Family

26 Jun 2018 Important Update: Bill 24 Injunction Ruling Expected This Week

(Lighthouse News - June 26, 2018): A ruling is expected by the end of this week in the first round of a court battle over Alberta's Bill 24. That is the bill that mandates every school to institute gay-straight alliance (GSA) clubs on request from any student, and to hide information about students from their parents, along with a threat of denying funding or accreditation if they don’t comply. A coalition of parents, Christian schools (including the Reformed schools in the province), and others are taking the Alberta government to court...

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12 Jun 2018 There are some things money shouldn’t buy, like babies

by Nick Suk (ARPA intern) Children are gifts from God, not products to procure or commodities to purchase. Procreation should take place within marriage, not through the deliberate fracturing of natural relationships. This biblical foundation is violated when a third party becomes part of the procreation process, either as a genetic parent (gamete seller or donor) or as a surrogate mother. These are live issues in Canada today. MP Anthony Housefather has tabled Bill C-404 to decriminalize commercial surrogacy and the sale of gametes. The intent of the bill is to increase the...

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30 May 2018 New bill would allow commercialization of human reproduction

Take Action: Send an EasyMail letter to share your concerns with your MP Bill C-404, “An Act to amend the Assisted Human Reproduction Act”, was introduced yesterday by Liberal MP Anthony Housefather. If the bill passes, it will decriminalize commercial surrogacy and the sale of human gametes (sperm and eggs). This will allow women to enter commercial contracts to bear children for others in exchange for money. It will also allow paying people for their eggs or sperm. The bill is short and simple and would do nothing to regulate these practices, except to specify that gamete...

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29 May 2018 Canadians losing respect for marriage

A new survey shows Canadians are less and less convinced of the value of marriage as an institution in society. The Angus Reid Institute poll  of more than 15-hundred Canadians shows more than half of them don't think it's necessary for couples to tie the knot if they want to spend the rest of their lives together, and one in six participants said they're not interested in mariage at all. Researcher Peter Jon Mitchell at the Cardus Institute says this is a worrisome trend. “Canadians seem largely unaware of the benefits...

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15 May 2018 Another win for Canadian Christians who want to adopt children out of state care

By Lighthouse News There is more hope for Christians who want to adopt children. Alberta’s Ministry of Children’s Services has reversed an earlier decision which rejected an adoption application by an evangelical Christian couple because of their religious views, specifically their position on sexuality and gender identity. The Edmonton couple – who haven’t been publicly identified – had applied for a judicial review of the rejection last year. Now, rather than seeing the case through to court, the government has backed away and reversed its earlier refusal of the adoption request. Lawyer John Carpay...

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11 May 2018 How Canadian: government forces an apology but ignores the substance of the issue

by André Schutten Members of Parliament voted overwhelmingly (269 to 10) in favour of a motion calling on Canada’s Roman Catholic bishops to request the pope visit Canada to apologize for the Church’s role in the residential schools. The residential school system was deeply flawed and perpetrated much evil against vulnerable children. It separated indigenous children from their parents without the families’ consent, violating the family unit with the force of law. The Roman Catholic Church and other denominations were willing cooperators with the government in running this school system. Nevertheless, this call...

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11 Apr 2018 Alberta bill blocking info on student activities from parents will be challenged in court

by Lighthouse News The Alberta government is facing a lawsuit over Bill 24. That’s the law - passed late last year - which expressly forbids school teachers, principals, or other school employees from telling parents about whether their own children join so-called "gay-straight alliance clubs". The government claimed at the time that the prohibition is about “protecting children from abusive parents”. But now, a group of 24 religious schools, eight parents and a pair of non-profit groups have launched a constitutional challenge of the law. The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms announced...

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07 Mar 2018 Children’s Aid Society can’t force Christian foster parents to affirm truth of the Easter bunny, judge rules

In a classic case of truth being stranger than fiction, an Ontario judge has ruled that it’s not okay for a government agency to force foster parents to lie to their foster children, especially if the lie involves a basic betrayal of religious views. The case, Derek and Frances Baars v. Children’s Aid Society of Hamilton, involved a couple who had two young foster children taken away from them in April of 2017 because they refused to tell the children that the Easter Bunny was real. In a 62-page ruling handed down...

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10 Jan 2018 Child Services Loves Santa Claus: A Canadian Cultural Experience

by Colin Postma Magic was in the air last month – sleigh bells ringing, fires crackling, snow glistening and all that – if you believe the songs on mind-numbing repeat in every store. It’s the Canadian experience of Christmas: dragging yourself through shopping lists, falling asleep at the wheel while waiting for the traffic jams to clear out, and being jolted awake with the horrid realization you forgot to get anything good for Aunt Gertrude. Amidst all the wonder and merriment of this ‘essential Canadian cultural experience’, a case proceeded in a Hamilton...

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12 Dec 2017 Day care availability

Andrea Mrozek, Program Director - Cardus Family Cardus Families is out with a new report on day care vacancy rates in British Columbia. There’s a narrative in BC that says there's a “crisis in day care” because of a lack of available spaces, but Cardus Families Director Andrea Mrozek says statistics from the government don't actually bear that out. “The data shows that there are vacancies, and that those vacancy (rates) can get up to 50% depending on where you are in the province.” During the provincial election campaign in BC earlier...

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