Public Life

Truth and Justin Trudeau

Peter Stockland

October 5, 2021

Even as Canadians auto-correct for political falsehoods by expecting and accepting them, the Prime Minister’s fib on Truth and Reconciliation Day reveals a worrying pattern, Peter Stockland writes.

George Orwell would likely have caught his breath at news of a prime minister caught in a flagrant fib on a day dedicated to capital T Truth.

Orwell, of course, spent his journalistic career ferreting out and castigating the incessant political lying...

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An Election Exercise in Media Conformity

Peter Menzies

September 16, 2021

The shared-bathwater insularity of Parliament Hill’s media elite has made the 2021 campaign an adventure in safe and narrow thinking, Peter Menzies argues.

The words of Jody Wilson-Raybould are as good a place as any to begin an assessment of media coverage of Canada’s 44th federal election.

“In Ottawa, the political culture, which includes the media, lives in a world of its own construction, quite divo...

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Pierre’s Vision Begot a Justin Society

Don Hutchinson

August 27, 2021

This just in: the current prime minister is steadfastly refusing to follow his father’s footsteps, especially on human rights and justice. Don Hutchinson traces the divergent path.

The two Trudeaus are the only father-son federal prime ministers in Canada’s brief history. Each in their time, father Pierre and son Justin, led the Government of Canada into record ...

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Will Canadians Stick With Justin the Changemaker?

Ray Pennings

August 25, 2021

In his latest Cardus Insights newsletter, Executive Vice President Ray Pennings argues this election is about deciding whether to continue Prime Minister Trudeau’s transformation of Canada.

Ray's Cardus Insights newsletter strives to “connect the dots” among faith, business, and public life. Read a sample and sign-up for Cardus Insights.

The first day of Canada’s ...

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Failing to Speak for Free Speech

Peter Menzies

April 14, 2021

Eerie silence has met Ottawa’s plan to regulate the Internet and outlaw hurtful – not just hateful – expression, Peter Menzies reports.

Canada’s long march towards violating Charter rights to free expression continues without any sign of political or media opposition.

Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault’s campaign to suppress the Internet has now opened up on three fronts. It is no l...

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Chaos ’Round The Corner for CRTC

Peter Menzies

March 16, 2021

Peter Menzies looks into a planned major expansion of federal regulatory powers over the Internet. It’s enough to take your breath away, he reports.

Were the consequences not so serious, Canada’s chaotic venture into the regulation of content on the Web might be consigned to the realm of thigh-slapping farce.

The government’s goal, it was learned last week, will be to focus programming funding on...

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Call Him Mr. Trudeau

Don Hutchinson

February 2, 2021

We can agree or disagree over policies, but the Prime Minister and other party leaders deserve the respect conveyed by the honorific preceding their names, Don Hutchinson writes.

Why Mr. Trudeau?

Some will have read the question as if it was written, “Why, Mr. Trudeau?

Why the multiple ethics violations, Mr. Trudeau? Why the departure of Jody Wilson-Raybould, Jane Philpott, and others? Why make announcements about rest...

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The Year of Smashing Statues

Gavin Miller

December 31, 2020

Along with COVID-19 and a sanity-challenging American election, 2020 made rampant the demolishing of monuments. Gavin Miller warns iconoclasm is more than vandalism: it threatens civil life.

About a year ago, I saw a statue of the Pieta that someone had donated to my friend’s parish. It was placed in a relatively inconspicuous part of the church campus and was frankly hideous, with distorted limbs and blunt facial features. As pastor of the par...

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For Whom the Polls Toll

Don Hutchinson

October 26, 2020

Fixated as Canadians are on soundings of popular opinion that foretell who will govern us next, Don Hutchinson writes, the only poll that counts is in the booth where we mark our ballots on Election Day.

Polling doesn’t have the sex appeal of commercials about beer, pickup trucks or electric cars, but it does attract the attention of millions of Canadians. Whether pick-one-from-this-list junk polling on television, radio and social media, or more extensive ...

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ABCs of Amy Coney Barrett’s Faith

Raymond J. de Souza

October 12, 2020

Failure to understand deeply religious people will underlie a lot of words thrown at the U.S. Supreme Court nominee this week, Father Raymond de Souza writes.

Hearings that begin today on Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the American Supreme Court will bring out abundant words beginning with C. Conservative. Constitutionalist. Catholic – or “devout Catholic” in this case. Charismatic Christian. And Cult.
...

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What Donald Trump Says About Us

Ray Pennings

October 5, 2020

In his October 3 Insights newsletter, Cardus Executive Vice-President Ray Pennings warns that even as we disdain the President’s politics of authoritarian preening, we must look for them in ourselves.

Let’s begin by wishing the U.S. President and First Lady a full and speedy recovery following their positive COVID-19 testing. The text below was drafted before this diagnosis was known and reflects on the toxicity of public discourse for which the Presiden...

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Can We Talk?

Peter Stockland

August 25, 2020

Will the strong showing of Leslyn Lewis in the Tory leadership race revitalize a socially conservative conversation in Canada? Peter Stockland isn’t placing a bet on it.

Theoretically, a political culture wedded to the indisputable premise that Black lives matter might have room for the hypothesis that it’s worth at least discussing whether, as most social conservatives firmly believe, unborn lives count.

Such a disc...

