Prince George RCMP Urge Parents to Discuss Sextortion After 12-year-old’s Suicide
The Story: The Prince George RCMP are urging parents to talk to their children about the prevalence of sextortion after a 12-year-old boy committed suicide in Prince George, BC.
Sextortion is an increasingly common crime that takes place when a person is contacted online by someone using a fake profile who, through either coercion or enticement, convinces the victim to send sexually explicit photos or videos. Once they have succeeded, the perpetrator blackmails the victim for money or additional sexual content. Generally in these cases, the majority of which involve young men, victims are pressured to produce large sums of money under threat that the sexually explicit content will be sent to friends and family. In some cases, the young men will respond by taking their own lives.
In the case of 12-year-old Carson Cleland, police estimate that the time from first contact with the perpetrator to the moment Carson despairingly took his own life was a mere twelve hours.
The Significance: Carson Cleland was a precious child who was hunted, manipulated, and ultimately killed due to the greed and evil intentions of an online perpetrator.
Stories like Carson’s are horrifically common and there is no correlation between so-called “good kids from good families” and children who are safe from sextortion. The internet is filled with evil men and women who want to exploit children like Carson—including your own children.
This tragic story should sober Christian parents who hope that simply teaching good morality will keep their children safe. The truth is that our kids are going up against predatory adults, with every intention to manipulate and emotionally abuse our children. And, with the advent of smartphones, they have full, often unfiltered, access to our children.
Before we ever give our kids the keys to the car we warn and train them about drunk drivers and speeding. Christian parents, as all parents today should, must be willing to have conversations about online extortion and all the dangers of the internet before we ever let our children near a digital device. This includes making sure our kids understand that they can tell us if something like this happens to them and that we will love them no matter what. The digital burden of our times can not rest on their shoulders alone.
Jesus said, “which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead?” (Luke 11:11). And yet stories like Carson’s remind us that everytime we hand our children a cell phone connected to the full internet, we are handing them the digital version of a snake.
Read More: Jonathan Bradley, Western Standard, “Prince George RCMP urge parents to talk about sextortion”
Additional Resources for parents: Protect Young eyes
Poll: Majority of Canadians Want to Deport Hamas Supporters
The Story: A recent Leger poll has found that three in four Canadians believe that non-permanent residents should not be allowed to stay in Canada if they promote hatred toward a minority group or support a terrorist organization. This includes a large majority of both white and non-white respondents. Only 9% believe terrorist sympathizers should be allowed to stay.
The poll also shows growing distrust of “diversity” and “decolonization,” and growing support for free speech on university campuses.
The Significance: Few would seriously argue that Canada is more united today than it was a decade ago. While Liberals would lay all the blame on racists and racists would lay all the blame on immigrants, the truth is that no society can possibly function for long without a unifying set of principles guided by a coherent worldview.
For Canada, that worldview has traditionally been that of Christianity. Even the Charter of Rights begins by declaring, “Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God.” However, these principles have been the subject of Prime Minister Trudeau’s attack on Canada’s identity—an attack he launched with the claim that Canada could be “the first postnational state.”
Canadians—both old and new—are waking up to the difficulties of living together without uniting principles. An coherent alternative worldview—one that is about more than low taxes—must be presented, or Canada may end up becoming a postnational post-state.
Read More: Tristan Hopper, The National Post, “Majority want to deport Hamas supporters, question benefits of ‘diversity’ amid Gaza protests: poll”
Some Israeli Hostages Released as Hamas War Continues
The Story: The release of 105 hostages led to a temporary pause in the Israel-Hamas War. The hostages, who have now returned to Israel after almost two months in Hamas captivity, have described stories of repeated death threats, regular beatings, and meager food rations. Several children have reported that they were forced to watch videos of the killings of their families. Others were kept in attics or basements for the duration of their captivity. On Friday, Hamas resumed operations by firing rockets at Israeli cities and carried out a terrorist attack at a Jerusalem bus stop, killing three civilians. At least 147 hostages remain in captivity.
The Significance: As we rejoice over the release of some of the hostages, we should also mourn the continued captivity of many others who remain within Hamas’s deadly grasp. Despite their continued captivity, some politicians are calling for a permanent “ceasefire” that would stop the fighting without a resolution to the cause of the War itself. However, a ceasefire without Hamas’s surrender and the release of every Israeli hostage would only embolden the terrorists to rebuild and reattack.
Hamas uses civilians as human shields and has demonstrated no regard for the dignity of any human life—Israeli or Palestinian. Their stated goal is to eliminate the people of Israel “from the River to the Sea”—an open assault on the right of the Jewish people to exist. As a result, Israel has justly returned fire, killing many terrorists in the process.
However, the tragic reality is that civilians are also dying as a result of Israel’s counter-invasion in Gaza. Because of this, some are going to believe that Israel is guilty of severe moral atrocities. Unlike Hamas’s brutal assault on innocent civilians, however, these deaths are a tragic, yet indirect, result of targeting Hamas militants.
Historic Christian teaching on the requirements of just war indicate that an army’s activities during war must be proportionate, non-discriminatory, and non-abusive. In other words, an army must restrict its activities to legitimate military objectives, must not intentionally target civilians, and must refrain from committing immoral acts during the invasion.
