{mosimage}TORONTO - Campus pro-life groups have gained an ally in their battle to be heard at universities across Canada.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association has urged student unions at universities and colleges to not deny club status to groups that oppose abortion. The association made its view known in a letter sent to student unions across Canada in late January.

{mosimage}OTTAWA - The federal government should consider the damage done to unjustly accused innocent parties by complaints to the Canadian Human Rights Commission, says the editor of Catholic Insight magazine .

Basilian Father Alphonse de Valk wrote to Justice Minister Rob Nicholson in a Feb. 2 open letter, responding to the Moon Report’s recommendation to repeal the controversial subsection of the Canadian Human Rights Act that allows the rights commission to investigate hate speech. The CHRC commissioned the report from University of Windsor Professor Richard Moon last year.

TORONTO - Philip Walke remembers the day Toronto’s first subway cars ran. At 75 years of age, he has seen plenty of Toronto’s history, but also that of the Knights of Columbus’ Toronto Council 1388, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year.

Many of these highlights for people living in the city of Toronto were also closely linked to the Knights, Walke said.

Currently acting as the council’s public relations director, Walke once worked on the Knights of Columbus Ontario state council as administrative assistant, sending out media releases. Although he started out on a Scarborough council, he later moved and joined the original Toronto council, the first council established in Toronto and the 11th in Ontario.

{mosimage}In the article “Catholic protest not pro-Hamas, organizers say ” by Michael Swan (page 3 of The Register Week of Feb. 1, 2009), there are several statements in respect of the demonstration, held in Montreal on Jan. 10, that could lead to serious misinterpretations regarding the position of the Social Action Office of the Catholic archdiocese of Montreal.

The third paragraph begins with the following sentence: “McDonough did not publicly distance his office from slogans such as ‘There is no God but Allah and the jihadist is the beloved of Allah,’ and ‘O Nasrallah, o beloved, strike, strike Tel Aviv’ before  media reports and video of the demonstration went across Canada.” Yet, in a telephone interview with The Register on Jan. 19, I stated at least three or four times that the Social Action Office unequivocally opposes, rejects and condemns any slogans or placards that promote hatred for Jews and the destruction of Israel. This position, repeatedly asserted by me, appears only in the ninth paragraph, near the end of the article. Readers, however, will remain with the impression that I have refused to distance the Social Action Office from such anti-Jewish slogans.

{mosimage}TORONTO - After two days of protest that brought as many as 45,000 Tamils out into the streets of Toronto Jan. 30-31, the Tamils were ready to pray.

As the 26-year-old civil war in Sri Lanka enters a new and dangerous showdown, Toronto’s 100,000-plus Tamil community is in distress over the fate of civilians trapped in the fighting and a government offensive against Tamil communities they call “genocide.”

OTTAWA - The Truth and Reconciliation Commission looking into Indian residential schools, stalled by the resignation last October of its chairman, is now looking for new members.

On Jan. 30, Indian and Northern Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl announced that all parties to the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement have agreed on a process to choose a new chair and new commissioners.

“A selection committee chaired by Justice Frank Iacobucci will work closely to find the best candidates in the most efficient manner,” Strahl said in a statement. “It is expected this process will move forward quickly.”

{mosimage}TORONTO - Catholic-Jewish relations are stronger than ever in the wake of statements by Society of St. Pius X Bishop Richard Williamson denying the Nazi murder of six million Jews during the Second World War, Canadian Jewish Congress co-president Rabbi Reuven Bulka has told The Catholic Register.

Following a Jan. 30 meeting with papal nuncio to Canada Archbishop Luigi Ventura, Bulka said there was no question of a breech in Catholic-Jewish dialogue in Canada.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Making a budget is about making moral choices, the social justice coalition sponsored by Canada’s Catholic, Anglican and Protestant churches said in a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the provincial premiers.

The global financial crisis happened because governments and corporations failed to take moral responsibility for the economy, according to a Jan. 23 letter from KAIROS to Harper and the premiers.

{mosimage}OTTAWA - The federal budget proved disappointing for social justice organizations hoping for more direct help for the poor and more focus on renewable energy.“There were tax cuts that help a number of Canadians,” said Citizens for Public Justice (CPJ) executive director Joe Gunn after the government introduced its budget Jan. 27. “But for the poorest and most vulnerable, those too poor to pay taxes, there’s not much for them. These are the people the Christian community serves and hold dearest in our hearts,” he said, noting that “at time of recession they will suffer the most.”

Laurel Rothman, national co-ordinator for Campaign 2000, a national anti-poverty campaign aimed at eliminating child poverty said the budget contained “virtually nothing for low-income families,” especially 760,000 children living in poverty and their mothers.

{mosimage}TORONTO - As millions converged on Washington to see Barack Obama swear the oath of office and begin a new chapter in black history Jan. 20, schools and parishes in Toronto were preparing for a month of celebrations to commemorate African-Canadian contributions to Canada and the world.

Even if Black History Month or African Heritage Month are annual events with a history stretching back to the 1920s in the United States, the inauguration of the first black president of the United States makes this year special.