal government to correctly set the quantity? The answer is that they shouldn’t –...
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We Are Each Other’s
Hannah Marazzi
September 11, 2019
A jarring early morning Amber Alert on her smartphone reminds Hannah Marazzi why we are called to love our neighbours.
That the life of a tiny, vulnerable young girl in our province at risk is absolutely worth the sending of an Amber Alert to the cell phone of each and every resident in the region Far above news notifications, social media updates and advertisements spit out by algorithms attempting to anticipate wh...
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Bringing Back Debate
Peter Stockland
September 11, 2019
As a very tight federal election race kicks off today, we look to the importance of democracy and debate in a time of political cynicism.
based communications strategist Laura Williams has just published a short essay containing six words that should be inked under every Canadian’s eyelids as the federal election begins today In her essay posted on the web site of the Foundation for Economic Education, Williams invokes that truth for ...
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Honouring Shahbaz Bhatti, Servant of God
Susan Korah
September 9, 2019
Convivium contributor Susan Korah says recognizing the Pakistani martyr by naming a park after him is but a first step in fulfilling the legacy of his fight for religious freedom.
The Canadian chapter of International Christian Voice hosted the event to recognize the contributions of religious minorities to Pakistan and also to emphasize that Canadians have a role to play in addressing the contrast between the dream of Pakistan’s founder, and the nightmare of religious persec...
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Seeing the Greening of Canadian Politics
Ben Roy
September 6, 2019
A question period in his university class revealed to Ben Roy the likely shift in our policy and culture as his Millennial peers and future voters apply an environmental lens to every issue.
Ultimately, I can’t predict whether institutional green parties will become an established political force in Canadian society or whether the mainstream parties will absorb the energy young adults have for action on environmental issues I realize an anecdotal story about my class or reflections on m...
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Unwrapping Jagmeet Singh
Raymond J. de Souza
September 5, 2019
Father Raymond de Souza finds the NDP leader a fascinatingly odd fit for the identity politics of a left-wing party because of the very diversity that makes up Mr. Singh.
So what then of his religious identity? Being Sikh is both an ethnicity – it’s not really a race – and a religion, not unlike, I suppose, being Jewish So, when Jagmeet presents himself to Canadians tying his turban and professing pride in his identity, is he presenting his religious identity or a cu...
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Bigotry Repeats Itself
Peter Stockland
September 4, 2019
The differences between Andrew Scheer and John F. Kennedy may be stark. But last month's anti-religious assaults against Scheer hold a troubling similarity to what Kennedy experienced 60 years ago.
It’s an escalation that must deeply concern all Canadians, not merely adherents to all religious traditions, including those in communion with the Roman Catholic Church Then they were disallowed from using democratic means to persuade their fellow citizens that Catholic doctrine, limited in the publ...
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Motherhood in the Era of Smartphones
Brittany Beacham
September 4, 2019
Technology can be useful for new moms, but the constant rings of Instagram, Facebook, messages and more can also be too big a scream for attention.
With social media, texting, messenger, my camera, music and so many other things all wrapped up in one device, motherhood in the era of the smartphone is a constant battle for presence Through pregnancy, childbirth and those fragile days of early motherhood, we’ve called on sisters and aunts, mother...