Tag Archives: Canada

News

Bad news for social conservatives in Sweden and Quebec

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First, in Sweden, the socialists want to ban homeschooling.

Excerpt:

The Swedish Association for Home Education (ROHUS) is asking for support from the international community to stop an attempt by the Swedish government to outlaw homeschooling. The new legislation argues that because a child’s education should be “comprehensive and objective” it must be “designed so that all pupils can participate, regardless of what religious or philosophical” views of parents or children.

When you give the government your money, you give up the right to choose. If you keep your money, you keep your right to choose. If you think that the government should take your money and then provide you with services like health care, education, welfare, therapy, etc., then you just gave up your right to choose. You gave up your liberty for security.

I think that Christians give their money away thinking that the government will act in their own best interests. That is, that a secular government will act in the interests of Christians. Maybe Christians think that their interests lie in “helping the poor”, and that a big government is needed to do that. But when government gets that money, they will use it in ways that cannot possible be as good as you would use it yourself.

Let me be clear. If you are a Christian, and you give money to government to take care of you, then you cannot complain with a secular government bans homeschooling or outlaws voucher programs. Obama isn’t going to take your money and defend homeschooling or create voucher programs. He was elected with the help of teacher unions, who are opposed to any education provider other than government-run schools.

The time to act in your own best (Christian) interests was when you still had the money in your hand. Don’t give your money to the government because they tell you some sob story about taxing the rich and helping the poor! What they really want to do is to take your money and pay off their political donors, like abortion providers, trial lawyers and unions. They cannot possible spend the money as well as you could have spent it yourself.

Christians need to be fiscal conservatives. They need to learn economics. They need to think with their heads when voting.

Quebec schools impose same-sex parenting curriculum

Same-sex marriage activists always ask the same question, “how does allowing me to marry hurt you?”. I don’t think they are interested in an answer, but here is one answer. When the government decides that marriage is what we call a bunch of people having sex and living together, then there is no reason to prefer traditional marriage in the schools. And the curriculum will be modified to reflect that.

And this is what is happening in Quebec.

Excerpt:

The Quebec Ministry of Education has funded the development and implementation of training for primary school teachers promoting inclusiveness for families with same-sex parents, and will be implementing it in Montreal and Quebec City, reports Le Journal de Quebec.

Estimated to have cost the province between $50,000 and $80,000, the training involves a three-hour session for teachers on location, with a kit of materials including videos, brochures, and activity books for students.  According to Manon Boivin of la Coalition des familles homoparentales (the ‘Coalition of Same-Sex Families’), who is training the teachers, “It’s almost a recipe book with all the ingredients to make of our schools schools that are inclusive and more open.”

Boivin, who herself has a 5-year-old daughter and raises her with her same-sex partner, commented: “Often, in the face of homophobic insults, teachers do not know what to say….We will make an offensive to inform the schools.”

This is similar to the first story. Well meaning Christians feel that poor people should not be excluded from health care or education. So they hand the government their own money and ask government to take over health care and education. It’s “compassion” for the poor. And then the government does take over these things – but in a secular way.

The government is not going to spend your money that you gave them on things that are in keeping with your religious values. They were elected by certain groups, and they must reward those groups. If you want the freedom to teach your children what you believe, don’t vote for bigger government and higher taxes. Don’t vote for things like single-payer health care and environmental regulations.

And stop hating wealthy people and big corporations! The government is much, much worse than either of those two – the wealthy people and big corporations can’t ban you from homeschooling your kids and they can’t forcibly indoctrinate your children in views you don’t hold. Only government can do that! Think! Don’t give them your money, don’t let them take care of you. Handle it yourself!

News

Canada signs free trade deal with Panama, tracks Russian subs on east coast

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Two pieces of good news for our neighbor to the North.

First, while Obama has been embracing protectionism, Canada has signed yet another free trade deal.

CTV News reports:

Canada has signed off on a free-trade agreement with Panama, which will immediately slash tariffs on a number of Canadian exports.

Excerpt:

[…]The new agreement with Panama will cut more than 90 per cent of tariffs on various Canadian exports, including agricultural exports and high-tech machinery. Any remaining tariffs will be eliminated within 10 years under the terms of the deal.

Beef producers will also benefit, as Panama will lift a six-year-old ban on Canadian beef as part of the deal, CTV’s Roger Smith said Tuesday.

[…]Beyond reducing tariffs on export goods, the deal will help Canadian businesses gain greater access to the Panamanian market, Smith said.

[…]Panama is the eighth country to reach a trade pact with Canada in the past year. Canada has also reached trade deals with four European countries and Peru. Similar deals with Colombia and Jordan have been signed, but not implemented.

Previously, I wrote about Obama’s naive protectionism. Anti-free-trade policies (= protectionism) is the kind of policy favored by people who do not know the first thing about economics. Being anti-free-trade is right up their with being pro rent-control. We are talking about amazing levels of economic ignorance, coupled with pandering to his ignorant special interest groups.

CTV also reports that Canada’s anti-submarine warfare (ASW) aircraft detected nuclear-powered (= quiet) Russian attack submarines patroling off the east coast.

Frankly, I am surprised that Canada was able to detect Akula class SSNs by using airborne ASW aircraft. I’ve used the S-3 Viking and the P-3 Orion fixed-wing platforms before, (as well as helicopters), and this CP-140 doesn’t look much different. If I had to bet, I would bet that they got the contact on the SOSUS network and that this press release is fudging things to make the Canadian forces look more effective than they really are.

