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Picture Parliament Without Parties

Peter Menzies

October 26, 2021

Peter Menzies argues the salvation of Canadian democracy lies in our two youngest political jurisdictions where consensus government, not leadership whip cracking, prevails.

Six years and three elections ago, Liberal leader Justin Trudeau was about to become Prime Minister They can treat people like that because, unlike other countries under the Westminster system such as the United Kingdom and Australia, Canadian prime ministers do not depend upon the support of their ...

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Nightmare Lives of Lebanon’s Children

Susan Korah

October 25, 2021

Susan Korah reports on the grim toll the country’s collapse inflicts on its young while Canadian kids return to post-pandemic trick or treating.

Nuri Kino, leader of A Demand for Action (ADFA), a Sweden-based humanitarian aid and advocacy organization, has witnessed firsthand the plight of Lebanon’s orphaned and abandoned children “Homeless and abandoned children in Canada have social services to take care of them, but in Lebanon there are n...

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Doctor's College Needs Political Attention

Albertos Polizogopoulos

October 19, 2021

Ottawa lawyer Albertos Polizogopoulos says the regulatory body for Ontario physicians and surgeons has a serious Charter abuse habit and requires Premier Doug Ford’s immediate intervention.

I don’t think I need to name them, but does Ontario want to be lumped in with them? Are we comfortable with having a government body determining which opinions can and cannot be expressed? Are we comfortable with government bodies stripping people of their ability to work because they have the gall ...

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Defending Artur Pawlowski’s Dissent

Don Hutchinson

October 18, 2021

Don Hutchinson says the recent court order compelling a Calgary street preacher to reference science in his sermons about COVID is offensive and has to be appealed.

Agree or disagree with Pastor Pawlowski, the response to dissenting thought, belief, opinion and expression in a free society is speech by someone on the other side of the issue, not dictated language as compelled by government or court On October 13, Pawlowski was sentenced for acts of civil disobe...

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Deadline Looms to Save Hospice Society

Peter Stockland

October 15, 2021

A palliative care group in suburban Vancouver has one week to rally members across North America to protect its vision of MAiD-free end-of-life care.

Ireland insists, though, that the real objective goes far beyond the bitter infighting of the last few years that have seen the DHS board forced out of the 10-bed Irene Thomas Hospice and forced to give up its palliative care support centre, both of which were built through millions of dollars in fu...

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The Biblical Cast of Ted Lasso

Evan Menzies

October 14, 2021

Evan Menzies watches the season two finale of the Apple TV+ surprise hit and sees the shadows of Cain and Abel falling across the characters.

God penetrates Cain with the question “Why are you angry? And why is your face gloomy? If you do well, will your face not be cheerful? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it The show starts with the most gimmicky of premises: Ted Lass...

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The Politics of Red Team! Blue Team!

Don Hutchinson

October 12, 2021

Don Hutchinson notes that when sports and politics overlap we become "fan-atics" cheering for our favourite sweaters and socks.

It showed up in candidate Trudeau’s campaign stump speeches: the blue team harbours right wing extremists; the blue team leader is hiding blue candidates’ vaccination rates and won’t protect you; the big blue tent cultivates a home for those who will make abortion illegal; elect the blue team and li...

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Have We Become Not-Canada?

Travis D. Smith

October 8, 2021

Travis Smith warns time is running out to free our home and native land from its pandemic-induced contagion of distrust, resentment, and contempt for our neighbours.

There are many reasons why some people choose to trust and many reasons why others have stopped trusting Given our leaders’ track records—not to mention how many booster shots our prime minister has pre-ordered for several years to come—I’m pretty sure it’s unlikely things will go that way People wi...

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The Hard Truth About Reconciliation

Andrew Bennett

October 7, 2021

Healing wounds inflicted on Indigenous people by Canada and its churches means facing what’s wholly true, not what’s politically appealing, Father Deacon Andrew Bennett writes.

The abuse is also a clear and ever-present reminder to all Canadian Catholics, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, of how the Church failed to live up to the Gospel and instead aided and abetted an assimilationist policy that will affect First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Canadians for generations Furt...

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Truth and Justin Trudeau

Peter Stockland

October 5, 2021

Even as Canadians auto-correct for political falsehoods by expecting and accepting them, the Prime Minister’s fib on Truth and Reconciliation Day reveals a worrying pattern, Peter Stockland writes.

In answering that question, of course, we must be prudent in our judgements, charitable with our forgiveness, and acknowledge the Prime Minister has apologized at least for the “slap in the face” on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation A consequence is that we miss the significance of preva...

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The Path Back to Trust

Peter Stockland

September 27, 2021

The good results notoriously sceptical French are getting by taking a leap of faith in the fight against COVID shows the necessity of trust within democratic life, Peter Stockland writes.

The outcome? It has reportedly gone from one of the highest vaccine hesitancy rates in the world last January to one of the highest vaccination rates among world powers this September Still, the picture caught my eye a) because a young man of my closest acquaintance works in La Grande Motte and b) b...

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Denying the Reality of Independent Schools

Joanna VanHof

September 23, 2021

Policy confusion inflicted on alternative schooling during COVID shows why Ontario needs urgent discussion of an education system that reflects the province’s diversity, Joanna DeJong VanHof argues.

The vast majority of independent schools in Ontario are small, community-oriented schools that serve specific, sometimes marginalized populations, often of students whose diverse needs are not met within a behemoth public system weighed down by bureaucracy and sheer size When can we have the convers...

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Canada’s Disconnect on Religious Freedom

Susan Korah

September 21, 2021

Our country of newcomers gives scant political weight to global affairs and forgets that for billions worldwide faith is essential to identity, Susan Korah writes.

The phasing out of his position, and replacement of the Harper-era ambassadorship with an Office of Human Rights, Freedom and Inclusion, has left Canada in the curious position of being one of two G7 countries with no envoy for religious freedom and no focused mandate to advance it as an indispensab...

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A Liberal Dose of Compulsory Confusion

James Bryson

September 17, 2021

In the dizzying dash for vaccine mandates, James Bryson asks, what happened to the liberal/Liberal claims of “my body, my choice” that justified abortion and MAiD?

The Liberal support of vaccine mandates represent a 180 degree turn away from what had been their staunch defence of individual autonomy for the last two generations, reaching back at least to the institution of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms introduced by the Liberal government led by our Prime...

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An Election Exercise in Media Conformity

Peter Menzies

September 16, 2021

The shared-bathwater insularity of Parliament Hill’s media elite has made the 2021 campaign an adventure in safe and narrow thinking, Peter Menzies argues.

“In Ottawa, the political culture, which includes the media, lives in a world of its own construction, quite divorced from the daily realities and lives of most Canadians,” she writes in her book Indian in the Cabinet: Speaking Truth to Power “In Ottawa, the political culture, which includes the med...

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