Canada

Back in 2021, news outlets around the world announced a scandal involving Canadian government schools and missing indigenous children. Starting in the 1800s, Canada built and opened a series of boarding schools where children from local native people could be educated or, more accurately, assimilated into modern Western culture. A majority of these institutions were operated by the Roman Catholic church and, before they were shut down toward the end of the twentieth century, tens of thousands of children were taken from their families, compelled to speak English or French, taught Christianity, and required to dress according to European styles.

Today, however, at several of the sites where the burials were confidently asserted to have taken place, no physical evidence of human remains has been found.

The Supreme Court of Canada has turned down a request to appeal a decision regarding Ontario and British Columbia churches that are facing fines for violating pandemic restrictions.

If it is true, as Richard Weaver famously put it, that “ideas have consequences,” it is also true that bad ideas have victims. On no other contemporary issue today is the connection between a bad idea and its victims clearer than assisted suicide. In no other nation today are the bad ideas and their victims more aggressively embraced than in Canada.

Following the lead of the province of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick became the second jurisdiction in Canada to adopt a policy of “presumed consent” for organ and tissue donation. Instead of willingly opting in to be an organ donor, residents 19 years and older, with limited exceptions, will be opted in by default.  

While many see this as a solution to the perpetual demand for transplant organs, laws like these treat the ethics of organ donation as a settled matter while treating humans and their bodies as means to other ends. Even more, considering Canada’s policy of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID), this step will corrode the already thin ideas of “autonomy” and “consent” while incentivizing a utilitarian view of human nature. 

A Toronto pitcher who sparked controversy with comments about Target and LGBT Pride Month has been cut from the team.

Parts of the eastern U.S. are experiencing unhealthy air quality conditions this week as smoke from wildfires in Canada travels down the continent.

A teenager in Alberta, Canada, who was recently arrested when an altercation broke out as he was handing out Bibles, argued that he will continue to share his faith in public.

Assisted suicide, especially when extended to those most in need of compassion and care, subverts our collective understanding of human value. It subjects this value to feelings, both our own and (increasingly) that of medical professionals and government officials. When made available to cases of mental illness, assisted suicide undermines the battle a patient wages on their inner demons and thwarts efforts to recovery. In other words, it is the exact opposite of “care.”

This is yet another way that physician-assisted suicide or “medical aid in dying” corrupts medicine. Vulnerable people in most need of help will be the victims of these bad practices. For their sake, and for future generations who will inherit the world that we are unmaking, we must find a better way.

A Canadian pastor who was arrested and jailed for holding church services during the COVID-19 pandemic has been acquitted of violating the province’s health rules.

A Canadian megachurch says an investigation into a former pastor has substantiated two allegations of sexual abuse and a third allegation of sexual misconduct involving an underage victim.