Over 15,000 pro-lifers are again expected to rally on Parliament Hill today for the annual National March for Life. Writers and bloggers will cover the event and, invariably, some will question the purpose of such events since the abortion debate ended years ago. A few will likely accuse those politicians speaking at the March of attempting to re-open the abortion debate.

But exactly when did the abortion debate end? I've been an active pro-life advocate for years, and I don't know when this historic event took place. However some days it seems that everyone else does.

Margaret Wente knows when the debate ended. A few weeks ago, she wrote a Globe and Mail article on a Parliamentary motion seeking to condemn sex-selective abortions in which she stated that "anyone who believes this wasn’t an effort to reopen the broader abortion debate must also believe in the Easter Bunny." Similarly, Member of Parliament Niki Ashton knows it happened. Again and again, she has spoken of the Conservative Party’s efforts to “re-open the abortion debate.”

I can't find any historical record that establishes "the day the abortion debate ended." I would assume that pro-choice advocates would have held a rally and press conferences to celebrate the momentous event. Surely there would be pictures and videos. It would probably have its own Wikipedia entry. My searches have come up empty.

Did it end in 1988 when seven citizens who sat on the bench of the Supreme Court of Canada rendered their decision in the Morgentaler case?  A quick read of the decision indicates otherwise. The court only found the then existing abortion law unconstitutional because of limited access to the therapeutic abortion committees mandated by the legislation. The court then ruled that Parliament was free to draft a new and better law that would protect the child in the womb. The Supreme Court even proposed language to ensure that the new legislation would be constitutionally acceptable.

Did it end in 1991 after Bill C-43, a bill which would have recriminalized some abortions, passed in the House of Commons but died in the Senate after a dramatic tie vote? It seems not, as nearly every year since then bills or motions on the issue have been introduced by members of the Liberal, Reform, Alliance and Conservative parties. Political battles wage municipally, provincially and federally on matters like Bubble Zones, funding for abortion procedures and the publication of abortion statistics.

At no point have all Canadians agreed that abortion should be legal through all nine months of pregnancy for any and every reason, but that is our current legal reality. None of the polls I’ve reviewed have revealed such a consensus. The abortion related poll that lends itself closest to unanimity is a 2011 Environics poll which found that 92% of Canadians believe sex-selection abortions should be illegal.

And if the abortion debate had in fact ended, one would expect to see much less media coverage of the issue. However, a month doesn't go by without at least one significant abortion-related story making the major dailies. The frequent reporting on abortion stories necessarily assumes that there's a debate, or at least a tension, worth writing about.

The abortion debate has never closed, died or ended. To argue otherwise is to argue that those who want to rationally discuss the issue are to be marginalized as fringe elements of society; that the pro-life activists who came to Ottawa last year to march for life are 19,000 anomalies; and, that their perspective is inconsistent with some greater enshrined Canadian value of “choice.”

To contend that the abortion debate is over is to declare that there is consensus in Canada on an issue where no such consensus exists.  In reality, it’s an intellectually lazy attempt at discrediting those who legitimately question the appropriateness of our nation being the only western country in the world that lacks abortion legislation.

In April, Canada’s telecom regulator started hearings as the battle over basic cable heats up.

The advantage of being on basic cable (called “mandatory carriage” in the telecom world) is that every cable subscriber in the jurisdiction where you broadcast will get your station. Not on basic cable? People have to pay extra to see what you produce.

Cable providers pay most basic cable channels a matter of pennies per subscriber. This is used to develop Canadian programming. It’s not a government subsidy.

As the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) holds hearings to assess whether select stations should have the privilege of being on basic cable, the competitors are jockeying for position. It can resemble a collection of Davids and Goliaths in hand-to-hand combat on an open field (of course, inside a locked stadium controlled by the CRTC).

Sun News Network (SUN TV) was bumped from basic cable in the deal that secured their license in 2010 and their projected viewership declined accordingly, to the point where they are losing money. A return to the basic cable universe – with a reasonably anticipated recovery of viewers – would likely propel “the little station that could” out of the red and into the black. SUN certainly provides a readily observable alternative perspective on the day’s events to that of CTV News Channel and CBC News Network; and, features all-Canadian primetime content. CTV News Channel and CBC News Network had 21 and 13 years respectively on basic cable across the country to develop their audiences (while piggybacking their parent networks). SUN has evidenced the type of viewership they have the potential to draw on basic. Seems to me this combination makes SUN worthy of consideration for the basic spectrum. On top of that however, SUN has demonstrated that it is the news channel most interested in faith viewpoints on the news that interests Canadians.

VISION TV, now part of Moses Znaimer’s Zoomer Media, is a uniquely Canadian invention that provides multi-faith and multi-cultural programming – a television tribute to Canada’s constitutional religious freedom and multiculturalism. Whatever one thinks of Znaimer’s previous efforts at CITY, SEX, MuchMusic or Bravo, the production standards, community engagement and Canadian content were innovative and progressively high as he honed his skills; and, all opinions were welcome by the management – who didn’t necessarily agree with them, and neither necessarily did we. Znaimer’s now mature production and management skills, along with continuing open invitation to on-air conversation, are becoming increasingly evident at VISION too. The Canadian multi-faith and multi-cultural content combined with the Znaimer touch make VISION a legitimate contender to remain on Canadian basic cable.

