Policy

Onside Against Job Program Changes

Peter Stockland

January 10, 2018

Convivium’s Peter Stockland learns why a major Christian evangelical group and a gay rights network are both denouncing the “ideological silencing” behind changes to a federal student employment initiative

The Canadian Council of Christian Charities and the gay rights network LGBTory could not, at first blush, appear to have less in common.

The Four Cs, as the Council is known, is Canada’s largest formal association of Christian charities with more tha...

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Lessons in Political Cooperation

Andrew P.W. Bennett

November 15, 2017

Cardus Law Program Director Dr. Andrew Bennett reflects on the way the House of Commons justice committee dealt with Bill C-51.

OTTAWA - Sometimes Parliament works just the way the textbooks say it’s supposed to work. Arguably, the most recent example is in the way the House of Commons justice committee dealt with Bill C-51, which aims to erase “outdated” parts of the Criminal Code....

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Disorder in the House

Don Hutchinson

November 1, 2017

Ottawa lawyer and writer Don Hutchinson argues two government measures now making their way through the House of Commons are so contradictory they show the Liberal left hand doesn’t know what the Liberal right hand is doing when it comes to religious freedom.

In March, Canada’s federal government gave instructions to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage to “undertake a study on how the government could develop a whole-of-government approach to reducing or eliminating systemic… religious discrimination.” A...

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Engaging To Combat Bigotry

Balpreet Singh Boparai

October 30, 2017

The World Sikh Organization of Canada supports a parliamentary move to combat Islamophobia, says spokesman Balpreet Singh. But he warns a House of Commons committee that Motion 103 must never supplant active engagement against hate.

I am legal counsel for the World Sikh Organization of Canada. We are a non-profit human rights organization established in 1984 with a mandate to promote and protect the interests of Canadian Sikhs as well as to promote and advocate for the protection of h...

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When Silence Screams

Peter Stockland

October 10, 2017

Convivium Publisher Peter Stockland contends the things said during the Rachael Harder debacle were bad enough. Much worse was the thinking revealed by the silence.

Although both thoughtful commentators and the noisy mob have moved on from the Rachael Harder imbroglio, it’s worth considering it once more for what was left unsaid.

What the silence points to goes far beyond the inanity and the injustice of the eve...

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Canadian Values and Charlottetown

Raymond J. de Souza

August 31, 2017

Convivium editor-in-chief Father Raymond J. de Souza marks the 25th anniversary of the Charlottetown Accord, reporting on its significance in our current cultural moment.

Memories of it have now disappeared into the constitutional miasma that shrouded Canadian political life for some thirty years from the 1960s to the 1990s, but the Charlottetown Accord – signed twenty-five years ago this week – bears remembe...

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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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When ad Hominem Attacks Are All You Have

Albertos Polizogopoulos

July 8, 2016

Last week, Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress, a far-left publication, wrote a piece titled “The Stunning, Hilarious Hypocrisy of The Christian Right’s Top Legal Team.” In it ...

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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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Mapping the Progressives Progress

Ray Pennings

April 8, 2016

Redefining Responsible Government. Open Government was the theme of the Canada2020 conference, and constitutes a base of the new progressive agenda. Few can dispute the good of measured transparency, data sharing, and advanced use of technology to engage citizens in public processes. But as one participant insightfully noted near the end of the conference, it is one thing to value openness as part of transparency and providing modern quality service to the citizenry.

Progressive politics is clearly on a roll in Canada. In fact, some pundits say it has already “run the table,” and question whether it has run out of new places to go. That is a matter for those who scan the political heavens to decide. Here on earth, New D...

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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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Justin, Listen to Your Father

Ray Sawatsky

November 17, 2015

"There are a lot of bleeding hearts around who just don't like to see people with helmets and guns," Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau said when Canada was terrorized by the FLQ crisis 45 years ago. "All I can say is, go on and bleed, but it is more important to keep law and order in this society than to be worried about weak-kneed people who don't like the looks of a soldier's helmet." “I think the society must take every means at its disposal to defend itself against the emergence of a parallel power which defies the elected power in this country, and I think that goes to any distance. So long as there is a power in here which is challenging the elected representative of the people, I think that power must be stopped and I think it's only, I repeat, weak-kneed bleeding hearts who are afraid to take these measures,” he said to justify using the War Measures Act against Quebec terrorists.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau must listen to his father.

"There are a lot of bleeding hearts around who just don't like to see people with helmets and guns," Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau s...

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New Cardus Education Survey to be released

Naomi Biesheuvel

September 4, 2014

The release will take place at the CUNY Institute for Education Policy at Roosevelt House, New York, New York, from 5:30-7:45pm on September 10, 2014. The event will feature Cardus's Ray Pennings, along with Sean Corcoran of New York University; Kathy Jamil, founder of Islamic School's League of America; and Ashley Berner of the CUNY Institute for Education Policy.

The newest collection of U.S. data for the esteemed Cardus Education Survey will be released next week.

The release will take place at the CUNY Institute for Education Policy at Roosevelt House, New York, New York, from 5:30-7:45pm on September 10, 2...

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Social Licence and Democratic Institutions

Ray Pennings

June 11, 2014

My point here is not to argue the merits or demerits of the pipeline, nor to suggest that the process has been without its flaws. But a two-year review process by the National Energy Board, a federal agency that has subject matter expertise, which heard 1450 submissions in 21 affected communities over a two-year period cannot be dismissed as an undemocratic process.

By June 17th, Canada's federal cabinet is required to decide whether the controversial Northern Gateway pipeline can proceed. From an institutional perspective, this marks the conclusion of a lengthy process. There was a day when all sides engaged in arguin...

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Birds Do It

Peter Stockland

June 4, 2014

In the nest, two chicks have hatched, and the robin spends her days as a kind of avian FedEx courier bringing worms and grubs and dropping them into tiny beaks that never seem to close with satiety. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Outside our back door there is a tree and in the overlap of its coniferous branches is a small, obscured, protected space where a robin has built a nest.

In the nest, two chicks have hatched, and the robin spends her days as a kind of avian FedEx cou...

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De-Register the Liberals, Anyone?

Ray Pennings

May 21, 2014

With tongue firmly in my cheek, I want to propose that all tolerant, open-minded Canadians join me in my quest to de-register the Liberal Party of Canada. I don't propose we do this lightly. But just as various law societies are deciding (after carefully co...

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