Hugo, the fuzzy Chihuahua

I have shared in the past that I am pro-life and told my story publicly. I believe that all life comes from God, that He made man in His image, and that human life is therefore of inestimable value. As such, it follows that I hold the lives of humans as being of greater value than other forms of life.

Don’t get me wrong – I believe in caring for all of creation. At home, I have a little white furry Chihuahua with medical needs, coincidentally much like my own. We have sought veterinary help for him and he’s on the appropriate medications. I care lovingly for my office plants, though they never fare as well as Hugo the Chihuahua. A girl can try.

In Canada, when it comes to the value of the life of the unborn child, our country’s policies and laws express that it is of no value. In the courts, it has been made clear again and again that the unborn child, the fetus, has no status of personhood. The child’s life can be ended up to the ninth month of pregnancy (really, it’s true).

This occurred not because we expressly stated, as a nation, that we believed that an unborn child should have no legal standing. Rather, it is because an imperfect access-to-abortion law was challenged many years ago by Henry Morgentaler. The Supreme Court of Canada found it imperfect enough to strike it down and left it to Parliament to redraft another law. No government has had the sufficient desire, courage or concern to do so. And while public opinion is far from settled on the matter, wild shrieking can be heard up and down Wellington Street each time a Member of Parliament even mutters a comment on the topic of abortion.

Further, western society feels a growing need to make light of the life of the aborted child and seek additional protections for other life forms.

We have BUMP+ in which ‘fictional reality’ characters give the decision to abort or not to the audience. As stated on their website “the choice is (really) up to you.”

In February, Angie Jackson live tweeted her RU-486 abortion. Initially started to casually demystify and chronicle the “4 hour bleed out” abortion, it led to a days-long painful process during which she suffered many of the known adverse reactions. Planned Parenthood had unfortunately failed to share with her the comments made by RU-486’s inventor, Dr. Baulieu, who has stated that it’s “insulting to women to say that abortion now will be as easy as taking aspirins. It is always difficult, psychologically and physically, sometimes tragic.”

While the unborn child has no rights, the Swiss government in particular is considering two right protection moves. Recently a national referendum was held to determine whether animals have the right to legal counsel.

Ethicists in that country are also pondering “plant rights”. Experts are taking the time to “debate the finer points of plant dignity with university ethicists.” And while an important consideration undergirds the debate, that of genetic modification, one must stop and consider where we’ve come – in one Western nation, there is a treaty which states that arbitrary “decapitation of wildflowers at the roadside” is immoral and another that ignores the plight of the unborn. Let’s not forget that decapitation of a child occurs in certain abortion procedures.

The life of the unborn child matters. It has value. However, the lives of the woman and man who turn to abortion as a solution for an unwanted pregnancy are also of inestimable worth. They too were created in God’s image. They are deserving of dignity, love and respect. I believe that loving and respecting women such as Ms. Jackson would be fully sharing with her the facts of abortion, the known short-term and long-term side effects, and offering to provide support to her and her child.

Abortion does not implicate the health and value of one life. It implies the value of three, and its effects ripple out to our society as a whole.

The location of the proposed building is a long vacant lot in a needy area of downtown Winnipeg. The project is designed to meet a longstanding need identified by the City and no one else has advanced a proposal to meet the needs in question. The City has been actively looking for someone to handle this or a similar project in this neighbourhood. Councillors admit the current youth facilities in the downtown core are in a state of disrepair. The federal, provincial and municipal governments assessed this as a valuable undertaking, although the provincial government has backtracked on its commitment following Mr. Martin’s diatribe.

Another similar proposed project was scheduled to receive funding using federal infrastructure dollars coming to the city, but that project fell through because the sponsor was unable to make the financial commitment that Youth For Christ (YFC) has agreed to make to get the project done. In the youth centre equation, no self-funding means no public funding means no youth centre.

YFC is not the extreme fundamentalist organization portrayed by some who have objected. YFC has given us some great examples of people who are respectful of others in meeting their needs. Billy Graham started with YFC and developed his internationally respected ministry that offers people freedom of choice to make their own decision. Brian Stiller led YFC in Canada before moving to The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada and heightening the voice for pluralism in the public square, focusing on the development of good public policy. And Tim Huff, currently with YFC in Toronto, has expressed the approach to loving youth neighbours living on the street in his excellent book Bent Hope.

YFC is definitely motivated by the Man who said those who follow Him are called to “love your neighbour as yourself.” No one has come forward to meet this need motivated by belief in “survival of the fittest.” In fact, the ardent relativists, sanguine secularists and pugnacious atheists who object to the project are doing just that, objecting, and offering no constructive alternative solution.

Canada has never had a constitutional or other recognition of the “separation of church and state” message that is being spouted by opponents. Canada has a long recognition of the differences between church and state, a healthy recognition that both serve overlapping constituencies and longstanding cooperation between the two when it makes good public policy sense to do so. Hospitals, schools, half-way houses, shelters … and the list goes on … have been initiated by those motivated by love for neighbour and cooperatively developed with government, sometimes moving into government hands and sometimes receiving government funding. Organizations like YFC, The Salvation Army, World Vision and others have all stretched government dollars to an increased level of effectiveness while their faith motivation established superior service delivery as well.

The wise use of funds for a good public policy initiative in the general interest of society is sound decision making on the part of any government. While social relativists or self-described secularists speak of tolerance, YFC and similar Christian faith-based organizations are motivated by love in what they do. They are motivated by Christ’s love that demands contemporary standards of child protection screening and parental consent when working with children while shunning manipulative methods that, in the end, would not be at all loving.

