News/Canada

{mosimage}TORONTO - An Order of Canada recipient who founded an orphanage for girls in Haiti is continuing his legal challenge to the federal government over Dr. Henry Morgentaler’s award nomination, even though the controversial pro-abortion activist received the country’s highest civilian honour on Oct. 10.

Frank Chauvin, a retired police detective from Windsor, Ont., launched a judicial review application in late July to the Federal Court of Canada through lawyer Gerard Charette. Toronto lawyer Phil Horgan is also helping with the case.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Plunging prices on Bay Street and Wall Street aren’t just a problem for the stock market. Since changes in tax laws governing gifts of stock in 2006, stock market joy has been joy for charities — and stock market trouble will be trouble for charities, including churches.

Beginning in May 2006, donors have been able to deduct 100 per cent of the value of any donations of stock to a registered charity up to a value of 75 per cent of their net annual income. If their gift exceeds that 75-per-cent threshold the donor can carry forward the deduction for up to five years.

{mosimage}OTTAWA - On the Friday of Thanksgiving weekend, Canada’s Governor General invested abortionist Dr. Henry Morgentaler with the Order of Canada.

“The Order of Canada was created in order to acknowledge the great achievements of citizens who desire a better country,” said Archbishop Thomas Collins, archbishop of Toronto.

{mosimage}On Oct. 14, Canadian voters chose to replace its minority Conservative government in Ottawa with another, slightly larger, minority Conservative government. The Catholic Register asked five Catholics from across Canada who closely observed the election campaign, for their views on how the campaign unfolded and what needs to be done now. Below we present their responses to our questions.

{mosimage}The Canadian people woke up Oct. 15 to a new government that looks remarkably like the old government. They could be forgiven for scratching their heads and wondering what all the fuss was for.

As final polls were still being counted, it appeared that Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives would once again form a minority government with 143 seats in the House of Commons — 12 short of a majority. They face a Liberal party with 76 seats, the Bloc Quebecois with 50, the New Democrats with 37 and two independents.

{mosimage}TORONTO - Defending doctors’ conscience rights, Catholic groups’ freedom of speech and the anti-euthanasia movement represent the next legal battlegrounds for the pro-life movement, said activists at an international pro-life conference held in Toronto in early October.

Dr. Jack Willke, president of the U.S.-based International Right to Life Federation, told more than 200 conference participants on Oct. 4 that the struggle of the pro-life movement is similar to the anti-slavery movement because of the hostility and opposition that both groups have faced.

{mosimage}The Social Investment Organization grades the Liberals and the Conservatives with a D and an F on the issue of transparency for investors in Canada's stock markets.

The SIO gives top marks to the Greens and Bloc Quebecois and places the NDP in the middle. The Greens rate an A+, the Bloc a B+ and the NDP a B-.

{mosimage}TORONTO - A retired Liberal MP who resigned from his party over its position on same-sex marriage says pro-life politicians in Ottawa pay a political price for their outspoken views.

Pat O’Brien, a former parliamentary secretary for the minister of international trade, represented the London-Fanshawe riding in Parliament from 1993 until 2005. That’s when he quit the Liberal Party and sat as an independent MP because he opposed the Liberal’s support of legalizing same sex marriage.

{mosimage}TORONTO - The church doesn’t have a mission. Christ’s mission has a church. For 90 years the Scarboro Missions have been convinced the mission comes first.

At 10 a.m., Nov. 9, at the mission society’s main chapel, 2685 Kingston Rd. in Scarborough, Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins will lead a Mass of thanksgiving for the 90 years Scarboros have been serving Christ’s mission. The missionaries will give thanks for the likes of Scarboro founder Msgr. John Fraser, first North American priest to take on missionary work in China, and Fr. Art MacKinnon, killed in the Dominican Republic in 1965 for standing up against arbitrary arrest and torture of young men in his parish.

{mosimage}TORONTO - As Dr. Henry Morgentaler receives his Order of Canada medal from Governor General Michaëlle Jean in Quebec City, Toronto's Archbishop Thomas Collins is urging all Catholics to pray the Sunday before Thanksgiving Day for women who face crisis pregnancies and for those who advocate for abortion as a right.

Collins calls the award to Morgentaler "a sad moment in Canadian history."