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16 Jun 2021 New Respectfully Submitted Palliative Care Policy Report

Posted at 12:18h in Elder Care, Euthanasia 0 Comments

ARPA Canada's newest Respectfully Submitted Palliative Care Report has just been released! You can read the text of the report below or view, download, and/or print a pdf of the policy report here. When a medical team seems to have exhausted all treatment options and a terminal diagnosis is given, a physician will too often tell a patient, “I’m sorry, there is nothing more we can do for you.” The doctor then refers the patient to hospice or palliative care, which the patient enters with the mindset that nothing can or...

14 Jun 2021 The Erosion of the Family that Christians Aren’t Talking About Enough

Posted at 17:18h in Blog, Family 0 Comments

7 Likes

By Levi Minderhoud Orthodox Christians are champions of the family. And rightly so. Stretching back to the beginning of history and the creation of the world, marriage (and, by extension, the family) was the first institution that God created (Genesis 2:18, 24-25). Chronologically, the family supersedes the state, the church, and any other institution in society. For that reason, Christians often call the family the “basic unit” or “basic institution” of society. Inseparable from the concept of the family is the principle that parents have the primary responsibility to care for the...

08 Jun 2021 ARPA Submits Brief to Senate Committee on Reducing Recidivism

Posted at 16:35h in Bills and Motions, Criminal Justice 0 Comments

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Bill C-228, An Act to Establish a Federal Framework to Reduce Recidivism, has passed second reading in the Senate and is currently being discussed at the Committee on National Defence and Security. ARPA Canada recently submitted a written brief on Bill C-228 to the Committee, and we encourage you to read the submission here or at the end of this post. Bill C-228 seeks to address recidivism, or repeat offences, by people coming out of the Canadian prison system. Currently, recidivism rates are high for offenders being released from both Federal...

02 Jun 2021 Combating Human Trafficking – Bill 251 Passes in the Ontario Legislature

Posted at 18:57h in Bills and Motions, Gender and Sexuality 0 Comments

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In 2020, the Ontario government introduced its 5-year anti-human trafficking strategy, investing $307 million between 2020 and 2025 to combat this injustice. Bill 251 expands on previous anti-human trafficking efforts, giving greater support to victims of trafficking, educating Ontarians about the issue, and providing more tools for law enforcement to crack down on human trafficking. This week, Bill 251, the Combating Human Trafficking Act, passed 3rd reading in the Ontario Legislature and will soon receive Royal Assent. The bill was initially introduced by the Solicitor General of Ontario. A few weeks...

27 May 2021 Stopping Internet Sexual Exploitation (SISE) Act Introduced in Parliament

Posted at 14:26h in Bills and Motions, Gender and Sexuality 0 Comments

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Today, MP Arnold Viersen introduced the Stopping Internet Sexual Exploitation Act or the SISE Act. This private member’s bill is the next step in a long history of action on the part of MP Arnold Viersen in the face of pornography and online sexual exploitation content. He was involved in promoting and receiving unanimous consent for Motion 47 in 2016, which resulted in a committee investigation of online sexually explicit content. This piece of legislation comes amid a firestorm of activity around the organization MindGeek which profits from its online pornography...

27 May 2021 A Christian Discussion Around Daycare and Child Care – Part 3

Posted at 10:17h in Blog, Family 0 Comments

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By Levi Minderhoud & Anna Nienhuis The recent 2021 Federal Budget featured a massive commitment – $30 billion dollars over five years, not including matching investments by provinces – to subsidize child care. As ARPA Canada has not addressed child care policy in depth since our coverage of the all-day kindergarten debate over a decade ago, two staff members teamed up to provide a series of three blogs to discuss this topic. Through this three-part child care series, we hope to present some ideas and questions that will get Christians thinking...

26 May 2021 Called to Care Campaign

Posted at 13:34h in Action Items, Campaigns, Elder Care 0 Comments

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Over the past year we have been reminded of our Christian calling to care for our elders. We have also seen how this calling can be combined with political action, as long-term care is getting increasing political attention. When COVID-19 struck, long-term care homes in British Columbia were hit hard, exposing deadly flaws in how we care for seniors and bringing long-term care increasingly under public scrutiny and control. The provincial NDP and the federal NDP have issued calls for all care homes to be permanently taken over by the provincial...

26 May 2021 Supreme Court Affirms the Exclusive Jurisdiction of the Church over Doctrinal and Membership Questions

Posted at 11:57h in Fundamental Freedoms, Legal Cases 0 Comments

2 Likes

On Friday, May 21, 2021, the Supreme Court of Canada released their decision in Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church et al. v. Aga et al. The unanimous decision is a resounding victory for the authority and autonomy of the church over questions of doctrine and membership. Thank the Lord for this positive development! This case was appealed to the Supreme Court after the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled unanimously that the civil courts could adjudicate a dispute between several former members* and the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church regarding their membership status and...