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…
If we’re not careful, we may recognize too late how critical they are in dealing with the ever-shifting social stresses of modern life
If any one religious congregation disappeared from your city, would your community and city be better or worse off? There are Canadians who think it would be better if they did disappear, like old relics that have become burdensome, even embarrassing. The think-tank Cardus published the results of research that examined the question through The…
Quebecers find themselves taking sides in language squabbles their better judgment says are irrelevant to life outside the political bubble
Quebec’s anglophones, francophones and allophones should all be on their smart phones demanding to know what in the name of Saint René Lévesque just happened in the National Assembly. “We are not a small people,” the late premier, Lévesque, famously said after his victorious Parti Quebecois stunned everyone on election night in 1976. “We are…
Non-believers overwhelmingly believe every religious community in Canada, especially Muslims and evangelical Christians, hurt the country
Throughout autumn, the soup of our multicultural society has almost boiled over with questions about secularism and religion – of what is and isn’t allowed in contemporary public and common Canadian life. Efforts to relegate religious expression and thought to the margins have been ramped up. Those efforts, however, are out of step with broader…
Proposed amendments to Bill C-51 mean MPs understand that religious services and sacred spaces aren’t the same as any other public gathering
Sometimes Parliament works just the way the textbooks say it’s supposed to. Take for example the way the House of Commons justice committee dealt with Bill C-51, which aims to erase “outdated” parts of the Criminal Code. The committee held hearings. Government and opposition MPs listened to and questioned those who came to testify. Then…
The federal government needs to affirm the importance of freedom of religion and conscience by preserving Section 176
In June, Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould tabled in the House of Commons omnibus legislation to amend the Criminal Code and Department of Justice Act. One of Bill C-51’s provisions should concern Canadians for what it proposes and says about the value we place on religious freedom and our understanding of sacred space. The bill would…
Subjecting parents choosing such schools for their children to extra costs is discriminatory
By Derek J. Allison Deani Neven Van Pelt and Beth Green Cardus You could call it a step forward in fairness for Canadians who send their kids to independent schools. The Toronto Board of Health recently recommended the extension of its student nutrition programs to qualified independent schools. That means more than 300 independent schools…
Home-schooling successes show that parents and kids can be far more responsible for decisions about their education than imagined
By Deani Van Pelt and Beth Green Cardus Back-to-school means different things for many of Canada’s five million school-age children. For an increasing share of students in almost every province, it means something other than attending a neighbourhood public school. Home-schooling, while still small in overall uptake – Manitoba has the highest share at 1.5…