Throw in CPAC (jointly owned by cable providers that cover the nation; Rogers, Shaw, Videotron, Cogeco, EastLink and Access) , the Weather Network, Crossroads (primarily Christian but hosting other faith-based programming), APTN, public broadcasters like TVO and national coverage of French networks and one can see Canadian content is key.

Then we have the CBC family of stations , recipient of over $1 billion annually from the federal government – which is a taxpayer subsidy – in addition to advertising and basic cable payments, and Bell Media (CTV, CTV Two, CTV NewsChannel, TSN, Comedy, etc along with Bell satellite TV). The field is further confused by the cable providers who also own multiple stations – the aforementioned Bell, Shaw (Global, TVTropolis, SHOW CASE, etc), Rogers (CITY, Omni, Sportsnet, etc), etc – who clearly want the stations they own as part of their basic cable packages.

How will this settle out? Well, in the modern world of Canadian communications several of the major players also own print and digital media outlets. The average Canadian reads their Globe and Mail without making the connection to Bell Media in the same way that reading a SUN newspaper – once described as “the little paper that could” – draws the obvious connection to SUN TV; the little station that’s getting kicked around by the big media players. The print media competitors tend to cast their television competitors in a less favourable light, but with SUN the shared name makes it a little more obvious who they’re rooting (writing) for.

I can’t tell you how the CRTC hearings will settle out on this one. I can tell you that Canada’s religious communities are well served by having Crossroads, VISION and SUN available because, well, those are stations that regularly invite and feature the participation of various religious communities on the “airwaves” in Canada’s constitutionally “free and democratic society,” where our first fundamental freedom is “freedom of religion” and over ¾ of Canadians identify religion as significant in their lives. CBC, CTV, Global and others accept Christian programming and have occasional news interest, but I wouldn’t say they invite or feature it.

Crossroads, VISION and SUN present Canadian Christian (and other religious) voices with the opportunity to engage routinely as part of the diverse Canadian community – whether Crossroads’ longstanding “100 Huntley Street” or feature Canadian historical documentaries such as “Goal of the Century: The Paul Henderson Story,” VISION’s 25 years of original Canadian multi-faith and multi-cultural programming or SUN TV regularly inviting religious and non-religious voices together into conversations about news stories of the day. These are three Canadian originals that balance out the generally secular expression of Canadian cable and deserve space on basic cable for viewer consideration in every living room of the nation.

This article was originally published in Faith Today, March/April 2013.

By Don Hutchinson

Canadians are told in the media – almost daily it seems – that Canada is no longer Christian, Canada is less religious, Canada is secular, and Canada has no place for religion in public life. These statements used to make my blood boil.

But a better response – for all of us – is to find in such comments the inspiration to speak the truth. When we do so together, we undercut this anti-religious undercurrent.

Constructive response has long been evident in the EFC’s work. Consider, for example, how we responded to allegations that the biblically based position on marriage is “homophobic” and unacceptable in contemporary Canada under our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The campaign to keep the pre-2005 Parliamentary definition of marriage was a fight “for” not a fight “against,” and the EFC made that clear.

One result of our intervention was the Supreme Court of Canada affirmation that if the government changed the definition it could not require religious officials to perform marriages that would violate their religious beliefs. The court noted that “religious freedom is broad and jealously guarded in Canadian law.”

When Parliament changed the definition of marriage by passing the Civil Marriage Act in 2005 it declared in the legislation that “Nothing in this Act affects the guarantee of freedom of conscience and religion and, in particular, the freedom of members of religious groups to hold and declare their religious beliefs,” and “It is not against the public interest to hold and publicly express diverse views on marriage.”

More recently, in EFC presentations on proposed anti-bullying legislation in Ontario, we expressed interest for all students, concerned that the emphasis on gay and lesbian students detracted from the needs of more than 90 per cent of those who experience bullying in Canadian schools.

We directly confronted the continuing improper use of the word “homophobic” as a slur in public debate, including in the media and political speeches. We did so before government as well as in the media, including my article “Is It Homophobic in Here or Is It Just Me?” that was linked to a National Post homepage story in May 2012.

Good news! We have contributed to a righting of this bias. In December 2012 the Associated Press, one of the world’s oldest (est. 1846) and most respected standard setters in journalism, changed its style guide. The AP states the word “homophobia” is not to be used in political or social contexts because its use has been imprecise and inaccurate.

Another oft-repeated misstatement concerns “the separation of church and state,” a legal doctrine in the United States of America that is based on the U.S. constitution. This concept was intended to protect churches from interference by the state. Ironically, most of the people who raise the subject in Canada today want to suggest just the opposite – that the government needs to somehow be protected from the influence of churches!

In Canadian legal history, our churches too were protected from the interference of government.  This protection was affirmed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which lists “freedom of conscience and religion” as the first of the fundamental freedoms Canadians enjoy. The Supreme Court of Canada has interpreted this constitutional guarantee to apply both to individuals and to religious communities including educational and service institutions as well as congregations.

The court has also affirmed that Canadians can’t be disqualified from participation in developing public policy because of our religious beliefs. Canadian religious individuals and organizations are welcome to engage in Canadian politics and public policy, as well as work co-operatively with government as appropriate to accomplish its purposes.

It’s up to all Christians to ensure that anti-religious undercurrents are not permitted to cut away at truth. We need to be attentive to and engaged in the world around us, or such undercurrents may undermine our very presence.