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Why WE Wouldn’t Listen

Robert Joustra

August 5, 2020

From historic military meltdowns to last week’s barbecuing of the Kielburger brothers by a Commons committee, being too nice to ask hard questions invariably risks organizational catastrophe, Robert Joustra writes.

There is a famous psychologist named Irving Janice, at least as famous as academics can be, who pioneered the study of “groupthink” on politics. His most famous case was exploring the chain of events that involved the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, wh...

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When Mass Kneeling Replaces Faith

Peter Menzies

July 27, 2020

A generation raised without religious faith is suddenly dropping to its knees to plead its causes. Peter Menzies asks whether it’s the spirit moving – or another triumph of marketing.

A few Sunday mornings ago, I came across the broadcast of a church service on Radio-Canada and, not surprisingly, there was almost no one in the congregation.

The service aimed at francophone audiences was applicably Roman Catholic. The eglise...

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Free At Last Once More

Edward Tingley

July 9, 2020

Conservatives and progressives alike require recalling to the Christian origins of Western freedom so they stop treating liberty as the enemy of the Good, Edward Tingley writes.

It may seem that a well-meaning believer in the common good and social justice would believe in liberty too: these are basic human goods. But we are learning today just how many people are rethinking Abraham Lincoln’s “principle of ‘Liberty to all’” and fin...

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Losing Liberty in Post-Liberal Times

Edward Tingley

July 7, 2020

In the first of two reflections on Canada’s shaken political foundations, Augustine College Dean Edward Tingley argues liberals and conservatives alike have turned against our primary principle of freedom.

When Tory leadership candidate Leslyn Lewis said last month that, “(t)o focus on what makes us different, whether that’s race, gender, or religion, rather than what we have in common has never served to bring people together,” she might have added that, in ...

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Les défis à venir concernant l’interdiction par le Québec des symboles religieux

Andrew P.W. Bennett and Robert Leckey

June 26, 2020

Il y a un an, l’Assemblée nationale du Québec a précipitamment adopté une loi limitant le port de turbans, de hijabs, de croix et d’autres symboles spirituels dans l’espace public. Robert Leckey, doyen de la Faculté de droit de l’Université McGill, explique au révérend Andrew Bennett que le combat juridique ne fait que commencer.

An English version of this conversation is available here.

Andrew Bennett: Nous venons de marquer le premier anniversaire de l’ado...

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Challenges Ahead for Quebec's Ban on Religious Symbols

Andrew P.W. Bennett and Robert Leckey

June 23, 2020

One year ago, Quebec's National Assembly hurriedly passed legislation limiting public wearing of turbans, hijabs, crosses and other spiritual markers. Robert Leckey, Dean of the Faculty of Law at McGill University tells Cardus’ Rev. Dr. Andrew Bennett the legal fight has just begun.

La version française de cette conversation est disponible ici.

Andrew Bennett: We've just marked the on...

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Ottawa Must Give Giving a Nudge

Daniel Proussalidis

June 10, 2020

The toll COVID-19 has taken on the charitable sector makes this prime time for the federal government to launch an equitable national donation matching program, writes Daniel Proussalidis.

It didn’t take long for the federal government to help grieving families when an Iranian missile brought down a Ukraine-bound passenger plane back in January.

There were 57 Canadian citizens and 29 permanent residents among the 176 who died in the cr...

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Moving MAiD

Peter Stockland

May 20, 2020

A recent set of public demands by Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying lobby raise serious concerns, reports Convivium's Peter Stockland.

Andrew Bennett insists a recent set of public demands by Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying lobby amount to nothing less than imposition of MAiD ideology on religious faith.

“The agenda is truly disturbing and people need to be made aware of it” th...

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COVID in a Lifeboat

Chantal Huinink, and Jasmine Duckworth, Keith Dow

May 19, 2020

Chantal Huinink, Jasmine Duckworth, and Keith Dow consider the ethics of disability in a time of pandemic crisis.

“Pandemic ethics.” This might not have been a phrase you expected to be familiar with only a few short months ago. As with lifeboats and “lifeboat ethics,” pandemics are not situations we expect to find ourselves in. Now, however, it’s popping up in news ...

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COVID-19 and Common Humanity

Brian Bird

May 11, 2020

Convivium contributor Brian Bird writes that even within the pain caused by the pandemic we can recover our fundamental shared identity as human beings and the universal dignity embedded within it.

Restrictions that were imposed to slow the spread of COVID-19 are starting to be relaxed in Canada, the United States and elsewhere. For many places, the next chapter of this pandemic is beginning. As we enter a new stage of this extraordinary moment in hum...

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A Life Story of Giving

Ray Pennings

April 20, 2020

The late Burlington baker's family name was synonymous world-wide with great tasting cookies, but Ray Pennings says the best things about Bill Voortman were his mentorship, friendship, and tireless gifts to build God’s Kingdom.

Growing up, the word “Voortman” was a shorthand for the speculaas that were a staple of my youth. I knew the founders were post-Second World War Dutch immigrants like my own family, the Voortman brothers founded what would become a $100 million “cookie empi...

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Questioning the Outrage-Apology Cycle

Peter Stockland

November 29, 2019

The routine offense-apology-criticism as a response to issues of political correctness does not answer the deeper problems that could be addressed simply by slowing down and asking key questions, Peter Stockland writes.

In its very particularity, the flap over St. Francis Xavier University’s apology to a former student for a plaque honouring Brian Mulroney has general application to what seems a deep error of our day.

Earlier this ...

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