Ontario’s Equity and Inclusive Education Strategy (EIE) is meant to shape the entire educational system. Last month we showed how EIE disregards children’s social and emotional needs. This month’s critique continues with the some of the strategy’s implications for moral and spiritual development. Jesus told us how carefully we are to guard the purity of growing children. “He said to His disciples, [...]
Editor’s Note: This press release was sent by the Lutheran Church-Canada July 18 following the (liberal) Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada meeting which authorized pastors to conduct same-sex ‘marriages.” Responding to a vote by delegates at the convention of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC) meeting in Saskatoon, July 15 and 16, which authorized its pastors to conduct same-gender marriages and [...]
Recent attacks on the family often become attacks on fatherhood. For instance, figures from Hollywood have embraced alternative family structures, questioning or mocking the importance of a father figure. Actress Jennifer Aniston in August 2010 said that fathers are unnecessary, especially since now there is no need “to fiddle with a man to have that child.” Another example is the positive portrayal [...]
For over two months, the British Columbia Supreme Court has heard testimony in its case examining whether Canada’s ban on polygamy is constitutional. The issue was referred to the court after a judge in 2009 stayed charges against two Bountiful religious leaders from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) – James Oler and Winston Blackmore - accused [...]
By as split 4-4-1 advisory decision, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld a 2008 Quebec Court of Appeal decision that found some of the federal Assisted Human Reproduction Act intruded on province’s jurisdiction over health. Pro-life and faith groups condemned the decision because it gave provinces control of the creation, destruction and manipulation of human embryos. The Supreme Court upheld in part [...]
Life Canada, an organization seeking to educate Canadians about the value of life, launched a national awareness campaign in November, to coincide with the Canada’s official National Adoption Awareness Month. Life Canada’s “Adoption in Canada” campaign aims to assure 18 to 29-year-old women facing unplanned pregnancies that adoption is a “heroic” choice. According to the campaign’s website, adoptionincanada.ca, “many will [...]
When the Ontario Court of Appeals ruled that the immemorial definition of marriage as the union between one man and one woman violated the equity provisions of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, social conservatives opposed the short-sighted and egregious activism of the court on many grounds. We argued that, in addition to misunderstanding (and far exceeding) the proper bounds of the [...]
A report from the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada speculates on why boys and men in the modern world are lagging behind girls. Using a thesis put forth by scholars such as George Gilder, Margaret Mead, David Popenoe, and David Blankenhorn, the report, “The Status of Men” written by Andrea Mrozek, manager of research and communication at the IMFC, [...]
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty is overselling the benefits and underscoring the costs of universal full-day kindergarten, says the program’s critics. Full-day kindergarten has already been implemented in 600 sites across Ontario. It will replace the previous half day of supervision and lessons with a full day in school for 4 and 5 year olds under the care of a teacher and an [...]
Q&A with Craig Carter Editor’s note: Joseph Jalsevac, a summer intern at The Interim, spoke to Dr. Craig Carter, an ordained minister in the Fellowship of Evangelical Baptist Churches of Canada and a professor of Religious Studies at Tyndale University College in Toronto, about contraception. Carter regularly writes and lectures on Christian sexual ethics in the modern world. The Interim: [...]
On June 3-5, the Faith and Freedom Alliance Conference was held in Toronto, during which they educated the public about the threats to religious liberty and trained lawyers to fight back to protect certain freedoms from assault in the public square. J. Scott Kennedy, chair of the Alliance, opened the conference reminding participants that the freedoms of religion, conscience, and expression “are [...]
I am 25 years old, have been married for a year and a half and look forward to having children. I am thrilled to know many friends and acquaintances who have also been discerning, preparing and entering into marriage over the last few years. It is not unusual to discuss having children and natural family planning with them. The underlying understanding for [...]
Nothing could have prepared Gillian DeSouza for the news she would receive during what was supposed to have been a routine pregnancy care check-up in June of 2008. At the 20th week in her pregnancy, the doctor told Gillian and her husband, Jason DeSouza, that their unborn child had a rare anomaly called “Trisomy X.” Commonly referred to as Triple [...]
An appreciation of the gift of being a dad The arrival of this past June’s Father’s Day caused me to reflect on what the occasion means to me. As I gazed around the table and viewed my family, I observed my partner in life, affectionately known as mom, and my children, each with his or her own uniqueness. The good Lord is [...]
On Sept. 23, the Madam Justice Sunni Stromberg-Stein of the Supreme Court of British Columbia quashed polygamy charges against Winston Blackmore and James Oler. The legal reasoning is rather technical and narrow – the defense claimed and the justice agreed that former Attorney General Wally Oppal had gone “special prosecutor shopping” – but that doesn’t change the reality that the decision will [...]