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12 Jul 2021 Biblical Principles for Environmental Stewardship: The Value of Creation

Posted at 12:25h in Environment 0 Comments
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Last week we examined the first principle in biblical environmental stewardship: that God, the Creator of all things, has commanded mankind to exercise fruitful stewardship over His creation. Today we look at the second principle. Principle 2: All creation is valuable, but humanity, as the image-bearers of God, is the most valuable created being. Scripture demonstrates that the whole of creation has intrinsic worth in the sight of God.[i] After each day of creation, God declared his creation to be good – day and night, land and sea and air, plants, sea...

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08 Jul 2021 God’s Care

Posted at 17:18h in Blog, Fundamental Freedoms 0 Comments
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I love Manitoba. Of course, I’m biased. I lived there for four years. My wife grew up there. Many in her family still live there. If you haven’t been, you owe it to yourself to visit. There’s more to Manitoba than skeeters, winter, and the Jets. And if you check out the Reformed Churches in the area, you’ll love the people. Friendly Manitobans. Hard-working folks with a heart for service and community. But their strong sense of community was rocked recently because of a tragic accident affecting so many families and...

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06 Jul 2021 Biblical Principles for Environmental Stewardship: The Command of Fruitful Stewardship

Posted at 12:04h in Environment 0 Comments
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Environmental issues have become centerpieces in recent elections, policy-making, and public discourse. A 2018 Angus Reid poll found that 66% of Canadians believe that climate change is primarily driven by human causes, compared to 19% of Canadians who believe that natural changes primarily drive climate change. Nine percent of Canadians think that climate change is a theory that has not yet been proven.[i] Canadians are vehemently divided on whether new oil pipelines should be built. Environmentalist crusader and Swedish teen, Greta Thunberg, was named Time’s 2019 person of the year...

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05 Jul 2021 Respectfully Submitted Palliative Care Policy Report: Executive Summary

Posted at 18:41h in Elder Care, Euthanasia 0 Comments
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Executive Summary Palliative care is holistic, person-centered care for people facing life-limiting illnesses or disabilities. Palliative care neither hastens death nor unnaturally prolongs life. Instead, it focuses on giving patients their best possible quality of life despite illness or disability. The Canadian Institute for Health Information estimates that up to 89% of Canadians could have benefitted from palliative care prior to death – almost everyone whose death was not sudden or unexpected. Despite this great need for palliative care, only 30% of Canadians who need it have access to palliative care, and...

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25 Jun 2021 What does it mean to be a good citizen? Disagreeing well… even on abortion

Posted at 11:08h in Blog, Public Theology 0 Comments
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Last week a student from my church invited me to present to her high school civics class on the question, “What does it mean to be a good citizen?” Since I work with ARPA Canada and interact often with the civil government, she thought that I would know something about – or at least have opinions on – the topic. I love giving lectures to high schools and university groups. It’s a highlight of my job. But what made this invitation a little more unique is that the school is a...

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23 Jun 2021 Unanticipated opportunities and overflowing support: reflections on a decade with ARPA Canada

Posted at 16:21h in Blog, Organizational News 0 Comments
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By André Schutten Photo: Mark Penninga, executive director of ARPA Canada, presents a plaque to André Schutten on the occasion of his 10 years with ARPA.   I started my first day with ARPA Canada as Ontario Director and Legal Counsel on June 22, 2011. My office was a single room on the upper floor of an art gallery, managed by my wife Karyn, nestled in the picturesque hills of Gatineau Park. The day before I started, I was called to the bar, officially becoming a fully licensed lawyer. One of my first...

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23 Jun 2021 Parliamentary Committee Releases Report on Pornhub

Posted at 10:24h in Gender and Sexuality 0 Comments
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The House of Commons Standing Committee on Information, Privacy, and Ethics recently studied the question of ‘Protection of Privacy and Reputation on Platforms such as Pornhub.’ The Committee released its report on June 17, and it includes many noteworthy recommendations. As we discussed in previous posts (here from Dec 17th and here from Jan 27th), the December 4, 2020 New York Times exposé on the porn industry brought a welcome level of concerned attention to the website and business model of Pornhub and the Mindgeek corporation based in Montreal. Parliament needs to address...

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22 Jun 2021 Bill C-6 (Conversion Therapy) Passes through the House of Commons

Posted at 12:14h in Gender and Sexuality 0 Comments
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For immediate release – Ottawa, ON June 22, 2021   Senate amendments needed to make conversion therapy law one that LBGTQ+, feminist, and religious groups can all support A majority of MPs voted in favour of Bill C-6 today, pushing the bill to criminalize “conversion therapy” into the Senate. No organization in Canada opposes the principle of banning coercive or tortuous therapies. However, Bill C-6 defines conversion therapy so broadly that some members of the LGBTQ+ community, religious groups, medical professionals, and feminists have spoken out against the bill, urging amendments. “We support a bill...

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21 Jun 2021 Book Review: Them Before Us

Posted at 10:36h in Blog, Family 0 Comments
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We live in a society that prioritizes choice to the extent that marriage has become whatever you want to make it. Children are subject to this redefinition of marriage and family structure and are impacted the most by the breakdown of a marriage and the biblical family. Many times, our focus is on the importance of traditional marriage for adults (and that’s a good focus). Katy Faust & Stacy Manning, in their book Them Before Us, shift focus away from adults and instead examine the impact that broken or redefined...

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18 Jun 2021 Respecting Seniors Beyond Senior’s Week

Posted at 11:25h in Blog, Elder Care 0 Comments
3 Likes

  The first week in June every year is Senior’s Week in British Columbia. As proclaimed by the province, one of the purposes of Senior’s Week is to recognize that “seniors are a diverse population within a society that supports its members throughout the life continuum, and recognizes individual rights to dignity, respect, autonomy, and choice.” This recognition is more important now than at any time since the proclamation of this week almost two decades ago. In the past 15 months, our most vulnerable seniors living in long-term care homes across the...

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