BC Man Dies by Assisted Suicide After Failing to Receive Cancer Treatment
The Story: 52-year-old BC man Dan Quayle has died by assisted suicide after failing to receive timely treatment for an aggressive and painful form of cancer.
In B.C., just one in four cancer patients receive therapy within 28 days of a diagnosis—despite Government efforts to ease the backlog by sending patients to Washington.
While most Canadian provinces are not as severely backlogged, 17,000 Canadians died on waitlists last year. In Ontario alone, 1,000 Ontarians have died while waiting for heart surgery in the last ten years.
The Significance: Canada’s cauldron of morally corrupt medical policies continues to produce the worst possible outcome for Canadian patients.
The availability of assisted suicide is having the double-edged effect of killing patients while relieving pressure on an overburdened public healthcare system.
Our political leaders must be forced to face the reality that assisted suicide is not healthcare. A death that is unnatural in the timing of its arrival, avoidable by treatments that should be available, and only requested as the result of a failure to obtain said treatments, is the worst possible indictment of the Canadian healthcare system.
The Psalmist cried out to God, “Do not cast me away when I am old; do not forsake me when my strength is gone” (Ps. 71:9). To our national shame, we have done exactly what the Psalmist asks God not to do: we have treated the aged and the sick as disposable.
Read More: Katie DeRosa, National Post, “B.C. man opts for medically assisted death after cancer treatment delayed”
Calgary Mayor Boycotts Menorah Lighting Over Israel Concern
The Story: In a statement released late on Wednesday evening, Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek announced that she would not attend her City’s annual menorah lighting over concerns that the event “has been repositioned as an event to support Israel.” The statement continues: “It is absolutely possible to condemn acts of violence and war without choosing one community over another. We have a moral imperative to do so. The killing must stop in Gaza, because it is spreading division and hatred, far and wide. Eradicating Hamas must come in a different form than mass casualties.”
The Significance: Mayor Gondek’s capitulation to the anti-Israeli position is not simple cowardice. Instead, it is the natural outcome of her ideologically progressive optimism in the perfectibility of human nature. This worldview fails to account for the doctrine of sin and instead teaches the perfectible natural goodness of human beings. As a result, some men and women who choose to do evil are merely victims of bad circumstances—not active violators of the moral law. Because human beings are perfectible, society must also be perfectible, meaning that a perfect solution to every problem is attainable. This is evidenced by progressive commitments to climate control, eliminating wealth disparity, and a host of other issues. Accordingly, Gondek writes that, “eradicating Hamas must come in a different form than mass casualties”—as if war can be free of death. By contrast, the Biblical worldview insists that human beings are sinful (Rom. 3) and the “heart is deceitful above all else” (Jer. 17:9). Governments are temporary arbiters of justice that have been given a sword to avenge wrongdoing. That sword may, when necessary, bring death.
This temporary justice is God’s gracious gift to a world that would otherwise drown in the blood spilled by unrestrained wickedness. We should thank God for legitimate military forces that defend their nations from senseless murder at the hands of an evil enemy, regardless of whether the Mayor of Calgary chooses to recognize the existence of that evil enemy.
Read More: Rahim Mohamad, National Post, “Calgary mayor bows to pro-Hamas antisemites”
Bloc Quebecois Introduces Bill to Remove Religious Hate Crime Defence
The Story: Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet has introduced a Bill in the House of Commons that would add a Criminal Code amendment “to eliminate as a defense against wilful promotion of hatred or antisemitism the fact that a person, in good faith, expressed or attempted to establish by an argument an opinion on a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text.” Blanchet stated that the Bill is necessary as a result of increasing antisemitic attacks in Quebec and across Canada. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has not indicated whether his Government will support the Bill.
The Significance: While the intent to combat anti-Semitic hatred is welcome, the Bloc Québécois’ effort to remove religious court defences underlines two troubling trends in Canadian culture. First, Canada’s hate crimes legislation, which outlaws certain types of allegedly discriminatory speech, is a gaping hole in Canada’s system of religious freedom. The reality is that many modern secularists have begun defining core tenets of the Christian faith as “hatred”. This means that so-called hate speech legislation is already a legal liability for Canadian Christians even without the newly proposed amendment. Second, this amendment demonstrates the looming cultural power of a secularism that now dominates Canadian culture (https://broadview.org/secularism-canada/).