It was heartening to see that Mr. Martin has changed his position since the final decision was made and he realized he had lost the debate. Pluralist engagement in the public square results in all sides having opportunity to be heard, then working with the outcome once the decision is made. It’s unfortunate that the damage done by Mr. Martin’s earlier stand has cost provincial dollars and caused unnecessary unrest for YFC and other community stakeholders to work through as what will be an excellent community resource begins development.

People who object to compassion, care and concern being shown by the commitment of a Christian organization but offer no alternative lessen their legitimacy to speak on the issue. I encourage them to first find their motivation to engage positively, start doing the work and then let’s work together for the greater good. But if you’re simply a naysayer, then please get out of the way and let good be done – good public policy, good use of public funds and good resources for a community in need of them.



I arrived a little late as it can be hard to break away from a conversation with a Chippewa elder (and I really enjoy the wisdom he had to share), but that’s a story for a different day. Because of my late arrival I didn’t hear all of Minister Nicholson’s talk but did hear some words of wisdom shared by a Conservative elder, Nicholson having been first elected to Parliament in 1984.

We live in a hyper-sexualized culture and children are, unfortunately, not immune from it. Sex sells cars, clothes and children’s toys. Unfortunately, sex with children also sells and so do images of that action.

Nicholson was a member of the cabinet in the Progressive Conservative government that enacted section 163.1 of the Criminal Code in 1993. The production, possession, sale and distribution of child pornography in Canada is illegal as a result.

In November 1998, the law was challenged by John Robin Sharpe who had been charged with two counts of possessing child pornography. The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, having been engaged on this issue since the 1980s and involved in the passing of the law in 1993, stood before the court as an intervener in its defense. The law was upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada, with two exceptions: written or visual presentation created by an individual from his or her imagination and held for his or her exclusive personal use; and, visual recording that did not depict unlawful sexual activity, created with the consent of the participants and held exclusively for personal use. At the time of the decision in R. v. Sharpe, that meant that those able to legally consent to sexual activity with an adult could be filmed while doing so, an age set at 14 since the enactment of the Criminal Code in the 1890s.

As Government Leader in the House of Commons, and subsequently Minister of Justice, Nicholson oversaw the introduction and enactment of legislation to reduce the gap established in R. v. Sharpe by raising the age of consent to sexual activity with an adult from 14 to 16 years of age effective May 1, 2008. Nicholson stated on Thursday evening that he was pleased to have played a role in protecting children from predators in both adding child pornography to the Criminal Code and increasing the protection afforded children by two more years with the change in age of consent.

Noting his personal concern for the protection of children, Nicholson was pleased to tell students that although Bill C-58, An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide an Internet service, had died on the order paper when Parliament was prorogued, the government would be reintroducing the legislation when the next session begins in March.

People of faith can and do engage in the political process, making a difference and making good public policy motivated by the faith that inspires them. The students were impressed with Minister Nicholson’s perspective and accomplishments. And, we look forward to the re-introduced legislation in the hope that it will move quickly through House and Senate to continue to extend the protection of children that is part of the legacy of the Honourable Rob Nicholson’s career.

As I wrote on December 1, 2009, “Children deserve the right to be children, protected – not perverted – by all adults in their life.”

There is a well known correlation between major world sporting events and human trafficking. Quite simply, an influx of athletes, revelers and tourists corresponds with an increased demand for the purchase of sexual services. In order to meet the demand, gangs, pimps, organized crime and other opportunists traffic primarily women in to the event – from within and without the host country.

This was true with the 2006 World Cup in Germany and the 2004 Summer Olympics in Greece. More recently, there were reports of a spike in the presence of underage prostitutes in Miami leading up to and during the 44^th Super Bowl.

Beginning today, with what are sure to be spectacular, pride-filled and pride-inspiring opening ceremonies, Canada will host the 21^st Winter Olympic Games. Is there any reason to believe things will be any different for the Olympic Games here in Canada?

Unfortunately, no.

Since Vancouver won the bid for the games, there have been ongoing efforts by a number of faith-based and civil society coalitions, campaigns by The Salvation Army, and by groups such as REED (resist exploitation, embrace dignity) and Buying Sex is Not a Sport to raise awareness ahead of the Olympics, to call on the government to take measures to ensure we don’t see this happen on our own soil, on our watch. In April 2009 the EFC issued Human Trafficking: A Report on Modern Day Slavery in Canada, urging increased vigilance leading up to the Games.

But earlier this week, the Citizens Summit Against Sex Slavery, a coalition of women’s groups, academics and politicians, gave the Vancouver Olympic organizing committee, the B.C. government and the federal government an “F” for failing to make sure women and youth are secure against human trafficking during the 2010 Olympics.

One article from the Montreal Gazette cited a Vancouver police official as saying that there were no plans to deviate from or alter their usual enforcement around street-related prostitution during the Games.

This ‘see no evil’ approach is shocking, and deeply disappointing.

The good news – if there is any to this – is that groups who are aware and informed are on the ground in Vancouver, with their eyes wide open. As a result of their good work, a number of young women trafficked to Vancouver have already been rescued. The bad news is there are countless others who are still out there.

Let’s be in prayer for groups like REED, Buying Sex is Not a Sport, and The Salvation Army, as they serve as watchmen for the vulnerable and exploited, searching out the victims of this officially unseen evil.

And let’s also pray for the young women and men who have found themselves dropped on Vancouver’s doorstep, indentured to modern day slave owners, that they would find help, or be found, and removed from harm’s way.