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Power Struggle Over Communication

Peter Stockland

May 12, 2021

The continuing battle over Bill C-10, which revises the federal Broadcasting Act, is a fundamental dispute over who decides how Canadians connect, Peter Stockland reports in the first of two parts.

In fact, Dimitrieff argues this week, the very argument that the legislation threatens free speech and thought “demonstrates exactly why Bill C-10 is an important and necessary tool” to enhance, rather than menace, Canadian democracy Initially, the amendments, formally known as Bill C-10, seemed set...

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Talking Turkey About Tulips

Susan Korah

May 11, 2021

Ottawa’s annual Tulip Festival owes its origins to a Turkish refugee and Canada going Dutch during the Second World War, Susan Korah discovers.

Apart from tulips and the talents of refugees like the Karsh brothers, the region of south-eastern Turkey where they were born has given many other treasures to the world, including an array of ancient Christian churches and monasteries of stunning architectural beauty The brainchild of Syriac Chris...

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The Cat Fight Over State-Controlled Internet

Peter Stockland

May 7, 2021

Experts pushed back this week on government efforts to legislate control of Canadians’ Internet use. Peter Stockland reports on what’s at stake.

Geist does see some hope that the kerfuffle that has erupted around C-10 will provide a sharp reminder to the Heritage Minister and the federal government that there’s a cost to interfering with Canadians’ Internet freedom The whole purpose of Bill C-10 is to amend that Act (and several others) in ...

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Overcoming Vulnerability With Dignity

Anthony Kerigan

May 3, 2021

Palliative care physician Dr. Anthony Kerigan highlights the A-B-C and D steps to safeguard the full dignity of the frail elderly and those at the end of their life.

He proposes a framework for health care providers that allows them to become more sensitive to the dignity of the elderly person by paying attention to certain dignity-enhancing attributes of the provider Awareness, especially among health care professionals, of the personal attributes necessary for...

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Open Wide and Say Law

Faye Sonier and Kiely Williams

April 28, 2021

Calgary physician Dr. Kiely Williams and Ottawa lawyer Faye Sonier show how the expansion of MAiD has given lawyers medical authority while silencing doctors who consider it very bad medicine.

Block's bill ensures that physicians can practice medicine in a way that considers the patient as an individual facing unique circumstances, and that these same physicians cannot be sanctioned for refusing to parrot federal law or hospital policy that cannot possibly account for all the factors invo...

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Shadows and Light on Palliative Care

Peter Stockland

April 26, 2021

Rapid expansion of Medical Aid in Dying and forced closure of a Vancouver-area hospice have raised alarm among palliative care providers. But Peter Stockland finds vital positive signs, too.

Out in British Columbia, Angelina Ireland says the Delta Hospice Society, too, will be steadfast in continuing bereavement and grief counselling as well as supportive therapies that were its core work before it fundraised $9 million to open the Irene Thomas palliative care centre a decade ago “We’ve...

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Calling Genocide By Its Name

Susan Korah

April 23, 2021

On April 24, 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden will acknowledge the 1915 genocide of Armenians. Canadian descendants now want Turkey to own its historic crime, Susan Korah reports.

For Cavoukian and other Armenians around the world, the memories of the genocide are not the stuff of myths or legends but are deeply rooted in the reality of their parents’ and grandparents’ lives Designated Armenian Genocide Memorial Day, it brings back tortured memories of a painful past mingled ...

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A Pandemic Journey to Pentecost

Patti-Anne Kay and Peter Doherty

April 19, 2021

Patti-Anne Kay and Fr. Peter Doherty, OMI, find Easter parallels in COVID suffering but recall it was at Pentecost that the fullness of the Resurrection was realized.

Many of us continue to struggle with concerns such as the safety of vaccines amidst emerging COVID variants; asking “where is God in all this?” If so, have heart; Peter and the disciple that Jesus loved eventually came to see the empty tomb as a sign of the Resurrection We see through Jesus the pain...

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“Hey, Parents, Leave Your Kids Alone”

Iain Provan

April 16, 2021

Iain Provan reports on data from a recent Nanos poll showing the substantial number of Canadians willing to criminalize parental guidance of children on sexuality and gender.

Yet a very substantial number of Canadians not only disapprove of parents discouraging sexual activity among minors, but are either certain that it should be illegal, or not yet sure what they think about this On the face of it, it appears that substantial numbers of Canadians do not really believe ...

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Failing to Speak for Free Speech

Peter Menzies

April 14, 2021

Eerie silence has met Ottawa’s plan to regulate the Internet and outlaw hurtful – not just hateful – expression, Peter Menzies reports.

When he unveils details, the Minister will have the strategically significant backing of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, who is part of the oxymoronically-named Commission on Democratic Expression - a Public Policy Forum panel “We have seen too many examples of public official...

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In What Do We Trust?

Peter Stockland

April 12, 2021

As Cardus’ The Long Way podcast probes alarming declines in institutional trust among Canadians, Convivium’s Peter Stockland explores the specific effect on media and academia.

The good news, Kambhampati says, is that there’s an increasing wariness, if not outright rejection, of social warrior dogma and tactics among students he teaches and encounters at McGill “In the past 20 years, the university has become a commodity that exists to give undergraduates an educational ex...

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Rebuking Canada’s African Colonialism

Jonathon Van Maren

April 6, 2021

In conversation with Convivium contributor Jonathon Van Maren, former career diplomat David Mulroney says Canada’s residential school past should curb its neocolonialist urges in Africa.

“As a former public servant, the problem I have with our ‘feminist foreign policy,’ in which abortion is central to our development work in Africa, is that good foreign policy and good development policy depend on actually listening to the people you’re trying to help or engage,” Mulroney explained ...

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Replacing Aid With MAiD

Ruth Dick

March 29, 2021

Expansion of medically assisted dying risks an explosive moral crisis when shortages already endemic in health care make Canadians choose death over delay, Ruth Dick writes.

So what are we to do? Only offer MAiD to those who have timely access to a full range of support services, and deny it to those who meet the criteria set out in the statute, but can’t access those services? Deny it to them because they live in small, remote communities that don’t have physiotherapy,...

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Heeding Shahbaz Bhatti’s Call

Susan Korah

March 26, 2021

A decade after the religious freedom fighter’s murder, Pakistani Canadians call on Ottawa to renew his work, Susan Korah reports.

Andrew Bennett, Canada’s Ambassador for Religious Freedom from 2013 until the Liberal government phased out the position in 2016, highlighted the importance of bringing freedom of religion or belief to the forefront of foreign policy priorities; also, of taking action to support the human rights of ...

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A COVID Cold Shoulder for Churches

Peter Stockland

March 25, 2021

Peter Stockland reports on a group of B.C. Canadian Reformed Churches going to court to be allowed to come in out of the rain and worship together.

“We can’t use the church for the purpose for which it was built by the people: the worship of God,” Schouten points out Canada’s Charter protections for religious freedom mean the State doesn’t get to tell people of faith where and how to worship What he and others perceive as the incongruity and i...

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