News/Canada

OTTAWA - Catholic human rights advocates welcome federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson's support for a bill that would repeal Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.

Nicholson announced his support for Conservative MP Brian Storseth’s private member’s Bill C-304 during question period Nov. 16, when Storseth asked what the government’s position would be.

“Canadians across the country are increasingly concerned that Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act infringes upon our most important human right, namely the freedom of expression,” Storseth told the House.

OTTAWA - Opponents of euthanasia have slammed a Royal Society of Canada expert panel report advocating decriminalization of assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia.

Margaret Somerville, founding director of the McGill Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law, called the “End-of-Life Decision Making” report “a “pro-euthanasia manifesto” and “thinly veiled euthanasia and assisted suicide propaganda.”

The report, released Nov. 15, failed its mandate to provide a balanced review of arguments pro and con, Somerville said, adding five of the six authors are well-known euthanasia advocates.

TORONTO - A new report says the number of abortions in Canada has fallen below 100,000, but instead of being pleased with the numbers, pro-lifers are doubting their accuracy.

Campaign Life Coalition project manager  Jack Fonseca says the studies don’t represent the national picture because there are no statistics from British Columbia, New Brunswick and Manitoba. Also, reporting is voluntary for private abortion clinics, he said.

Fonseca believes a more accurate estiamte is 106,000 abortions annually in Canada.

CHARLOTTETOWN, PEI - Pro-lifers in Prince Edward Island are taking on an aggressive campaign that aims to restore abortion services in Canada’s island province.

The PEI Reproductive Rights Organization has launched the campaign to allow abortion in PEI, a province that has been officially abortion-free since 1986. In a compromise solution reached at the time, off-island, in-hospital abortion costs are covered if the procedure is recommended by two doctors, while abortions at the private Morgentaler clinic in Fredericton, N.B., which cost roughly $800, are not covered. Travel is a personal expense.

Plans to put an outdoor, industrial recycling facility next door to the Martyrs' Shrine have shocked the Jesuits and galvanized a campaign to protect the environmentally sensitive Wye Marsh.

The Jesuits are asking Midland, Ont.'s town councillors to reverse their decision to rezone a site to allow Recycling Specialties Inc. to bring in truckloads of metal, paper, cardboard, wood, plastic and other material for sorting and processing.

Neither the Jesuits who run Martyrs' Shrine nor Sainte-Marie Among the Hurons — a provincial park built around a recreation of the first Christian settlement in Ontario and the graves of St. Jean de Brébeuf and St. Gabriel Lallemant — were notified before the zoning change on April 26.  Previously zoned highway commercial, the land directly across from the front steps of the shrine is now zoned industrial. The direct neighbours of the site fell outside of the Ontario Planning Act's mandatory 120-metre notification zone and on the other side of the town's border with the Township of Tay.

OTTAWA - An all-party Parliamentary committee has named effective palliative care, suicide prevention and elder abuse intervention as the three pillars of care for vulnerable Canadians.

The Parliamentary Committee on Palliative and Compassionate Care report entitled “Not to be forgotten” stresses the need for pro-active measures to make end-of-life care available across Canada.

At a news conference releasing the report Nov. 17, committee co-chair and NDP MP Joe Comartin said only 16 to 30 per cent of Canadians have any access to palliative care. 

Former parishioners at two North Bay, Ont., churches have taken their bishop to court in Rome in an attempt to force him to reopen their already closed, deconsecrated and sold churches.

The groups of former parishioners from St. Rita's and Corpus Christi have submitted long-form appeals to the Congregation for the Clergy asking that the churches be reopened for Catholic worship of some kind. The groups argue that their churches were not closed for a valid and grave reason, as required under canon law.

Leader of the Corpus Christi appeal, Phillip Penna, believes they can persuade Rome to rule in their favour because their case is exactly parallel to that of three parishes in Springfield, Mass. In early November the Apostolic Signatura (Rome's highest court) ordered that the three Spingfield churches must remain open for worship.

TORONTO - The Society of St. Vincent de Paul is concerned its VincenPaul Community Homes program will be lost if the proposed sale of 706 stand-alone housing units by the Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) board goes ahead.

St. Vincent de Paul leases 11 of the houses TCHC is proposing to sell, said Louise Coutu, executive director of the society’s central council in Toronto. These residences act as peer-monitored recovery programs. The society owns an additional three homes. Out of its 86 beds, 66 of those will be affected, Coutu said.

VANCOUVER - Alexa Loo’s snowboard is in safe storage, likely for the season, as the Olympic snowboarder pursues a new chapter in her life as a mother.

“She or he will be born right when the slopes open for the winter, so I might not go snowboarding this year,” said Loo with a laugh. 

The eight-time Canadian snowboarding champion and three-time World Cup medalist, who placed 12th at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, is not only embracing impending motherhood, she has also thrown her helmet in the ring for a seat on Richmond City Council.

OTTAWA - Canadian pro-life forces are prepared for battle as the latest attempt to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide makes it way through the courts.

On Nov. 14 in Vancouver, the B.C. Supreme Court began hearing arguments in Carter vs. Attorney General of Canada, that challenges Canada’s laws against assisted suicide and euthanasia. The Carter case, brought by the B.C. Civil Liberties Association on behalf of Lee Carter and four others, seeks to have assisted suicide treated as a medical instead of criminal issue.

Previous attempts to legalize euthanasia through Canada’s Parliament have failed.