{mosimage}The report released Jan. 8 by the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy is no more or less gloomy than the many other reports being issued these days by organizations given the task of assessing how real the crisis over greenhouse gases actually is and what should be done about it. Unfortunately, few political parties in Canada, with the possible exception of the tiny Green Party, appear ready to really grasp the nettle.

{mosimage}Outside a small circle of socially conservative Catholics, few people have heard of Catholic Insight magazine. Yet all of us — Catholic, non-Catholic, religious and nonreligious — should be concerned about its fate as it faces a complaint before the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

{mosimage}The Bouchard-Taylor Commission, now finishing up its work on reasonable accommodation in Quebec, is only the most significant example of the struggle we have in Canada of finding ways to live together with growing ethnic, religious and cultural differences. There have been many others. And this will only intensify as the country continues to evolve thanks to growing immigration.

{mosimage}One of the most important things to remember about Christmas is that Christ’s birth is a real historical event. It happened, some time more than 2,000 years ago, that a child was born to Mary and Joseph in poverty and the world came to know Him as Jesus of Nazareth, Christ the Lord, Saviour, Messiah, Son of God.

{mosimage}Lent started early in February and Easter has arrived even as Canada, at least in Toronto enivrons, is still struggling to shake off winter. The crocuses and snowbells have only just begun to do their annual teasing that warm weather is finally on its way, and suddenly, it’s Easter.

{mosimage}It is hardly news that the environmental crisis has become accepted as one of the greatest challenges facing the Earth. As such, it is not just a political, scientific or even economic issue. It is a moral question of the first magnitude.

{mosimage}The announcement in mid-February by Fidel Castro that, at long last, he was relinquishing all claim to power in Cuba represents a watershed moment for international relations.

{mosimage}Canadian parents are likely breathing a sigh of relief over a recent decision by the Ontario Supreme Court. In the ruling by Madam Justice Cheryl Robertson released March 31, a father was acquitted of assault in an incident in which he used modest force to prevent his 15-year-old daughter from attending a drug party.

{mosimage}Robert Latimer’s highly publicized campaign to obtain a reversal of his second-degree murder conviction should force Canadians to think twice about our seemingly unstoppable “progress” toward legalized euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide.

{mosimage}The showdown in Tibet between Chinese troops and Tibetans demonstrating to protest Beijing’s oppressive rule have achieved the kind of global prominence in the media that religiously minded Chinese can only dream about. It’s the usual sad fare: dozens of deaths and violent repression of riots and protest marches remind the world that China is still the world’s largest dictatorship.