The Dominion Report is a weekly newsletter committed to bringing you the most important stories for Canadian Christians to consider as they seek to live faithful lives in the communities God has placed them in.
13-Year Old Dies of Likely Overdose After Parents Denied Treatment Decision
The Story: Thirteen-year-old Brianna McDonald of Abbotsford, BC, died of a suspected overdose in a homeless encampment after authorities refused her parents’ request for involuntary treatment. Brianna, who reportedly suffered from a serious mental health condition, began to self-medicate with marijuana at only ten years old and at twelve had moved on to harder drugs like ecstasy. After a hospitalization for a suspected overdose, her parents requested that she undergo mental health and addictions treatment. Instead, the Fraser Health region said that she had the right to refuse treatment, and they allegedly sent her home with drug paraphernalia, Narcan, and a pamphlet on “safe drug use.” After violent behaviour at home forced her parents to temporarily place her in a shelter, Brianna ran away to the homeless encampment where she later died.
The Significance: It is hard to imagine a society more warped than one which affirms a parents’ “right” to pretend their daughter is a boy, but not their right to treat their child’s drug addiction. Our society has made an idol out of an individualist, libertine “freedom”. As with nearly all other goods, freedom can be misused and twisted to destruction. Paul warns us of the risks of being enslaved to this twisted freedom (1 Cor 6:12-20) and directs us to true freedom: “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.”
Only through the Truth can there be freedom. Anything else is mere libertine license, which makes victims of those it touches: Brianna, her parents, and many, many others left to die on the altar of this false “freedom”.
Read More: Michele Brunoro, CTV News Vancouver, “Parents fight for change after 13-year-old girl dies in B.C. homeless camp”
Female Students in Brampton Prostituted for Rent Payment
The Story: Concerns are being raised about landlords in Brampton, Ontario, using female students as sex slaves and prostitutes. With a growing housing crisis forcing international students to look for creative ways to find housing, students have reportedly been falling for ads that promise rent discounts in exchange for “friends with benefits.”
There are concerns that some of the girls are even being prostituted and, because of the fact that many of the girls are from other countries and are often non-native English speakers, they don’t understand the implications of the ads they are responding to or the nature of their rights and freedoms once the leases designed to take advantage of them are signed.
The Significance: There is no need for us to wax eloquent on how tricking girls into being prostitutes or sex slaves is wrong. Those taking advantage of these girls, but for the grace of God, will face the wrath of God for their evil.
The significance we need to raise however is that the presence of evil is the very reason we need good policies in our country. Inflation, the housing crisis, the out of control immigration of international students in order to inflate the budgets of universities, all of these policies have contributed to the broken systems we have now. It is the cracks in broken systems that allow evil to thrive unchecked.
We don’t want Canada to be a prosperous nation simply for the sake of prosperity, but because in a society that prospers, girls are never faced with the question of getting evicted, or being sexually abused by their landlord.
Read More: Denette Wilford, Toronto Sun, “Female international students targeted for prostitution by Brampton landlords: Councillor”
Quick Hit
Bloc Québécois willing to prop up Liberals: Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet has indicated his party’s willingness to prop up the Liberal government—for a price. Quebec’s separatist party holds enough seats in the Federal Parliament to prevent the collapse of the Trudeau government, but will only guarantee support if the Liberals meet their demands. While they have not been made public yet, the Bloc has historically demanded special considerations and treatments for Quebec, often at the expense of other provinces. Given his dire polling numbers, it is likely that Trudeau—who represents a Quebec riding himself—will give in on most demands regardless of their impact on other regions, all in the slim hopes that he can right the ship before the mandated election date in October 2025.
A Truth To Consider
“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything. “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. -1 Corinthians 6:12-20.