This week in Ottawa has been a roller coaster for social conservatives (socons) and theological conservatives (theocons). While people who fit in those camps often find alignment with capital “C” political Conservatives, the upper case and lower case “c” distinctions are significant as many also align with Liberals and New Democrats.

For me, the week started with the first time opportunity to attend a hearing in the British Columbia Court of Appeal live from Ottawa! Ah, the “miracle” of the internet. The 3 hour time difference means this week’s Ottawa mornings seem earlier; lunch break is at 3:30 pm (Eastern Daylight Savings Time); and, this week the end of my days is at night!

The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada’s brief presentation to the court in support of maintaining Canada’s current prohibition against physician assisted suicide was made by local counsel, Geoffrey Trotter. You can read it here (with links to our written submission, as well). As Geoffrey stated, “The English word for suicide is derived from the Latin which literally means ‘self-killing.’  The term ‘physician-assisted suicide’, then, can only mean the killing of patients by their doctors.”

My Tuesday morning included an exciting meeting as the steering committee puts the final touches on the Bridging the Secular Divide: Religion and Canadian Public Discourse conference to be hosted at McGill University on May 27 and 28. Registration is now open and seating is limited.

Thursday, whether socon or theocon, was met with the surprising news that MPs from the Conservative, Liberal and NDP parties voted unanimously at the Subcommittee on Private Members’ Business to prevent Motion M-408 (sponsored by Mark Warawa, MP Langley) from proceeding for consideration by the House of Commons. The motion reads simply, “That the House condemn discrimination against females occurring through sex-selective pregnancy termination.” The only witness called by the committee was from the Library of Parliament and testified that the motion satisfied all criteria for being considered by the House. Here are our thoughts on the matter.

Thursday was also budget day, or as it’s referred to by Canada’s Government, Economic Action Plan 2013. While the opposition leaders oppose (that’s why they’re called opposition) there are some positive things in the budget for Evangelicals; whether we can accurately be labeled as socons and theocons or not.

Chapter 3.5 is where we find initiatives such as:

• Encouragement for adoption through the Adoption Expense Tax Credit

• Tariff relief on baby clothing and sports and athletic equipment

Money in the pockets of Canadian families is a good thing.  Here’s a bit of an explanation why, as found in our brief commentary on the EFC’s pre-budget submission from last year.

Other positive initiatives include:

• Continuation of the Homelessness Partnering Strategy (focusing on Housing First) for 5 more years
• Investment in affordable housing for Canadians in need (more than 300,000 are homeless) over the next 5 years
• New incentive for charitable donations by first time givers (see our comments on strengthening Canada’s charitable sector)
• Proposals to invest in addressing some of the unique needs of Canada’s aboriginal peoples, particularly those in the far North

Of course, we’ll have to see how some of the proposals work out in their implementation as partnerships are required between provincial, territorial and/or aboriginal governments as well as non-governmental organizations and the private sector. But, there is much opportunity to work with.

Another set of partnerships will also have new relationships to work out as the Economic Action Plan 2013 realigns the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) into the super-department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development. Again, time will tell how this new arrangement will benefit those organizations partnering with government (sometimes the expenditures more accurately are government partnering with aid and development organizations) to assist those most in need outside our borders. Government assurances are that the objective of poverty alleviation and reduction will remain central to Canada’s aid program. Hopefully, there will also be consultation with the organizations delivering the services to ensure there is no disruption in Canadian humanitarian assistance overseas. We comment on the importance of Canadian compassion overseas here.

When engagement on public policy is based in biblical principles, the politics that play out can result in the occasional fast-paced roller coaster ride of a week! We are disturbed that “It’s a girl” can be a death sentence in Canada; heartened that religiously informed voices are as entitled to engage in public policy as are any other voices; and, appreciative that those in need are not forgotten by our government, just as we know they are not forgotten by the Church.

Mr. Warawa has filed an appeal of the Subcommittee’s decision on M-408 and the Economic Action Plan 2013 will require time for the “action” part to unfold. You can expect more on both from the EFC and the bloggers at the EFC’s ActivateCFPL. Even though the week has flown by, the ride’s not over.

Well, Friday morning’s gone and it’s almost 10 am in BC, so I’m off to court!

Following is the text of the presentation made by Geoffrey Trotter on behalf of The EFC before the BC Court of Appeal on Tuesday, March 19, 2013 in the case of Carter v. Canada (Attorney General) – [with clarification comment in square parentheses]

*****

My submissions will respond to your Lordship’s [Chief Justice Finch] point yesterday that given the Court’s duty to give meaning to all of the language in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, including the word “life” in s. 7, you “would like to know what life means”; and to respond to your Ladyship’s [Justice Saunders] questions from this morning as to whether the prohibition against assisted suicide, in addition to being a pragmatic one, is also value-driven.   I will first address those questions on the authorities, and then circle back to your Lordship’s related question about whether a pulse or a brain wave is “life” in the Charter sense.

A - In the submission of The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, the fulcrum of analysis in this case needs to be that the sanctity of human life is itself a core Charter value which rightly informs the criminal law.  It is by upholding the sanctity of life that the complementary Charter value of human dignity is enhanced and protected.  In this regard I am drawing primarily from paragraphs 3-19 of the EFC’s factum.

