Policy

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.

At the beginning of April, the Supreme Court of Canada finally closed the outside door on the Delta Hospice Society’s ownership of a private 10-bed palliative care centre in suburban Vancouver.

At one level, the SCOC’s refusal to grant the Society le...

Read more...
When Covid Constraints Come to Church

Don Hutchinson

March 4, 2021

Don Hutchinson considers the complementary roles of Church and State vis-à-vis the pandemic and public health.

Governments have reacted, some say overreacted, to a declared pandemic by moving beyond giving advice for the good of our health to legislating behavioural constraints. Those restrictions have come to church, generating contradictory responses.

Wash ...

Read more...
The Unlawfulness of Lockdown

James Sikkema

February 22, 2021

Contrary to theologian David Hionides, James Sikkema argues no one has a moral obligation to obey COVID-19 lockdown orders and that civilly disobeying them is justified.

Lockdown orders are not justified. There is, consequently, no moral obligation to obey them. Let me explain.

In the wake of ...

Read more...
The HandMAiD’s Toll

André Schutten and Anna Nienhuis

February 9, 2021

As the Senate studies Bill C-7’s dramatic expansion of medical assistance in dying, Anna Nienhuis and André Schutten warn of a MAiD copycat effect on those tempted to suicide.

Action inspires action. This is often positive, as people’s activities motivate others to engage in positive service too. But there are times when action inspires deadly action. As the Senate continues its review of Bill C-7’s dramatic expansion of medical ...

Read more...
COVID in the Courts

Peter Stockland

January 25, 2021

Peter Stockland speaks with lawyer John Carpay, of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, about looming legal battles on pandemic-driven infringements of Charter rights.

It’s tempting to paraphrase a quote about the weather often (mis)attributed to Mark Twain as a summary of our COVID-19 year: Everyone keeps talking about the pandemic but no one’s doing anything about it.

We must not lead ourselves into that temptati...

Read more...
The Political Spell COVID Casts

Travis D. Smith

January 20, 2021

The Ontario government’s methods to combat COVID-19 risks re-educating citizens in the Machiavellian art of compliance, political theorist Travis Smith writes.

Stuck inside these four walls

Sent inside forever

Never seeing no one nice again

Like you, Mama

–Paul McCartney, “Band on the Run”

Then I better stay in my room
...

Read more...
Protecting Freedom From COVID-19

Peter Stockland

January 18, 2021

There’s no question the pandemic is real and really deadly but we must never forget that liberty, too, can suffer the painful demise of simply being forgotten, Peter Stockland argues.

The thought occurred to me two Saturdays ago that freedom might end, or at least subservience begin, not with a bang or even a whimper but with a smart phone signal.

The catalyst was two blats from my iPhone that sounded like Amber Alerts except they...

Read more...
MAiD Muscles In

Peter Stockland

January 8, 2021

Staff layoffs and eviction of B.C.’s Delta Hospice Society from its facility outside Vancouver show MAiD advocates’ power to impose their will on those who don’t want it, Peter Stockland writes.

You might think the middle of a global pandemic is less than an ideal time to disrupt the operations of a hospice where palliative care patients receive comfort as they approach death.

If so, you would not share the apparent thinking of the B.C. gove...

Read more...
Great Reset? Or Grand Unravelling?

Peter Menzies

November 30, 2020

Prime Minister Trudeau has mused that COVID-19 will allow for Canadian society to “re-set” on a number of fronts. Peter Menzies says we’ll have to avoid coming apart at the seams first.

Last week’s unravelling of the so-called Atlantic bubble should erase any lingering romantic thoughts that Canadians are united in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since July 3, the nation’s four Atlantic provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador, New Br...

Read more...
Why Not a Notwithstanding Pause for MAiD?

Don Hutchinson

November 27, 2020

Don Hutchinson argues the Trudeau government should consider the Constitution’s Section 33 opt out rather than rush to pass expanded medically assisted dying legislation under a court-imposed deadline.

At the Trudeau Government’s request, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights has deemed a bill to be of such priority that it be fast-tracked through the evaluation process: Bill C-7, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (medica...

Read more...
Addressing Canada’s MAiD Concerns

Ray Pennings

November 25, 2020

Medically assisted death advocates inside and outside Parliament are gung-ho to expand it. But Cardus’ Ray Pennings says national poll numbers show Canadians want MPs to curb their enthusiasm.

Just because politicians and activists are gung-ho about expanding medical assistance in dying (MAiD), doesn’t mean all Canadians are so enthusiastic.

If anything, Canadians would tell the politicians it’s time to slow down and broaden the discussion...

Read more...
Progress Against MAiD

Peter Stockland

November 19, 2020

Catherine Frazee, a long-time disability Rights activist and Ontario’s former Chief Commissioner of Human Rights, talked to MPs about pending MAiD expansion recently. It wasn’t enough to make her give up hope, Peter Stockland reports.

A powerful impetus behind the Liberal government’s push to jam expanded medical aid in dying through Parliament has been the force of proponents arguing it is progressive legislation.

