.. by Mark Penninga .. My phone buzzed, alerting me to a new voicemail. I wasn’t quite prepared for the message: “Hello Mark. I am a legislator in the province of Saskatchewan, and when I came into my office today I found a Bible on my desk from ARPA...
Scott Hayward, co-founder of Right Now The pro-life group "Right Now" is out with some suggested ranked ballots for political party leadership races. In Saskatchewan, members of the governing Saskatchewan Party will be voting on January 27th to replace their retiring leader, Brad Wall, while in BC, members of the provincial Liberal Party will vote next month on a replacement for Christy Clark, who lost a provincial election last year. Right Now surveyed the contenders in both leadership races. In Saskatchewan, they ranked Ken Cheveldayoff as the candidate most in line with...
ARPA's Executive Director, Mark Penninga Bill 24 passed by a count of 42 in favour, and 23 opposed. (You can see a tally of the vote count here). The 42 who were in favour included 38 NDP members, along with some independents and others. But 16 NDP members, comprising almost a third of the governing NDP caucus, didn't show up for the vote. ARPA Executive Director Mark Penninga says it's clear the EasyMails had an impact. "We don't know if (they) had a direct impact on whether NDP MLA's actually showed...
ARPA's Director of Law and Policy, André Schutten ARPA was also involved in another EasyMail campaign earlier in November. That one involved federal politics. Parliament's Justice and Human Rights Committee held hearings on Bill C-51. That bill originally included a clause which would have repealed Section 176 of the Criminal Code; a section that expressly protects religious worship services, and those who conduct them, from assault, interference, or harassment.. For an explanation of the background to this, Lighthouse News spoke with ARPA's Director of Law and Policy, André Schutten. -------------- LN: First of all, can...
Donna Trimble Alberta residents went to the polls last week in municipal and school board elections. The group "Parents for Choice in Education" had published an online assessment of a number of public and Catholic school board candidates in advance of the election, particularly with respect to where they stood on things such as parental notification and parental rights. Executive Director Donna Trimble says they were able to list more than 200 trustees in 16 regions across Alberta in their online “vote wisely” voter’s guide, and they’re very pleased with the...
ARPA's Executive Director, Mark Penninga ARPA Canada's "Bible Project" is almost complete. The organization is sending out more than 1,200 Bibles to elected officials across the country. Those Bibles, both French and English, are being mailed to every MP, Senator, and provincial politician in Canada. The project is in commemoration of Canada's 150th birthday, and the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. ARPA Executive Director Mark Penninga says when the final touches were being put to the distribution of the Bibles, there was a very pleasant surprise from Crossway Publishers in Chicago.“They were...
Anna Nienhuis, Policy & Research Coordinator, We Need a LAW There was considerable furore on Parliament Hill last week over the appointment of a new Chair for the Status of Women Committee. By convention, the chair is always occupied by a non-government member of the Committee, and Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer had nominated his Women's Issues critic, Lethbridge MP Rachael Harder, to that position. However, when the nomination first came before the Committee, Liberal and NDP members walked out, protesting that Harder was pro-life and because of that, wasn't able to...
Donna Trimble The group Parents for Choice in Education is getting involved in the Alberta school board elections in a big way. Director Donna Trimble says they've put a questionnaire up on their website directed at all candidates running in public and Catholic school elections in the province. She says lots of other groups are being invited to review those questionnaire responses as they inform their constituents on education issues. Trimble admits even posting the questionnaire has raised some concerns in some quarters, but she says this isn't about being popular,...
Dr. David Koyzis There's a provincial election coming up in Ontario less than a year from now. Voters are due to go to the polls on June 8th, 2018, and there's a lot of turmoil in Ontario politics heading into that vote. Patrick Brown's PC Party is facing considerable internal dissension; several unsuccessful nominees are going to court, challenging the way nomination procedures have been run. Social conservatives in that province are becoming increasingly concerned with what they see as a drift by the Ontario PCs into social liberalism. That has prompted the...
Anna Nienhuis, Policy & Research Coordinator, We Need a LAW Federal Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer got a reminder last week of his commitment to allow his MPs to bring forward private members' bills on controversial conscience issues like abortion. We Need a Law researcher Anna Nienhuis had a piece published in one of Canada’s leading newspapers, the National Post. She says it was partly written to drive home the point about those private members’ bills, but it had a broader focus. "The article also wanted to focus on (the fact) that...