1. The English word for suicide is derived from the Latin which literally means “self-killing.”  The term ‘physician-assisted suicide’, then, can only mean the killing of patients by their doctors.  Our criminal law has always prohibited people from consenting to their own killing; and prohibited people from taking the lives of others.  The EFC submits that the Charter is entirely supportive of, not contradictory to, the prohibitions which are attacked in this case.

2. Indeed, the Supreme Court of Canada affirmed in the Rodriguez decision at paragraph 125 that “the sanctity of life … is one of the three Charter values protected by s. 7”, and affirmed at paragraph 129 that in Canadian law, “human life is sacred or inviolable” in, as the court stated, a “non-religious sense”.  Similarly, the court described the objective at paragraph 186 as “the desire to protect human life, a fundamental Charter value." 

3. It is legally and ethically sound for this court to affirm the non-sectarian consensus articulated by the Law Reform Commission of Canada in the quotations in the the EFC’s factum – that is,

i. that the sanctity of human life means that life merits special protection,

ii. that life is a sacred trust rather than a mere right to be contracted away or waived, and

iii. that the Criminal Code should continue to prohibit people from consenting to being killed.

That is what the Supreme Court of Canada concluded in Rodriguez after undertaking a comprehensive historical, legislative, and policy analysis.

The consensus regarding the sanctity of human life has been repeatedly affirmed since Rodriguez by the only elected representatives with constitutional jurisdiction over the matter – that is, by Parliament.  The majority committee opinion in the June 1995 Senate report recommended that the prohibition remain in place because “They feel that legalizing assisted suicide could undermine respect for life which they believe is the most universally accepted value in society … that transcends individual, religious or diverse cultural values...”

Various Parliamentary committees and government departments have been working on suicide prevention initiatives in recent years.  Last year, the Federal Framework for Suicide Prevention Act passed in the House of Commons by a vote of 285 in favour and only three opposed.

B – It is in light of the bedrock principle of the sanctity of human life that a related Charter value, human dignity, must be understood (and here I am drawing from paragraphs 20-24 of the EFC’s factum).  Canadian and international law understands human dignity not to mean an absolute right to do as one wishes.  Rather, as cited in our factum, the legal concept of human dignity has been elucidated in accordance with the historical and philosophical context of the Charter and means “inherent dignity” (indeed, the SCC reiterated this phrase in last month’s Whatcott decision at paragraph 66).  Similarly, the preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights directly links the terms “inherent dignity” with “inalienable rights.”  Inherent dignity, by definition, is shared by all Canadians, disabled and able-bodied alike, simply by virtue of each of us having life.  Intentional killing is a direct affront to that life.

C – Section 7 of the Charter is on its face a life-affirming right.  In Rodriguez, the Supreme Court of Canada stated that “liberty and security of the person … cannot be divorced from the sanctity of life”, and at paragraph 129 that “security of the person, by its nature, cannot encompass a right to take action that will end one's life as security of the person is intrinsically concerned with the well-being of the living person.

In the Polygamy Reference, the court held that there is no such thing as “good polygamy.” Similarly, EFC submits that there is no such thing as a ‘good killing’.  No Canadian is better off dead than alive.

Thus, ‘death with dignity,’ properly understood, means to live one’s remaining life with the inherent dignity of a human person, with such assistance as modern medicine can provide, and the option to decline unwanted ‘heroic measures’.  The path to death may at times be very difficult, but the EFC rejects the notion that anyone’s inherent human dignity is ever enhanced by having their life cut short.

And that is the nettle which the Respondents [Carter, et al.] fail to grasp in this case.  There can be no ‘assisted suicide’ without another moral agent – another person – committing the act of killing, and the state being complicit in that act. As the Law Reform Commission succinctly stated, this would “indirectly condone murder…” 

No Canadian has the right to be killed.  There is no such right because it runs headlong into the Charter values of the sanctity of human life and inherent human dignity. 

To return to your Lordship’s question about whether a brain wave or a pulse is a “life” in this sense, I make two points:

i. First, the issue does not arise in this appeal.  The relief sought by the Respondents is only in respect of competent adults who personally request physician-assisted death. These are not people in a persistent vegetative state.  They are people aware of themselves and their situation; with ongoing relationships with their loved ones and communities; their own interests and passions.

ii. And, more fundamentally, no matter how many of their former abilities a person has lost, they remain a human being with the same inherent dignity as able-bodied Canadians; and, their life has the same sanctity.

Ms. Nygard [legal counsel for the Attorney General of Canada] quoted earlier from the Latimer decision at paragraph 40 to the effect that, “It is difficult, at the conceptual level, to imagine a circumstance in which the proportionality requirement could be met for a homicide,” even for someone like Tracey Latimer with incurable chronic pain.  In the immediately preceding paragraph, the Court stated that Robert Latimer “had at least one reasonable legal alternative (to killing his daughter): he could have struggled on, with what was unquestionably a difficult situation, by helping Tracy to live and by minimizing her pain as much as possible.” 

That is the promise and the challenge before us as a society: not to try to make the problem disappear by making the person disappear, but to respond to the unquestionably difficult realities of both disability and dying by caring for these people to minimize their physical, and psychological, suffering as much as possible, and to help them live full, satisfying, and meaningful lives.  If one of us feels a loss of dignity, the rest of us, and the State, need to affirm through our words, our actions, and our laws that we see in that person the same inherent dignity as resides in all human beings.  We need to help them live.