Yet Catherine Frazee, who testified last week before the Commons c...

Read more...
COVID's Contagion of Disbelief

Peter Menzies

November 18, 2020

Drug companies touting new pandemic vaccines should be causing huzzahs. But Peter Menzies warns septic skepticism in the body politic must also be addressed.

Today’s news that not one but two COVID-19 vaccines have tested 95 per cent effective casts a welcome burst of light into Canada’s gloomy COVID-19 narrative amid signs the pandemic is ripping into its social fabric.

Moderna announced Monday that its ...

Read more...
COVID Hope From Healthy Families

Winnie Lui with Todd Martin

November 13, 2020

Winnie Lui reports on research by Trinity Western sociologist Todd Martin revealing that around the world even the hardships of the pandemic have become sources of family strength.

"Life markers give us an indication that we have moved from one configuration or stage in our family lives to another," says Todd Martin, a family researcher and Dean and Associate Professor of Sociology at Trinity Western University.

Weddings, birth...

Read more...
Faith Leaders Fight Back Against Expanding MAiD

Peter Stockland

October 15, 2020

The Liberal government’s proposed Bill C-7 has drawn multifaith ire across Canada and a sharply-worded public call to immediately halt the legislation, Peter Stockland reports.

More than 50 leaders across the faith spectrum warn the Liberal government’s changes to Medical Aid in Dying legislation will pressure vulnerable Canadians to opt for “lethal procedures” over living with illness or disability.

Equally alarming, says ...

Read more...
Regaining Lost Educational Ground

Joe Woodard

August 29, 2020

In part two of his essay on the damage done by a century of “revolutionary” pedagogy, Joe Woodard foresees the power of independent schools and parental choice for returning education to its natural purpose.

University arts students of the 1970s all saw Marxism dominating the world of academic respectability among ambitious young scholars – the Herd of Independent Thinkers – despite Communism’s repeated seven-and eight-figure slaughters (such as Stalin’s four t...

Read more...
Kiwi COVID Containment Bears Bad Fruit

Robert Joustra

August 18, 2020

New Zealand is feted for its pandemic lockdown, but Robert Joustra says the awkward truth of Auckland’s approach is it raises irrational fear even as we’re being fleeced economically.

Pandemic public policy is now a field unto itself, saturated with experts, desperately low on data, yet with dangerously high stakes, at least politically.

Take the case of New Zealand. Here is a prime minister and a country that has done, according...

Read more...
The Moral Pandemic of MAiD

Christina Lamb

August 11, 2020

Afflicted by the ideology of the right to die movement, Christina Lamb writes, Canadians are losing the sense of human dignity that unites us in bearing each other’s suffering.

The ongoing pandemic continues to generate great uncertainty and suffering for people in Canada and around the world. Much of the global response to COVID-19 shows that the goodwill of people to join together and overcome these challenges is altruistic and ...

Read more...
Getting Ahead of the COVID-19 Curve

Peter Stockland

March 23, 2020

Prime Minister Trudeau announced today that nothing “is off the table” regarding COVID-19. Peter Stockland says we must consider civil liberties before the Emergencies Act is declared.

On Sunday, the Quebec government ordered the province’s cathedrals of commerce – also known as shopping malls – to shut down. The edict followed last week’s imperative obliging all places of religious worship to lock their doors.

Yet Prime Minister J...

Read more...
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.

“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...

Read more...
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.

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...

Read more...
China's Imperial Brutality

David Kilgour

January 16, 2019

The death sentence handed to a Canadian convicted of drug smuggling reminded the world that China is the world’s top state executioner. But as former MP and veteran human rights observer David Kilgour tells Convivium readers, Beijing’s vicious persecution of its own minority populations rivals Maoist-era inhumanity.

About 20 million Muslim and Turkic-speaking Uyghurs, who make up the largest community in China’s far-west province of Xinjiang, are facing brutal repression by police and others acting on behalf of the Beijing government.

After Mao Zedong occupied X...

Read more...
Budget 2018: Dreams That Deny Data

Peter Stockland

February 28, 2018

This week’s federal budget has admirable elements but also goes a long way to show the Liberal government’s shortcomings, Cardus experts tell Convivium.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s 2018 budget combines a hard push in the wrong direction with overestimation of government’s power to fix social inequity, Cardus analysts says.

Morneau’s spending blueprint tabled yesterday is billed as fostering equal...

Read more...
This Budget’s For You

Peter Stockland

February 27, 2018

Finance Minister Bill Morneau handed down a 2018 budget today that spends billions in new money Canada doesn’t have, and raises the national debt to almost $700 billion. But no worries, writes Convivium’s Peter Stockland. It’s also got a gendered analysis. And it puts people first.

The key number for understanding the federal Liberal government’s 2018 budget is 319. That’s the page number where total projected spending for the coming fiscal year is first mentioned.

It’s an eye-popping $338.5 billion, up from $311.3 billion in t...

Read more...