If the Canada Summer Jobs precedent holds, soon other government agencies will mix public funds and political preferences
In a crucial free speech ruling recently, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that the constitution in that country prohibits forcing people to say what they don’t believe. Here in Canada, a young Ottawa lawyer upped the ante recently by filing a Federal Court lawsuit arguing that our Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects the right…
The Trinity Western University case represents one of the most important religious freedom decisions of the past 20 years
On Friday, the Supreme Court of Canada will release its ruling in the Trinity Western University case. Until the judgment is made public, of course, no one knows which way the court might swing. For all who’ve tracked the dispute’s progress through the legal process, however, it stands to be among the most important religious…
The Trudeau government’s aspirations to mandate equality, diversity and inclusion must be open for discussion, not just blindly accepted
I seem to have a penchant for seeking out protests – not necessarily to participate but to observe, to soak in the screams, the worn-out chants, the always amusing soundbite slogans. This particular demonstration, while not well attended, took place in front of the Supreme Court of Canada. The “anti-capitalist” rally and march in support…
From health to wealth, from personal happiness to better outcomes for children, the benefits of traditional relationships are many
By Andrea Mrozek and Peter Jon Mitchell Cardus Canadian supporters of marriage are speaking up – and not a moment too soon. In a recent Angus Reid Institute survey, about 56 per cent of Canadians said, “marriage is simply not necessary” to form a lifelong relationship. Almost the same proportion (57 per cent) went on…
But it’s far more likely that the institutions at neighbourhood levels are better positioned to address key aspects of loneliness
Since her January appointment as the United Kingdom’s minister of loneliness, Tracey Crouch has started work on a multimillion-dollar fund of anti-loneliness programs. That’s spurred debate about whether Canada and other countries should follow suit. While social isolation deserves our attention, a new federal minister may not be the answer. A growing body of research…
MPs telling bishops what to do is a monstrous misunderstanding of the relationship between political power and civil society
Parliament will set back both truth and reconciliation if it passes a motion proposed by Charlie Angus, the NDP MP from Timmins-James Bay. He wants Canada’s Catholic bishops to invite Pope Francis to visit Canada to apologize for the role of the Catholic Church in residential schools. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) included a…
The freedom of Canadian citizens to peacefully oppose anything, including abortion, is the very base on which all rights are founded
NDP MP David Christopherson gets it. Liberal Labour Minister Patty Hajdu apparently just can’t. Christopherson broke party ranks and voted for a Conservative motion in late March demanding the government scrap its “values test” for Canada Summer Jobs funding. Even with Christopherson’s support, the motion was easily defeated. “If the law is an ass, you…
Children's aid society removed children from care because the foster parents wouldn't lie about the Easter Bunny
Much of the media coverage of the legal decision involving Derek and Frances Baars and the Children’s Aid Society of Hamilton has treated it as a quirky story about a Christian family versus the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. In fact, the 61-page decision by Justice A.J. Goodman is a blistering critique of the aid…
It’s a matter of recognizing that the church is not ultimately subject to the sovereignty of the state
JERUSALEM – A combustible dispute over property taxes led to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem being closed in protest for three days. The mayor of Jerusalem, without notice or consultation, slapped tax arrears assessments on church properties not used for worship, including the vast number of guesthouses that welcome pilgrims visiting the…
The Gerald Stanley-Colten Boushie case has touched off a firestorm that reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of how our legal system works
Reaction to the Gerald Stanley-Colten Boushie verdict continues to roil in Canada’s legal system. The latest stir of the pot comes from the Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers. The council sent a tart reproach this week to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould for their responses to the acquittal of Stanley,…
Compares the government's rule change to the reviled Indian Act for imposing ironclad status-quo thinking
Just days before the extended deadline for the Canada Summer Jobs program, David Acco still can’t reconcile what the federal government wants employers to do as part of a new application process. “It’s crazy,” Acco says from Montreal. “I would never tick the box they want me to tick. They should be looking at this…
Justin Trudeau must set a new standard for sexual propriety in great part because his father dismantled traditional values
It feels like good fortune to watch this full circle moment when the son must grapple with what the father wrought. Mere weeks ago, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke emphatically about his insistence on proper conduct between the sexes on Parliament Hill and, by extension, among Canadians generally. While North America grapples with the newest…
The Liberals’ latest decision means summer employment is now a testing ground for ideological adhesion, obedience and purity
It’s tough work to imagine two groups more radically different than the Canadian Council of Christian Charities and the gays rights network LGBTory. So when both join the rising chorus opposing changes to what should be among Ottawa’s most innocuous programs, it’s a signal something significant is going on. The Four Cs, as the council…
Contrition that’s merely on the lips changes nothing in the heart or, for that matter, around the waistline, within the workplace, inside troubled relationships
It’s traditional to head into a new year full of resolve fuelled by last year’s regret. Our commitment to renewed discipline, diets and dream-achieving over the coming 12 months is all too often driven by short-term overindulgence during Christmas festivities. More importantly, there’s a lingering sense of another year lost by not doing what we…
Universities should bring young people into the disciplines and rigours of an examined life, into the habits of careful thinking
While at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), I got to know a history teacher who was a passionate and self-proclaimed Marxist. She loved to talk about the inequality and injustices that plagued the city, the province, the country and, well, the cosmos. I asked her one morning if she wouldn’t mind splitting…