The EFC submits that killing is never the antidote for what is difficult about dying, and asks this court to affirm the Charter values of the sanctity of human life and inherent human dignity, and to allow the Appeal.

March 21, 2013

OTTAWA – “The decision made today to declare Motion M-408 as non-votable by Parliament is lamentable,” explains Faye Sonier, Legal Counsel with The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada. “The motion calling on Parliament to condemn the practice of sex-selection pregnancy termination was simple, straight-forward and non-confrontational. As a lawyer who follows Parliamentary business, I was quite surprised that the Subcommittee on Private Members’ Business unanimously found that the motion didn’t satisfy the votability criteria for private members’ bills.”

On September 27, 2012, Member of Parliament Mark Warawa introduced Motion M-408. The motion reads simply, "That the House condemn discrimination against females occurring through sex-selective pregnancy termination." Today, the Subcommittee met to determine whether the Motion was votable, which would have permitted it to proceed for debate in the House of Commons.

“The criteria for votability is quite simple,” explains Don Hutchinson, EFC Vice-President and General Legal Counsel. “House motions must address federal jurisdiction, they cannot clearly violate constitutional documents, they cannot concern questions that are ‘substantially the same as ones already voted on by the House of Commons in the current Parliamentary session’ and they must not concern issues already on the Order Paper or Notice Paper as items of government business. In our estimation and according to our research, Motion M-408 clearly and easily met these requirements.”

“Committee members noted that the subject matter has already been dealt with in this session of Parliament in Motion M-312. M-312 proposed a committee to study the legal definition of ‘human being’ in Canada’s Criminal Code, an unrelated matter potentially connected to M-408 only by the consideration of human life before birth. Curiously, the same committee did not conclude Randall Garrison’s proposal to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act through private members’ Bill C-279 was non-votable when Brian Storseth already had private members’ Bill C-304 before Parliament proposing an amendment to the Canadian Human Rights Act. Quite simply, those two bills were on different subject matter as were the two motions cited by the committee,” continues Hutchinson.

“The other objection noted was that ultrasounds are medical treatment and therefore under provincial jurisdiction,” says Hutchinson. “Non-binding motions of the House have historically covered a wide range because they are not a legislative initiative but speak to a concern of national proportion. In the past, that has included such things as a declaration to end child poverty in Canada.  Recently, private members’ Bill C-300 was passed to implement a national suicide prevention strategy, even though suicide is no longer a criminal matter under the Criminal Code; legislation to deal with a national crisis. Canada is similarly facing a nation-wide crisis with girls being aborted in hopes that a future pregnancy will result in a boy being conceived. This motion is entirely appropriate in that context.”

“This was a non-binding motion, which simply asked that the House condemn a deplorable practice – that of sex-selection abortion,” explains Sonier. “Representatives from all political parties have condemned gendercide as well as 92% of Canadians, in a recent poll. And let’s be clear – this motion could not have, in anyway, criminalized the act itself. The motion offered Parliament the opportunity to collectively condemn a deplorable practice that several Parliamentary leaders have already spoken out against.”

“If any decision warrants review in the process available within Parliamentary procedure on private members’ business, this is one such decision. Otherwise, this will be a lost opportunity to have a debate and a national discussion on a tragic practice that’s taking place in our country,” explains Hutchinson. “We hope, going forward, that we can have a democratic and respectful dialogue on this non-partisan issue. We pray for civility and we urge Parliamentarians to address critical issues of the day, such as gender discrimination. It is to address issues such as these that Parliament exists.”

Article originally published as a guest column in the Guelph Mercury.

Every few years, city bus banner ads in Guelph trigger debate about free speech rights.

A few years ago, it was an atheist ad that read: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” This year, it’s a couple of ads from Alliance for Life Ontario. One ad depicts a fetus at 19 weeks of development and states, “This is a child, not a choice.” The second includes images of fetuses with the message, “I’m a human being with potential, not a potential human being.”

Coun. Ian Findlay shared on his blog that he had received complaints about the ads and posted one such anonymous complaint. The complainant argues that the ads are “highly inappropriate for public property”, that as a woman she finds the ad offensive and that since abortions at 19 weeks are rare, the first ad is misleading.

And to the complainant, I say “So what?”

We live in a pluralistic, multicultural society where no two citizens hold identical views, or are required to do so. We live in a constitutionally described “free and democratic society” that is characterized by freedoms of expression, conscience, association and religion, among others, guaranteed constitutionally in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

If, as a society, we fail to value the conversation that arises from an open marketplace of shared ideas, and if we were to appoint someone, such as the complainant, to judge which expressions should be banned according to her subjective standards of “offensiveness” or “misleadingness,” there would be very little free speech indeed.

In fact, the complainant would in a short time also find herself and organizations that she supports muzzled from expression by another someone, somewhere, who might be offended by their beliefs, expressions or advertising.

The Supreme Court of Canada dealt with this kind of advertising in 2009. The Canadian Federation of Students and the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation wanted to place political advertising on Vancouver buses in the run-up to the 2005 provincial election. The city’s transit authority refused.

Through a series of appeals, the case made its way to our highest court. The court found that the transit authority was a government entity, that the charter applied to its actions and, accordingly, to restrict reasonable advertising was to violate the charter’s right to free expression.