Excerpt:

It’s unclear whether Canada took the initiative to have a CP-140 Aurora patrol plane watch the vessels, or whether there was a request from the U.S. Northern Command which tracks submarines.

My guess is that this is a SOSUS contact that was delegated to the Canadians for PR purposes. I just don’t believe that you are going to get a contact cold on an Akula-class attack submarine from a fixed wing aircraft. Akulas are quiet. These are not SSBNs like a Typhoon class – they much smaller. ASW aircraft are usually brought in after a sonar contact – otherwise you’re just wasting sonobuoys looking for a needle in a haystack.

Did you guys miss the story from earlier this year about Canada chasing off Russian bear aircraft?

Events

What Christians need to do to fix the church

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I was recently notified about a speaking event that Greg Koukl is doing in Calgary (Canada), in October 2009.

Take a look at this web site set up by the organizers.

Here are the organizers:

We are a group of Evangelical Christians from a variety of different churches (we include Pentecostals, Baptists and Reformers; Greg Koukl is Reformed), who have been studying how to defend our faith. To put it another way, we’ve been learning Christian apologetics.

The need for apologetics seems greater now more than ever. From Oprah to the New Atheists like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, the Christian faith is mischaracterized and attacked. And too many times we see Christians either being unable to defend their faith or worse, embracing false ideas about the faith.

But rather than learning to answer these claims against Christianity, too few Christians seem to take their faith seriously. Many see faith as mere belief, something that may or may not be true. It is a preference not a worldview that makes sense. In doing so, many are rejecting the Christian faith for what they think it is, not for what it really is.

Furthermore, through trial and error, we’ve realized apologetics has a bad connotation, not just for nonbelievers but for believers too. Many see it as just merely head knowledge with no heart or worse, creating argument for argument’s sake.

We’re organizing these events to help introduce the Christian community in Calgary to some of the most cutting-edge Christian ideas. This kind of apologetics is geared towards helping Christians become good ambassadors for God’s Kingdom by helping them understand what the Christian worldview is and then by equipping them to clearly share that worldview with others.

Too many people are rejecting the Christian faith for what they think it is and that is a sign of failure on our part as the church. We believe strongly that it is our Christian mandate to make the gospel as clear as possible just as Paul wrote:

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh (3), for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. (4) We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ… (5)
(2 Corinthians 10:3-5)

And this is the purpose of the event:

I have to be honest with you. Though I’ve lived by the foot of the Rocky Mountains now for a few years, I’ve never been rock climbing. I’ve often thought about going, but then that old cliché comes to mind: It’s not the heights that kill you, it’s the landings!

I guess that shows the kind of faith I have in my skills as a climber and the equipment climbers use.

Of course any seasoned climber always assures people like me, how reliable their equipment is. They constantly test it, in all kinds of conditions because their lives hinge on the equipment’s reliability. They wouldn’t put their faith in that equipment unless it was trustworthy.

That’s the kind of faith Jesus talks about in the Bible. He wants us to put our trust in Him because He says our lives depend on Him.

Unfortunately, the word faith has lost much of its meaning today, particularly when it comes to religion.

People juxtapose it with reason or fact, implying that faith is somehow irrational.

People use it interchangeably with words like wishing, saying that if you simply believe hard enough, whatever you wish for, will be true for you.

And it seems there’s a growing gap between how society views what faith is, and what Jesus meant as faith.

That’s why I’m part of a group of Evangelical Christians (that include Pentecostals, Reformers, Baptists and others) who’ve informally joined together to organize a series of presentations here in Calgary under the theme, Faith Beyond Belief.

The series is meant to challenge our thinking about the Christian faith and to equip Christians to be able to explain their faith more clearly to others. The talks are not a set of lectures on the newest evangelism techniques. Neither are they going to cover new projects that Christians can do to prove to our neighbours how much we love them.

Rather, these presentations cover something more basic; they are about understanding the Christian worldview. Because no matter how important evangelism techniques and love projects are for Christians – and they are important – these need to be grounded in the right understanding of what the Christian faith is all about. Without proper Christian knowledge, we cannot do Christian work properly.

Our speaker, Greg Koukl represents a group called Stand to Reason, whose mandate is to equip Christians to understand what they believe and then to winsomely but effectively challenge society’s bad thinking about the Christian faith.

Our hope is that you attend one of these presentations and are challenged to think about what the Christian faith is all about and what it says about the world we live in.

We may never face the challenge of climbing a mountain and so we may never need to put faith in climbing equipment. But we all face the challenges of living life here on earth and that means we all need to choose what equipment we put our faith in, to face that challenge. We hope through these talks, you’ll learn what it means to have a faith beyond belief.

They are accepting donations is here.

The schedule is here.

Their official blog is here.

My thoughts

There are two things I like about this event:

  1. There is a debate, which is very good for male Christians who appreciate competition and conflict
  2. That Greg Koukl will be speaking in the main morning service, from the pulpit, about truth and apologetics

This is the best way for us to fix the church. All my Canadian and American readers, if you are looking to fund a quality event, this is a quality event that could use your support. Actually, reading over their web site just gives me the shivers. This is what we need to do. Notice that they are not focused on safe, in-house issues like Calvinism/Catholicism, the age of the earth, etc. They are talking about whether truth exists, whether God exists, whether the resurrection really happened, whether morality is real, and how to answer philosophical objections to Christian theism.

Now, I want to hear what my readers think about this. Have you guys ever done something like this in your churches? Ask your pastors and priests about this event and see what the response is. Ask them whether this is something your church might be interested in doing, too. Then let me know what they say!