2011‑2022, and is preserved here for archival purposes.
Anne Applebaum’s new book eulogizes the global ruin of classical liberalism as an empty table at a dinner party that former friends refuse to attend, reviewer Robert Joustra writes.
“Is friendship possible,” Romanian writer Mihail Sebastian wondered in 1937, “with people who have in common a whole series of alien ideas and feelings – so alien that I have only to walk in the door and they suddenly fall silent for shame and embarrassment...
Canadian NGOs are meeting the challenge of keeping aid dollars from disappearing into corrupt pockets after the explosion that shredded the Lebanese capital, Susan Korah reports.
I think our country sinks beneath the yoke; It weeps, it bleeds; and each new day a gash Is added to her wounds.
William Shakespeare
It’s a long way from the bleak, windswept moors of...
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 ...
Government support for disadvantaged groups is morally worthy but has no business trumping best value as the basis for purchasing public goods and services, David McKernan argues.
Shared Services Canada, which provides IT support services to the Canadian Federal government, recently closed a Request for Proposal (RFP) seeking a range of IT services from Project Management to Business Transformation and IT Architecture.
Closed...
What questions didn't get asked, wonders Peter Stockland, when a 36-member cabinet assessed a $900 million plan with a mega-charity linked to the Prime Minister and his family?
Journalist and historian Anne Applebaum is credited in the Guardian newspaper this week with a brilliant insight into t...
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.
During the COVID lockdown, a family friend was forced to cancel her 50th birthday party and, some weeks later, her 25th wedding anniversary party.
Meanwhile, on a spring thaw day, gun-holstered police threatened to fine our neig...
After a two-member pro-life group was investigated for providing campaign volunteers in the 2019 federal campaign, Peter Stockland reports on a likely legal challenge under the Charter in the near future.
The lawyer for a two-member pro-life group being investigated for providing campaign volunteers in the 2019 federal campaign says he foresees a Charter challenge if fines are imposed under the Canada Elections Act.
In fact, Albertos Polizogopoulos sa...
Convivium’s Rebecca Darwent argues that, attacks from his political and media enemies withstanding, Canadians haven’t rejected the federal Conservative leader because of his religious faith.
Jagmeet Singh pronounced last week that the 2019 election results meant something “very clear” for Canadians: Andrew Scheer cannot be prime minister. Not because of his dual citizenship, nor his fib about once being an insurance broker, nor the party’s prop...
Convivium’s Father Raymond de Souza rebuts critics of Andrew Scheer for focusing on his religious beliefs while forgetting it was historically outlandish to expect he’d win Election 2019.
About the election, three observations: one about history, another about campaigns, and the third about religion.
First, history matters. Amongst those who desired a Conservative victory, there has been much talk about how Andrew Scheer and his team...
On the feast of Pope St. John Paul II, we need to heed his messages of hope, courage and conviviality in the aftermath of a divisive election, writes Convivium's Rebecca Darwent.
A country divided in blue, red, orange, turquoise and a splash of green. The top-two parties’ popular vote divided with a margin of a mere 1.4 per cent, other ballots cast towards a split up of three other parties, radically different and yet, unequivocally...
Father Raymond de Souza wonders what spirit moves the public board of education in Brockville, Ontario to block an empty building’s sale to a private religious group.
Who does the government compete with? Is a public school a sacred building? A recent surplus building sale raises those questions.
In Brockville, the local public school board has a sold an elementary school in Wolford that it had closed in 2018. The...
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...
The federal election has begun with more mud than Saturday bath night at a pig farm. Alas, Convivium contributor Peter Menzies says, too many reporters are jumping in and further sinking journalism’s #credibility.
It was predictable. #sopredictable. And sad. #sosad
Journalists covering Canada’s federal election became one of the biggest social media stories of the campaign’s first week, overwhelming news regarding the contesting parties’ policy platforms.
...
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.
Despite profound differences, I am fond of Elizabeth May. She is forthright – with perhaps the freedom that leading a small party allows – and seems good fun. We have hosted her at our Cardus Ottawa office for a panel discussion. When I have run across the ...
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.
“What is the ideal target of those who support mass immigration?” asked Maxime Bernier, Quebec MP and People’s Party of Canada leader, recently on Twitter.
Half a million imm...
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.
U.S.-based communications strategist Laura Williams has just published a short essay containing six words that should be inked under every Canadian’s ey...
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...
Mark Baillie reports for Convivium on the UK Parliament’s imposition of legalized abortion and same-sex marriage despite strong legislative and popular opposition.
Ever since the Republic of Ireland voted to repeal the 8th amendment to its Constitution, thus introducing abortion to Ireland, pro-choice campaigners have focused intensely on Northern Ireland, where abortion is still only available if the mothe...
In this week's essay from Northern Ireland, Convivium's Peter Stockland encounters a young man whose grandfather was murdered on Bloody Sunday 1972 and waits to hear loyalist-unionist drums beat again in Belfast this Friday, July 12.
This is part two of Convivium’s series on Northern Ireland and its history as it exists today. Click here to read part one: “A Beacon of Hope and Warning.”
...
Convivium’s Rebecca Darwent talks to producer Mike Schouten about The Missing Project documentary, which fills in the blanks on the 50 years since Canada’s abortion law was overturned and then abandoned entirely.
Rebecca Darwent: Can you tell me about The Missing Project?
Mike Schouten: The thought process started about 18 months ago when a number of us working in the pro-life movement were reflecting on the fact we...
Anticipating next week’s Cardus study on pay day loans, and a vote by the city of Kitchener to regulate the sector, Convivium’s Rebecca Darwent talks to Cardus Work and Economics Program Director Brian Dijkema about helping low-income Canadians gain fair and equal access to credit.
Rebecca Darwent: Can you start by bringing us up to speed on the work you have been doing to set the stage for what has led to the paper we are expecting for release next week?
Brian Dijkema: We have done six reports on payday lendin...
The mania for cranking every political message up to 11 is drowning out our democratic capacity to speak moderately, listen perceptively, and care about what our neighbours are saying, argues Convivium's Peter Stockland.
It might be going a tad too far to say overstatement is killing us democratically.
Hyperbole, thy name in politics has been true since the world’s second-oldest profession followed the world’s oldest profession into existence. Donald Trump is hardly ...
Canadians, including journalists, have forgotten how vitally connected religious freedom is to other constitutionally-protected freedoms, writes Ray Pennings, executive vice-president at Cardus.
Have we lost all sense of proportion when it comes to our fundamental rights in Canada? Two recent cases suggest we have – both involving the notwithstanding clause in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which allows legislatures to temporarily bypass certa...
The good news, Convivium contributor Susan Korah reports, is Canadian journalists aren’t murdered like their global colleagues. The bad news is subtle intimidation and harassment that lets the powerful keep their secrets.
The cloud that hovers over Canadian journalists’ freedom to report the truth has a silver lining.
But even clouds with silver linings sometimes bring rain, and Canadian journalists need to be prepared for the storm that sometimes breaks over their he...