Issues, ethics, memory
The Manning Centre’s annual Ottawa-based gathering of Conservatives has come and gone for another year. Reform Party founder Preston Manning and his wife Sandra created the organization in 2006 to act as a training ground for Conservatives to win in politics. This year’s event featured the usual array of Conservative politicians and operatives from right... Continue Reading →
Stephen Harper has returned from a feel-good trip to Israel on which he was accompanied by an entourage of 208 people, largely at government expense -- cabinet ministers, MPs, Senators, rabbis, officials from Jewish groups, evangelical Christians, business people and various others. There has been much speculation about whether this was a trip based on... Continue Reading →
The Conservative government will soon announce an Office of Religious Freedom, fulfilling a promise made in the 2011 election campaign. The stated intention of Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird is to create an organization that will monitor and criticize religious persecution and to promote religious freedom around the world. There is no shortage of persecution... Continue Reading →
I posted to this blog recently about how the Canadian Conference of Catholic bishops (CCCB) pressured the Catholic aid agency Development and Peace (D and P) to suspend a fall 2012 educational campaign that involved sending postcards to the Prime Minister. The cards asked that he have a parliamentary committee undertake a national consultation on... Continue Reading →
In October 2011, the leaders of about 30 faith communities met in Ottawa to talk about the urgent need to take a stand on climate change as a moral issue. These deliberations were organized by the Commission on Justice and Peace of the Canadian Council of Churches. The faith leaders crafted and released an interfaith... Continue Reading →
I have just read the first chapter of Warrior Nation: Rebranding Canada in an Age of Anxiety, a new book by Kingston-based author Jamie Swift and Queen's University historian Ian McKay. It is the story of how the Canadian government and military, assisted by complicit historians, think tanks and some media, are trying to shift... Continue Reading →
On May 2, 2011 Canadians held a federal election that provided Stephen Harper and the Conservatives with a majority government. I wrote a piece for my blog at the time reviewing the election through a religious lens and making some predictions about how Harper might act with a majority. That blog entry also became... Continue Reading →
Public hearings are occurring for the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline that would transport crude oil from Alberta's oil sands to the northern British Columbia port of Kitimat. There the crude would be loaded onto oil tankers plying the B.C. coastal waterway and sent to China. There are billions of dollars at stake and the Prime... Continue Reading →
It's taken awhile but Catholics and their leaders are beginning to protest against draconian cuts made by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) to the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace. The organization, created in the 1960s by Canada's Catholic bishops, has been a long-time partner in development in development with CIDA - but... Continue Reading →
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Ottawa recently promoting a pre-emptive military attack upon Iran. He visited with his friend and close ally Stephen Harper prior to going to Washington in an attempt to pressure President Obama into supporting his doomsday scenario. Contenders for the Republican nomination were only too happy to beat the... Continue Reading →
Pulpit and Politics 