The court found that bus ad space “allows for expression by a broad range of speakers to a large public audience” and that “like a city street, a city bus is a public place where individuals can openly interact with each other and their surroundings.” And, importantly for us all, that “citizens, including bus riders, are expected to put up with some controversy in a free and democratic society.”

Being occasionally offended is one of the small costs we pay to live in our society.

I don’t like being ridiculed any more than the next person. Being an Evangelical Christian and also a pro-life advocate, I see my identity and beliefs belittled with surprising frequency. But would I suggest that hostile anti-religionists or pro-choice advocates be silenced? Never. If they are silenced by the state, I soon will be, too.

Even though I have been offended and my feelings have been hurt by things said or published, I do care about the people that live in my community and my country. I want to know what they believe and why they believe it. And when I’m passionate enough about the issue in question, I’ll take opportunities such as these to respectfully engage in discussion with them. I may challenge their beliefs, but they’ll challenge mine as well.

This is both the difficulty and the simplicity of living in a free society. We don’t agree on every issue, and we don’t have to. But hopefully we can agree on at least one thing: that the right to free expression is a right worth defending.

On February 26, in a rare and vitally important show of non-partisanship, Parliament voted unanimously in favour of Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett’s (St. Paul’s) motion to establish a special parliamentary committee to study the disappearance of far too many aboriginal women and girls in Canada. When I heard the news, my heart breathed a grateful sigh, “finally.”

The Motion reads, in part, that:

“The House recognize that a disproportionate number of Indigenous women and girls have suffered violence, gone missing, or been murdered over the past three decades; and that the government has a responsibility to provide justice for the victims, healing for the families, and to work with partners to put an end to the violence; and that a special committee be appointed, with the mandate to conduct hearings on the critical matter of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in Canada, and to propose solutions to address the root causes of violence against Indigenous women across the country”

This is a welcome first step in responding to an urgent need in Canada – not just for our aboriginal communities, but for all of us together. More than 600 aboriginal women and girls have gone missing or been murdered in Canada since 1970. This is a disproportionately high number, and some groups advocating on behalf of the families of these women and girls estimate the number to be much, much higher still.

There is no authoritative list of missing and murdered women in Canada. The Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) has taken the lead through their Sisters in Spirit initiative to gather comprehensive statistics on the number of aboriginal missing and murdered women across the country. The information collected has moved Parliament to act, although short of calls for a more formal National Inquiry.

Aboriginal women in Canada experience levels of violence three times higher than those of non-aboriginal women, both in terms of incidence and severity. Young aboriginal women are five times more likely to die because of violence than non-aboriginal women. And aboriginal women are disproportionately represented in the number of missing and murdered women across Canada, most notably along BC’s “Highway of Tears” and from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. [1]

Each of these women was someone’s mother, or daughter, or sister, or auntie. Each one left behind grieving loved ones and family who are trying to find healing, far too many in the absence of any sense of justice on the part of their lost loved one. While it is common to speak of their ‘disappearance’, the truth is these women didn’t just disappear – they were taken. In far too many cases, so were their lives. Their families and communities are crying out for justice, for answers, for an end to the pattern and the violence.

In 2012, Wally Oppal, Commissioner of British Columbia’s (BC) Missing Women Commission of Inquiry, released his report Forsaken: The Report of the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry. In this detailed and lengthy report, Oppal makes important comments about the plight of the missing and murdered women of BC that this new committee would do well to heed. He calls the story of the missing women a tragedy of epic proportions, noting that the women were forsaken: first, by society in general failing to provide them with the basic conditions of safety and security to which every human being is entitled; and second, by the police who are entrusted with the responsibility of protecting all members of society, particularly the vulnerable, and for solving crimes perpetrated against everyone.

Oppal’s words are clear that while his inquiry focused primarily on failures in policing, ultimately all of society shares the responsibility for allowing this tragedy to unfold.

A disproportionate number of Robert Pickton’s victims were aboriginal: of the 33 women whose DNA was found on Pickton’s farm, 12 were aboriginal. While 3 % of BC’s population consists of aboriginal women, they comprise about 33% of the missing and murdered women.

Oppal identifies discrimination and systemic bias in the police response to the reports of women going missing. It’s a story I have heard told personally before, in heartbreaking detail.  My dear friend Trisha, who for many years was prostituted on the Downtown Eastside (referenced as DTES in the report) alongside many of Pickton’s victims, speaks publicly of how she and her friends reported other women missing, but were dismissed by police, told that “so and so” was a transient so they weren’t going to fill out the paperwork. But Oppal found that, in fact, the women were not transient. Rather most were deeply entrenched in the life of Vancouver’s DTES.

The report states, “The missing and murdered women were not ‘hookers’ or ‘STWs’ [street workers]: they were women, they were persons, they were human beings. They were complex individuals who, like everyone, had talents and problems, hopes and disappointments, aspirations and fear. They enjoyed a web of personal relationships and were members of their community.” It’s important to note that Oppal doesn’t find the discrimination and bias were intentional or individual on the part of the officers involved. Far more dangerous, the discrimination and bias were unintentional, systemic and societal.

He discusses the violence routinely experienced by the women, noting that “women engaged in the survival sex trade all fear violence and its pervasive influence on their lives. They experience violence at the hands of almost everyone with whom they come into contact with.”

