All the Kingdoms of the World: On Radical Religious Alternatives to Liberalism by Kevin Vallier (Oxford, $36, 305 pages) Version 1.0.0 Kevin Vallier has set out to reply to the integralist challenge to liberalism in his important 2023 volume, All the Kingdoms of the World. Vallier takes a dozen pages to define integralism but if it can be summarized in [...]
Oswald Clark and Paul Tuns, Analysis: Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the 2022 Dobbs decision, U.S. pro-life organizations have fought a multifront effort to protect the preborn: they sought full or partial legal protection in predominantly Republican states, fought against efforts to expand abortion in Democrat-controlled states, and differed amongst themselves on how to best address the issue at the [...]
Interim Staff: Former Ontario attorney general and chief justice Roy McMurtry, who wrote the ruling legalizing same-sex “marriage,” died March 18, two months shy of his 92nd birthday. As Attorney General under then-premier Bill Davis in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, McMurtry helped get approval of Pierre Trudeau’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which inaugurated an era of judicial activism. In [...]
Paul Tuns: Brian Mulroney died last month at the age of 84 to widespread praise among politicians of all stripes despite leading what was the most scandal-plagued and unpopular government by the time he resigned. Three decades after leaving office in disgrace, he was lauded for his public service, Canada’s free trade agreement with the United States, and his environmental record. Not [...]
Interim Staff: In November 2023 the City of Hamilton conceded that it did not consider the Charter of Rights and Freedom’s guarantee of free expression rights when it rejected a bus advertising campaign by the Association for Reformed Political Action Canada (ARPA). ARPA had attempted to place ads on the outside of Hamilton Transit buses that featured an image of an ultrasound [...]
Paul Tuns: London city council voted 9-6 on March 5 in favour of asking city staff to draft a bylaw to ban images of aborted preborn children from public display. In the past, city staff had recommended against a ban on such images, saying that it could violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantee of freedom of speech and open the [...]
Paul Tuns: On Feb. 29, federal Health Minister Mark Holland introduced Bill C-64, “An Act respecting pharmacare,” fulfilling the 2022 promise from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in exchange for the NDP’s support propping up the Liberal minority government. The deadline for delivering the policy was March 2025. Holland revealed that far from a comprehensive pharmacare program, Bill C-64 would only establish Ottawa [...]
John Carpay: In his masterful work The Anatomy of Fascism, Robert Paxton surveys fascist movements and parties in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s, looking at their differences and similarities and then arriving at a workable definition. Fascist movements were hostile to democracy and to individual rights and freedoms. Despising the idea of individual citizens, each choosing their own individual priorities, fascists [...]
Paul Tuns: On Feb. 26, federal Minister of Justice and Attorney General Arif Virani introduced Bill C-63, the Online Harms Act in the House of Commons, which pro-life and civil rights groups say far exceeds the bill’s ostensible purpose of promoting online safety and could chill free speech in Canada. According to the bill’s critics, the Online Harms Act would, if passed, [...]
Interim Staff: For the past two years, students at the Halton Catholic District School Board, just west of Toronto, comprised of the cities of Burlington, Oakville, and Halton Hills, have prayed the Lord’s Prayer each morning due to an initiative of trustee Helena Karabela. Karabela, who represents Oakville, told supporters through email in late January that students across the board have prayed [...]
Paul Tuns: In 2021, the Liberal Party campaign platform included rescinding charitable tax status for all pro-life organizations, including pregnancy care centres that serve pregnant women, on the pretense that they truck in misinformation. Nearly five years later, the Trudeau government has yet to act on their threat. The Liberal Party platform vowed that a Trudeau government would “no longer provide charity [...]
Paul Tuns: New Democratic Party MP Randall Garrison (Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke) was asked by a reporter during a scrum about Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s new parental rights policy, to which he responded “there is no such thing as parental rights in Canada.” The off-camera reporter asked Garrison, “Do you view this as a parental rights issue at all?” Garrison, who is openly homosexual, said, [...]
Joanna Alphonso and Paul Tuns: Mixed reactions erupted across the country as Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, in a video post on X (formerly Twitter), shared her plan on Jan. 31 to protect women and children from the LGBQT ideology. Smith’s plan includes a ban on gender reassignment surgeries for children ages 17 and under, and a ban on puberty blockers and hormone [...]
Paul Tuns: A Fredericton abortuary is closing after years of pressing for full funding at the private facility. It ended without convincing either Liberal or Progressive Conservative governments to pay for abortions done at the province’s only free-standing abortion mill. Campaign Life Coalition declared it “great news” that Clinic 554 was finally closing its doors for good after repeatedly threatening to shut [...]
As many provinces celebrate Family Day, there is a movement afoot, in both Ontario and Manitoba, to follow the example of British Columbia in providing universal coverage for contraception; in that fact, of course, there is no little irony. Just as the holiday points to the indisputable facts of the family—and every citizen’s origin therein—there is a push for the pharmaceutical suppression [...]