News/Canada

TORONTO - Since it was launched in Toronto in 2005, Israel Apartheid Weeks have spread across university campuses in North America. In recent years there have been events claiming Israel is “an apartheid state” at New York University, Cambridge University in England, in Johannesburg, South Africa and in Jerusalem.

Twenty-million dollars in matching funds from Ottawa for Philippines typhoon relief have so far gone to a familiar list of United Nations agencies and heavyweight non-governmental organizations with experience in emergency relief and development.

OTTAWA - A coalition comprising feminists, religious, aboriginals, NGOs and human-trafficking experts are joining forces with Conservative MP Joy Smith to take on the porn industry.

OTTAWA - Warning of a “dark and dystopian future” if society accepts any instance of the state stripping even one person of their status as a human being, Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth tabled another motion in Parliament that highlights the status of the unborn child.

A typhoon half a world away is a lesson in global responsibility and the golden rule for students at Senator O’Connor Catholic Secondary School in Toronto’s east end.

On any given day more than 160,000 Canadians over 18 are in jail, though only 38,000 of them have been convicted of a crime. Despite a decline in crime rates, the rate at which Canadians are jailed rose by five per cent between 2001 and 2011, according to Statistics Canada.

OTTAWA - Nova Scotia’s Antigonish diocese plans a series of public encounters to reach out to sexual abuse victims and those hurt by a former bishop’s child porn conviction.

OTTAWA - Documents from the Mulroney era prior to the last attempt to pass a federal law restricting abortion reveal a deep divide in the Conservative cabinet, says Canadian Press.

OTTAWA - With the Conservative Party aiming to take a hard line with unions, a number of Catholic voices are speaking out, both pro and con.

MEXICO CITY - Archbishop Terrence Prendergast of Ottawa, Ont., recalled once having a parish that needed a new furnace and was considering hiring a youth pastor. The parishioners raised $90,000 in three weeks for the furnace, but failed to find funds for the youth pastor, figuring there were few young people to serve.