Oppal writes, “the DTES strolls became a space where justice did not prevail, where violence against women was rendered invisible. Men were able to enter the zone, commit violent crimes and not be held accountable.” For their part, the Vancouver Police Department noted the conflict experienced in being mandated to enforce laws that aim to address the “nuisance aspects of the trade but do not resolve any of the underlying issues, and on the other side are concerns about the safety of street workers.”

For several years, The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada has been promoting the need for change in Canadian laws related to prostitution. Our existing laws related to prostitution are flawed. They don’t discourage prostitution, and they don’t protect vulnerable women.

We are calling for legal reform based on the legal and social framework of what is known as the Nordic model of law on prostitution; but I don’t want to hijack the importance of this Parliamentary study to make this point in my words. Instead, I’ll note that the Native Women’s Association of Canada has issued a similar and strong statement calling for the same legal reform.

As the new committee begins its work, we hope that their study can provide some encouragement, perhaps a step toward peace, for families and communities who have lost loved ones. We also hope that at least part of their study will include an examination of the many factors that make women vulnerable to violence and predation, and how government action on the pivotal issue of prostitution might prevent future occurrences and disappearances.

[1] Forsaken: The Report of the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry Executive Summary; The Honourable Wally T. Oppal, QC Commissioner, November 19, 2012, p.7,8.

Wednesday, February 27, 2013 was a “red letter” day for Canadian Christians. Red letter has two variant meanings, both of which might be considered applicable.

The “red letter" concept originates with the decorative medieval manuscripts of the Bible that often started the initial words of select Bible passages with ornate letters. The concept transitioned to be associated with days of special significance when Sunday and religious holidays were similarly illuminated on calendars. In that sense, the issuing of the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission v. William Whatcott made it a significant day; as did the vote of Canada’s Parliament on a proposal to establish a national strategy to ensure adequate housing for Canadians, particularly to address the needs of Canada’s more than 300,000 homeless.

Red letter has also come to be a shorthand reference for printed Bibles in which the words of Jesus are printed in red, a practice started at the beginning of the 20^th century to assist non-scholars to quickly identify His words using the colour of His blood that was shed for the forgiveness of our sins. Biblical principles apply in both instances – the Whatcott decision and the vote on C-400.

The Whatcott case was about freedom of speech based on religious beliefs. Mr. Whatcott distributed flyers in Regina and Saskatoon in 2001 and 2002. The flyers contained vehement comments about the sexual practices of same-sex couples. They also shared Mr. Whatcott’s views on morality, sexual behavior and public policy; expressing his opposition to school children being taught about homosexuality, criticizing homosexual behavior and the advertising practices of a gay magazine. Mr. Whatcott noted that the flyers prepared and distributed by him reflected his religious beliefs.

The SCC used this opportunity to clarify and narrow the understanding of ‘hate speech’ limitations on the right to freedom of expression as set out in its 1990 decision in the Canada (Human rights commission v. Taylor case. In doing so the court affirmed that precedent, even a 4-3 split from 20 years ago, remains binding law in Canada. This is vital to the stability of Canadian law. The importance of precedent will hopefully also be displayed in key cases coming before the court on prostitution (Bedford) and assisted suicide (Carter) where similar earlier decisions of the SCC will come into play.

The decision also touched on different aspects of freedom of religion and concluded that the Bible could not be considered as hate speech. The court is clear that Bible passages, biblical beliefs and the principles derived from those beliefs can be legally and reasonably advanced in public discourse. Basically, the court affirmed the biblical principal of telling ‘the truth in love,’ while cautioning as to where the line is drawn that would result in telling the truth in a hateful fashion. Essentially:

Galatians 5:22-23 (Contemporary English Version)

²² God’s Spirit makes us loving, happy, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, ²³ gentle, and self-controlled. There is no law against behaving in any of these ways.

To read more about the Whatcott decision, see my analysis in What does the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision mean to you?

In addition to the court stuff this week, the House of Commons wasn't quiet!

The government defeated Bill C-400, a private member’s bill (PMB) that proposed Canada’s development of a long needed national housing strategy. My colleague Julia Beazley summarizes the issue nicely in her blog Should Stephen Harper take the lead on behalf of more than 300,000 homeless Canadians? Setting aside Mr. Mulcair’s unapologetic remarks about Evangelicals (we forgive while not forgetting) The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada continued our engagement to support this NDP led initiative designed to provide for those in need.

The defeat on C-400 was a disappointment for those of us concerned about Canada's growing homelessness numbers, now over 300,000. Canada’s housing crisis is being addressed by churches, volunteers, shelters, aboriginal leaders and other private participants working with municipal, provincial and federal opportunities as a diverse patchwork across the nation which could be more efficient and effective if coordinated into a pattern with consistency of standards to meet needs. The diverse group on the frontlines has called on the federal government to use its unique gathering power to bring us together and establish a coordinated agenda – something Mr. Harper’s government did well with the National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking.

Troubling – at least for me – was that Tony Clement, President of the Treasury Board, held a press conference and the Conservative Party issued a media release stating it would cost $5.5 billion to implement Bill C-400. The rules for PMBs clearly prohibit them reaching the House of Commons if they propose government expenditures. In fact, that is one of the conditions used in vetting PMBs by a votability committee of MPs when they assess whether a PMB may be considered by the House. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) also boldly asserts the $5.5 billion number in a backgrounder on Bill C-400 that then proceeds to list current federal government initiatives on housing (which I applaud) without offering any justification for how it arrived at the expansive number it estimates C-400 would have cost.

