Ethics

Is Politics Putting POGG on Ice?

Don Hutchinson

November 6, 2020

Canada’s Constitution gives paramountcy to peace, order and good government (POGG), but Don Hutchinson argues bills on conversion therapy and medically assisted death prioritize progressive expediency.

As the Second Session of the 43rd Parliament started last month, the Trudeau Government promoted two bills as high priority in the legislative queue. Both make use of the Criminal Code to tread the constitutional line between federal and provincial jurisdic...

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Justin Trudeau's Words to the Wise

Peter Stockland

November 4, 2020

The Prime Minister got it right the first time on the limits of free speech. His mistake was backing down in the face of vociferous criticism, Peter Stockland writes.

As a Westerner who’s lived in Quebec for 20 years, one of my great challenges is using the proper noun Trudeau and the adjective “correct” in the same sentence.

It was so with the father. So it is also with the son. Yet right is right. It must be sai...

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Masks Speak to Common Humanity

Peter Menzies

October 30, 2020

Peter Menzies encounters fellow citizens who insist that refusing to mask up against COVID strikes a blow for liberty. No, he writes, it’s lone wolf rejection of the Golden Rule.

The go-to car radio station for people of my demographic profile in the Queen City, Regina, is Rawlco Radio, home of the John Gormley Show, The Hour of Rage and, on Sundays, replays of Montreal’s popular Roy Green Show.

This is red meat programming f...

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Crescendo of Critics Denounce MAiD Legislation

Peter Stockland

October 22, 2020

Experts in law, medicine and disability advocacy are joining the chorus calling for the withdrawal of the Liberal government’s bill to expand medically administered death, Peter Stockland writes.

Doctors, lawyers and disability rights advocates are mobilizing against the federal Liberal government’s expansion of Medical Aid in Dying, warning it will open the door to “State-sponsored termination” of vulnerable Canadians.

“Suddenly, a lethal in...

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The Perils of Facing Down Facebook

Peter Menzies

September 15, 2020

Canada’s federal Heritage Minister needs a better grip on who he’s dealing with before shaking his fist too often at Mark Zuckerberg’s social media colossus, Peter Menzies writes.

Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault is determined to pick a fight with Facebook in his bid to find a way to fund failing newspaper publishers - a battle that may end with news media being blocked from access to global social media audiences.

Over the...

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Canada Must Boycott Beijing Olympics

Don Hutchinson

August 6, 2020

Ottawa lawyer Don Hutchinson says it’s “beyond belief” Canada would participate in the 2022 Winter Olympics given the Chinese regime’s reprehensible persecution of religion.

Just before Parliament adjourned in June 2008 for summer break the Religious Liberty Commission (RLC) of The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada released a report called Broken Promises: The Protestant Experience with Religious Freedom in China in Advance ...

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Drafting on Milton Friedman's Heroics

Matthew Lau

July 31, 2020

Matthew Lau explains why the late eminent economist remains his personal hero. Hint: it has to do with letting individuals decide whether to wear army boots.

Most sports fans have a favourite player. Readers of novels will usually have a favourite author. People who are interested in economics also have their heroes – a favourite economist. For me and many others, that economist is Milton Friedman, who – were he...

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A Task Worth Undertaking

Matthew Lau

April 7, 2020

Matthew Lau offers a perspective on Preston Manning’s new book, Do Something, which exhorts Canadians to rescue ethical democracy.

Preston Manning argues Canadian politics is in deep trouble. The threat he perceives isn’t based on partisanship. It’s a question of incompetence and, quite often, a lack of preparation, on the part of politicians of all stripes.

Canadians elect to p...

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Andrew Scheer’s Fight and Flight

Peter Stockland

December 12, 2019

The Conservative leader couldn’t secure electoral gains he’d already made. But his ouster signals a serious threat to democratic difference and dissent, Peter Stockland writes.

In the end, it’s probably just as well for both the Conservative party and Canadians that leader Andrew Scheer resigned today.

Drawing, quartering and hanging might have been all the rage as recently as the Elizabethan era. But it is, to paraphrase a...

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Restoring Humanity

Peter Stockland

September 23, 2019

Publisher Peter Stockland calls for an end to the vile tactics of the election campaign, citing the words in a eulogy Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave at his father’s funeral to “never attack the individual.”

If leaders of our federal political parties want to show true leadership, they will order an instant end to the vile tactics that have so befouled the election campaign.

No more character assassination masquerading as virtue signalling. No more toxi...

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A Judge’s Misjudgment on SNC-Lavalin

Raymond J. de Souza

August 16, 2019

Former Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobucci broke no rules handling the file that has ethically compromised Justin Trudeau but his role seems unbecoming, argues Father Raymond de Souza.

The ethics commissioner’s report was damning on the conduct of Justin Trudeau. But there are more figures in this tale than the prime minister and more worrying behaviour than just the prime minister’s illegal bullying of his attorney-general.

Anoth...

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Who Ever Expected?

Peter Stockland

February 2, 2018

As the federal government digs in its heels on rule changes in the suddenly controversial Canada Summer Jobs program, a pro-life group is counting the benefits of being excluded.

Jonathon Van Maren knows better than to count on funding from the Canada Summer Jobs program to help the pro-life Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform financially this year.

After all, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau himself has pinpointed CCBR as a ...

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Spice of Life

Andrea Mrozek

January 29, 2018

Even in the industrial décor aisles of Costco, Cardus Family director Andrea Mrozek discovers, lurk hopeful encounters able to produce a lifetime of meaning.