By targeting Hamas rather than Palestinian civilians, Israel’s counter-invasion has painstakingly sought to fulfill these requirements, even as Hamas has attempted to force their own people into harm’s way. As a result, we should abandon a “both-sides-ism” approach to this conflict that falsely equates Hamas’s initial invasion with Israel’s counter-invasion.
Finally, we should remember that the death of any human being is a tragic reminder of sin and its effects. Let us pray for the destruction of Hamas, the full end of this war, the repentance of sinners, and the protection of God’s precious image bearers on both sides of the Gazan border.
Read More: The Associate Press Irregular meals, benches as beds. As hostages return to Israel, details of captivity begin to emerge
Google, Federal Government Reach Deal to End Canadian News Blackout
The Story: On Friday, Google and the Federal Government struck a deal to end Google’s threatened boycott of Canadian news on their platform. The deal concerns Bill C-18, which requires tech giants to compensate Canadian media for links shared on their platforms, and includes a $100 million payout from Google that will be disbursed to approved media companies.
The Liberal Government has also increased the rebate for government-approved news rooms to $30,000. A Department of Heritage report also considered whether some payments should increase to $45,000 and include direct payments to some reporters.
The Significance: The Federal Government has continued to bail out Canada’s faltering mainstream media industry using billions of taxpayers dollars. In so doing, they have destroyed the only thing that makes journalism possible: credibility.
Simply put, newsrooms that rely on Government bailouts to stay in business will fail to cover that Government objectively. Furthermore, the mainstream media’s lack of credibility makes it easier for unreliable media sources to gain false credibility by simply reporting contradictory facts without having earned any trust themselves.
Christians in Canada should wisely consider which media sources to trust by carefully considering individual stories. We should also ensure that a steady diet of Bible reading accompanies our media consumption, understanding that error will be much easier to identify if we are closely acquainted with the truth.
Read More: Michael Geist Salvaging Bill C-18: Government Upends Legislation To Bring Google Onside the Online News Act
Alberta UCP Votes Against NDP Motion to Fund Contraception
The Story: Alberta’s UCP Government has defeated an NDP motion calling on the Government of Alberta to provide free contraception across the province. NDP MLA Brooks Arcand-Paul, speaking in favour of the motion, cited the need to protect access to contraception for “folks with uteruses.”
The motion would have covered a wide variety of contraception, including abortifacient contraceptives that work to kill already-conceived children.
The Significance: While “folks with uteruses” is an absurd phrase, it’s made possible by the same contraceptive mindset Arcand-Paul defends in his speech.
Halfway through the last century, the introduction of The Pill seemingly allowed what had never before been possible: sexual pleasure without procreation. As a result, the practical benefits of “waiting until marriage” disappeared and the rates of premarital and extramarital sexual activity skyrocketed.
However, the new drug had limitations and its promise of consequence-free sex required a backstop. This necessitated the legalization of abortion: a procedure that would eliminate any “unplanned” child who could threaten “free love” and re-necessitate the supposed chains of marriage.
As men and women became disconnected from their natural parental roles, however, the very idea of biological distinctions between men and women began to fade. If men are not designed to be fathers, there is no need for them to fulfill their masculine role as provider-protector. Likewise, women no longer need to embrace their feminine responsibilities as nurturer-caretaker.
Traditional roles became nothing more than “social constructs” and biology became a mere barrier to personal self-expression. Thus, some men decided to become “women” and women decided to become “men”—completely unattached from both reality and the natural complementarity of God’s design for their bodies. Thus, the phrase “folks with uteruses” became possible.
Although Christians may differ on the moral permissibility of contraception, we must acknowledge that our culture’s sinful abandonment of procreation in favour of unrestrained pleasure has destroyed several moral pillars of our society, including marriage and the family.
God gave both Adam and Noah a procreative mandate. Over the last century, that mandate has been abandoned in the Western World. Perhaps God’s people, motivated by love of neighbour, growth of the church, and joy over children, will once again heed God’s call to be fruitful and multiply.
Read More: Elie Cantin-Nantel, X, “https://twitter.com/elie_mcn/status/1729323937295643014”
Ontario Teacher Wins Initial Victory in Suit Over Children’s Books
The Story: An Ontario judge has ruled against an attempt to dismiss a defamation case against the Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB) and its former chair, Scott Piatkowski. Now-retired teacher Carolyn Burjoski is suing the Board after she was expelled from a meeting for expressing concern about school library books that she stated may make gender transition seem “cool”. Piatkowski claimed her comments were transphobic and ejected her from the meeting, leading to the defamation suit.
“What happened here should not happen in a democratic society,” read the ruling from Presiding Justice James Ramsay, “The Human Rights Code does not prohibit public discussion of issues related to transgenderism or minors and transgenderism. It does not prohibit public discussion of anything.” The case is ongoing.
The Significance: The first principle of natural law, as expressed by Thomas Aquinas, is that “good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided.” This natural law, which is affirmed in Romans 1, is so deeply imprinted on the human conscience that those seeking to contradict it must do so by suppressing the truth in unrighteousness (Rom. 1:18) and avoiding contradictory voices, lest their arguments crumble in the light of God’s truth.
Modern gender ideology is so obviously evil that courage, and not rhetorical greatness, is the key to undoing its cultural control. We should be grateful to both Carolyn Burjoski and Justice James Ramsay for displaying such courage.
Read More: National Post, “Court victory for teacher silenced for transgender-book criticism”
A Truth To Consider