There are a lot of ways to have a conversation about developing a strategy. On the National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking we all paid our own expenses to participate in the process. Net cost to the federal government was the space and staff attendance to read our submissions, attend meetings and coordinate conference calls. A great strategy emerged. If the government already has a plan that it costed out at $5.5 billion then let’s see it so we can work on reducing the cost and meeting the need.

If Mr. Harper and the Conservative caucus, which members in attendance voted unanimously against the bill, have a plan to address this crisis I know it would be welcome. Until then, the patchwork continues and 300,000 Canadians remain homeless; still more with inadequate housing. Certainly for those of us in the Church we will continue to be motivated to meet needs based on these red letter words:

Matthew 25:34-40 (Contemporary English Version)

³⁴ Then the king will say to those on his right, “My father has blessed you! Come and receive the kingdom that was prepared for you before the world was created. ³⁵ When I was hungry, you gave me something to eat, and when I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink. When I was a stranger, you welcomed me, ³⁶ and when I was naked, you gave me clothes to wear. When I was sick, you took care of me, and when I was in jail, you visited me.”

³⁷ Then the ones who pleased the Lord will ask, “When did we give you something to eat or drink? ³⁸ When did we welcome you as a stranger or give you clothes to wear ³⁹ or visit you while you were sick or in jail?”

⁴⁰ The king will answer, “Whenever you did it for any of my people, no matter how unimportant they seemed, you did it for me.”

Guest blogger: Bruce J. Clemenger is President of The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada. This article was originally published in Faith Today.

Recently a fertility clinic in the United States made news for not only selling human sperm and eggs, but human embryos as well. While many responded with disdain, National Post columnist Marni Soupcoff questioned the validity of the objections.

Embryo donation does occur in Canada. Couples who undergo in vitro fertilization often have nine eggs fertilized and then have three implanted. If pregnancy does not result, the next three are implanted. A successful pregnancy often leaves “spare” embryos left over.

What to do with them is a technologically created moral dilemma. Some are then made available to other couples. And there’s at least one Christian organization in Canada that, out of its respect for human life, facilitates embryo adoption.

When regulations on such areas were being shaped, the EFC argued for the importance of the sanctity of human life and our society’s affirmation of the dignity of human life.

These principles underlie current laws that prevent buying and selling human eggs, sperm and embryos, and ban payment to mothers who carry someone else’s child.

Commercialization of embryos might assist those wanting to be parents. But is that what we want as a society?

Protecting human life often requires extra care for the vulnerable, as our child care institutions show. For example, in fostering and adoption it’s not the parental interests that are primary. We want to find homes for waiting children, not to find children for wanting parents.

Similarly Canada has long banned slavery, and recently we even strengthened our laws to protect children and youth from being trafficked. Our abhorrence of the exploitation of slavery is shared worldwide, and universal condemnation falls on all remaining places where it is still practised.

Another example is the sex trade. In Canada there is increased lobbying to decriminalize prostitution, including major cases currently before our top courts. Do we as a society accept that the bodies of others should be bought for sexual pleasure?

Decriminalizing prostitution, it’s often argued, has worked in European countries. But in fact many there are pushing to re-establish criminal laws against buying sex. Such laws have been effective in Sweden and Norway, supplemented with counselling and retraining programs.

Where human trafficking is tolerated, children are hurt. Many of the youth being recruited to prostitution, even in Canada, are kids from group homes and foster homes.

Rejecting the commodification and exploitation of a human being today is part of a centuries-old battle including Evangelicals who led the charge to abolish slavery in the late 1700s and early 1800s.

The same abolitionists also worked to prevent the exploitation of child labour. In Toronto it was seeing six-yearolds selling newspapers on the streets that motivated J. J. Kelso to establish the first Children’s Aid Society in Canada.

Resisting the commercialization and commodification of human life is a critical expression of our society’s respect for the dignity of the human being. This respect shapes our laws governing biotechnology, adoption and slavery.

Such principles also underlie our universal health care system, our social programs and even our employment laws – you can hire someone, but you can’t buy them or rent them.

But it takes effort to maintain these principles in a society driven by markets and a consumerist and materialist ethos that reduces life to transactions.

Soupcoff asks, “How does adding money to the equation change the dynamic of adopting embryos? How might money undermine a process that is very much like an adoption?”

Our response should be this. Since we reject buying and trading infants, we must be consistent and reject buying and selling eggs, sperm and embryos, and hiring women to carry children to term.

Soupcoff concludes, “Canadian outrage over treating embryos as salable goods rather than precious lives seems particularly strange given that Canadian law currently offers embryos no protection or status whatsoever.”

I agree in part. But a key reason we don’t permit trafficking in human embryos is to acknowledge a certain status, a valuation that would be undermined by affixing a price.

If we permit commercializing activities that define our humanity, if we allow some or parts of us to be commodified, we will be offering sacrifices to those commercializing forces we allow to govern so much of our lives.

Let us affirm today, alongside the abolitionists of history, respect for life and the dignity of all, created in the image of God.