Unsurprisingly, men and women who have rejected the importance of religion in their own lives are also very likely to reject the importance of religion societally, including by shunning important protections for religious liberty. We should not be surprised when the world despises the foundations of our faith and stumbles over the cross of Christ. In fact, Jesus himself promised that persecution would come. Let us fight to protect religious liberty in Canada but, failing that, let us never stop proclaiming the good news that salvation comes through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ alone.
Read More: Clare Marie Merkowsky, LifeSiteNews, “Bloc Québécois bill seeks to eliminate religious belief as a defense against ‘hate speech”
Four Edmonton Teenagers Rescued from Human Trafficking
The Story: Four teenage girls, some as young as 13-years-old, have been rescued following a months-long human trafficking investigation in Edmonton, AB.
Three perpetrators, all of whom are teenagers themselves, have been charged with 48 counts of trafficking, luring, exploitation, and making child pornography.
The perpetrators, two 19-year-olds and one 17-year-old, lured the girls over social media with promises of fancy clothes and vacations.
The significance: Just as with last week’s news of a 12-year-old boy committing suicide after being a victim of sextortion, this awful case reminds us that the internet is a far more dangerous place than any physical neighborhood.
The answer to the question “how many perpetrators are there online?” is “all of them.” As law enforcement officers beg parents to pay close attention to what their children are doing online, parents need to realize that a simple talk about online safety won’t suffice. Traffickers and exploiters work all day long to win over teenagers. In fact, they have made it their sole purpose in life. Mary Jane James of the Edmonton Sexual Assault Centre warns parents about how common these cases are: “The victims are younger and younger. And their predators are smarter and smarter. And they know what they’re doing. They know how to groom, they know how to attract it,”
Very simply, parents must put more effort into protecting their kids than the predators are putting into harming them.
Read More: Karyn Mulcahy, CTV Edmonton, 4 teens rescued from sex trafficking, 3 teens facing charges: police
House Speaker Accused of Partisanship
The Story: Newly-elected Speaker of the House of Commons Greg Fergus is facing a parliamentary committee investigation over a video appearance at the Ontario Liberal Party convention. In the video, which is taken in the Speaker’s office and using the Speaker’s regalia, Fergus offers a tribute to Ontario Liberal Party interim leader John Fraser.
Shortly afterward, Fergus flew to Washington to give a speech on his previous role as President of the Young Liberals.
Traditionally, the Speaker of the House of Commons has been expected to be the non-partisan voice of all Members of Parliament.
The Significance: When former Speaker Anthony Rota resigned after his own scandal, The Dominion Report warned that this gave an opportunity to the Liberal government to appoint a more partisan voice to a very important role. That warning was borne out sooner than expected, but not against expectations.
Greg Fergus was always a bad choice for the role not because he is partisan—all MPs are—but because he is so integrated into the internal politics of the Liberal elite that he is incapable of recognizing his own partisanship, let alone putting it aside for the sake of his role. He serves as a counter-example of the kind of man we should be investing with authority—irresponsible, unaccountable, and lacking in self-reflection.
While our democratic institutions ultimately owe their temporal authority to God, they also require the confidence of both governed citizens and governing politicians. Unfortunately, Speaker Fergus’ actions are only the latest in a long line of decision by the Trudeau Liberals which have destroyed that confidence and have caused alarmingly-wide divisions.
An honourable man would, upon seeing the damage his actions have done, beg forgiveness of the House and resign. Do not expect that of Greg Fergus.
Read More: Don Martin, CTV, “Greg Fergus risks becoming the shortest serving Speaker in our history”
Quick Hit:
Arsonists Target Alberta Churches: Late on Thursday night, arsonists in Barrhead, AB, set fire to both the St. Aidan’s Church and the Pioneer Church buildings. Pioneer Church’s building has been completely destroyed. These are the latest in a string of over 80 church buildings that have been burned or severely vandalized since the highly-publicized but unproven claim that the bodies of 215 children were found at the Kamloops Indian Residential School.
Read More: Alex Antoneshyn, CTV News, “Arsons destroy pair of rural Alberta churches: RCMP”