I’ve taken to adding cinnamon to my coffee almost every morning (to the grounds, before you make the coffee, not after, very delicious). It means I’m using up cinnamon at a rapid pace. This is how I found myself in the Costco spice aisle, looking for the la...

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The Clintons’ End Times

Raymond J. de Souza

November 23, 2017

As the Clintons become the face of a critical moment of cultural change "reckoning, recriminations, even revenge, is in the air," says Convivium editor in chief Fr. Raymond J. de Souza. Now, more than ever, he urges, should the virtues of repentance and reconciliation serve as the hallmarks of the age to come.

Last Saturday in Little Rock, Arkansas, at the President William J. Clinton Presidential Library, Bill and Hillary held a soiree with several hundred of their friends and admirers to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Bill’s 1992 election victory....

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Answering Campus Sexual Violence

Paul Adams, with Vanessa Eisses, Sara DeMoor, Rebecca Janzen, Greta Hays

October 20, 2017

In September, Convivium published data from Redeemer University College’s Professor Jim Vanderwoerd comparing rates of sexual violence at public universities with those of specifically Christian post-secondary institutions. Our readers appreciated Vanderwoerd’s work, but want the research to go even further.

We are encouraged by the findings of Jim Vanderwoerd’s most recent article exploring sexual contact and assault statistics for Northern American colleges and universities. A...

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Contempt of Lethbridge

Ray Pennings

September 27, 2017

Alberta MP Rachael Harder’s mistreatment by Liberals and New Democrats is a sad comment on their misunderstanding of Parliamentary democracy, says Cardus executive vice-president Ray Pennings.

We learned Tuesday, courtesy of the Liberal and New Democratic Party members of the House of Common’s Status of Women’s Committee, that some new qualifications seem to have been put into place for serving one’s country. The occasion was the election of a ch...

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Protecting Patients in the Shadows of Euthanasia: 3 Recommendations

Faye Sonier

October 12, 2016

We will all be vulnerable at some time in our lives and this legislation does not and cannot protect us. Even Justice Lynn Smith, the original Carter trial judge, foresaw the inevitability of wrongful deaths when the healthcare system provides state-sanctioned euthanasia. She suggested strong safeguards that should be “scrupulously enforced.” This bill does little toward establishing concrete guidelines, and life-ending decisions will be made for some patients against their explicit wishes as a result.

Co-authored by Dr. Margaret Cottle and Faye Sonier. Margaret Cottle, MD, CCFP (Palliative Care) is a palliative care physician in Vancouver, BC, and a Clinical Assistant Professor at the Uni...

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What does post-Carter Canada look like?

Faye Sonier

June 28, 2016

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in Carter vs. Canada that euthanasia and assisted suicide needed to be decriminalized in some circumstances. The Liberal government responded to this decision by introducing Bill C-14, which put some guidelines aroun...

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Palliative Care: Time for a Compassionate Approach

Ray Pennings

May 31, 2016

Palliative Care is commonly but mistakenly understood as medical care provided when death is imminent. A broader understanding of this care as including social, psychosocial, and spiritual dimensions most often delivered outside of the health system needs to be cultivated. The reality has not matched the rhetoric in providing palliative care.

A February 2015 Nanos Poll of Canadian public opinion suggested that 73% of Canadians were concerned that they will not receive the comfort and support they would hope to receive if they or a loved one was facing a life threatening illness and nearing death...

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Just Bring in the Skin

Peter Stockland

April 6, 2016

At the recent Broadbent Institute conference in Ottawa, progressive icon Gloria Steinem dropped a clanger that rates high among the fatuous pensées of this addled decade. “The power of the State,” Steinem opined, “stops at the skin.” Even in this moment of ...

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Which NDP will introduce the "Act to End Predatory Lending"?

Brian Dijkema

March 23, 2016

The idea is sound. As noted in a recent report by Cardus, Banking on the Margins, payday lenders and the loans themselves are structured in such a way as to encourage their customers to become dependent. The loans, while quick and easy, do not build credit, and they require customers to pay back the original amount borrowed plus substantial interest in one lump sum. Too often this results in adding a significant deluge of spending for people who are already struggling to maintain a responsible cash-flow. An unemployed construction worker from Fort McMurray who has trouble making ends meet one week can be crippled by the automatic withdrawal of his previous week’s shortage plus interest rates that, in Alberta at an annual rate of 839% on a ten-day term, are the second highest in the country. And, as our research suggests, the struggle doesn’t stay with the individual. The lack of funds and the increase in debt are linked to mounting costs to families, significant physical and mental health problems, increased criminal activity, and a host of other problems which ultimately strain society – and often the government.

In the throne speech this month, Lieutenant Governor Lois Mitchell announced the Notley government’s intention to “protect Albertans who are experiencing economic d...

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Understanding our deep political differences

Peter Stockland

March 11, 2016

To find out more about Cardus’ event with Lord Jonathan Rabbi Sacks and to purchase tickets, please visit: Eventbrite....

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Pig Blood and Glowing Sand

Gideon Strauss

March 9, 2016

This article first appeared on providencemag.com, the website of Providence: A Journal of Christianity & American Foreign Policy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

According to recent polls, more than a third of self-identified white evangelical voters currently support a presidential candidate, Donald Trump, who ...

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Changing Politics for a Changed Country

Michael Van Pelt

March 7, 2016

Saying “government should not” is as simplistic as saying “government should” if there is nothing else that follows. Yes, conservatives believe in limited government. But this requires more than arithmetic requiring the size of government. What government should do, it should do well and enough resources need to be dedicated to those tasks.

Co-authored by Michael Van Pelt (President), and Ray Pennings (Executive Vice-President) of Cardus, a Canadian think ta...

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