Issues, ethics, memory
I received word on February 14 that my old friend father Andrew Britz had died of a heart attack in Saskatoon at age 71. I had known Andrew since the 1960s when I attended a boarding school run by the Benedictine monks at St. Peter’s Abbey near Humboldt, Saskatchewan. In the early 1980s Andrew... Continue Reading →
Nine of the ten farm workers killed in a tragic automobile accident near Hampstead, Ontario on February 6 came from Comas, a shantytown on the outskirts of Lima. They, and three others who survived crash, were in Canada as migrant farm workers because there is little chance in Comas of providing the necessities of life for their families.... Continue Reading →
The Conservative government's shoe is dropping on some long established foreign aid groups while it privileges others. Mennonite Central Committee Canada reports on its website that the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) has turned down MCC's proposal of $2.9 million for each of the next three years to provide food, water and income generation assistance for people... Continue Reading →
Canada’s foreign affairs minister was talking through his hat recently in Israel. John Baird was on a state visit and repeated at every opportunity that, “Israel has no greater friend in the world than Canada.” Then he would recount his story about how, as a young Parliamentary assistant working in the office of the Conservative... Continue Reading →
When she shut down the 35-year relationship between the ecumenical group KAIROS and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) in 2009, it seemed that Conservative minister Bev Oda had lost her tongue. It was left to a faceless bureaucrat to call KAIROS and tell them their human rights projects in some of the world’s... Continue Reading →
I was interviewed about my book Pulpit and Politics by two CBC Radio hosts in early January 2012. Michael Enright, host of CBC Radio’s The Sunday Edition talked with former MP Bill Blaikie and me on New Year’s Day. Then on January 7, Wojtek Gwiazda, host of the Radio Canada International's Masala Canada, interviewed me... Continue Reading →
Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) have been present since the 1980s in some of the world's most troubled locations, including Iraq, Colombia, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, as well as on a dozen first Nations in Canada and the United States. Members of CPT teams either stand between opposing sides in conflict or accompany the weak in... Continue Reading →
The Scottish writer William Dalrymple says that Syria has been a kind of oasis for Christians in the Middle East. But Syrian Christians are now faced with a painful choice. They can offer support to a brutal dictatorship that, generally, has protected them but has killed 5,000 of its citizens since calls for change and... Continue Reading →
Writer Christopher Hitchens has died at age died at age 62. One of his most popular and controversial books is God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. In a guest column for this blog, Eric Schiller, a Quaker and a retired University of Ottawa professor, writes about the book and analyzes Hitchens' attack on organized... Continue Reading →
I have at times been critical of Canadian faith communities for failing to make the environment a moral priority. But a good number of religious leaders in Canada and elsewhere, weighed in for the climate talks in Durban, South Africa. I will get to Canadians in a moment but will start with the fireworks that... Continue Reading →
Pulpit and Politics 