Tag Archives: Canada

News

Female judge strikes down laws prohibiting prostitution

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Here’s the news story from the National Post.

Excerpt:

In her decision released Tuesday, Justice Susan Himel concluded that prohibiting sex-trade workers from operating a common bawdy house, living off the avails of prostitution and communicating for the purposes of prostitution, violate the Charter of Rights.

“I have found that the law as it stands, is currently contributing to the danger faced by prostitutes,” Judge Himel wrote in a 131-page ruling.

The three sections of the Criminal Code ruled unconstitutional, “force prostitutes to choose between their liberty interest and their right to security of the person,” she said.

The long-awaited decision stems from a constitutional challenge initiated last year by three women involved in the sex trade.

“It is important to state at the outset what this case is not about: The court has not been called upon to decide whether or not there is a constitutional right to sell sex or to decide which policy model regarding prostitution is better,” Judge Himel said. “Rather, it is the court’s task to decide the merits of this particular legal challenge, which is whether certain provisions of the Criminal Code are in violation of the Charter.”

[…]“We want to be good citizens and now we can,” said Valerie Scott, executive director of the Sex Professionals of Canada and one of the three women in the constitutional challenge.

I think I understand women fairly well, and I think that what was going through Susan Himel’s head was something like this: “if I make this legal, then women who do this sort of thing will feel a lot better about it, because no one will judge them since it’s legal”.

Barbara Kay weighs in here.

I read one feminist web site that called Ms. Himel’s decision “Excellent News”, but I didn’t want to link to them. I would say that legalized prostitution is consistent with feminism’s promotion of non-marital sex as a way of eliminating the unequal gender roles inherent in marriage.

News

Colombia’s war on terrorism and Chile’s war on poverty

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Map of South America
Map of South America

A magnificent column about Colombia’s war on FARC.

Excerpt:

When Juan Manuel Santos came into office as Colombia’s president and emphasized economic issues over the fight against terrorist guerrillas, he was suspected of going soft on those he had combated as minister of defense under the previous administration. Little did his critics know that he was planning the “coup de grace” against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

The devastating Sept. 22 attack on FARC headquarters in Colombia’s central Meta province all but signifies the end of the five-decade-old conflict. It will take a little while for the official end to be declared, but this war is pretty much over.

[…]For decades, politicians, academics, human rights activists and journalists on both sides of the Atlantic failed to see that there was nothing romantic, “bien-pensant” or Robin Hoodesque about an organization that killed, maimed, kidnapped and extorted for a totalitarian objective.

Colombia’s solitude was such that even the U.S. began to lose faith in its ally a couple of years ago, refusing to approve a free-trade agreement that Bogota had negotiated at a major political cost.

Colombians did not give up and continued to reclaim territory for civilian rule. Much like the defeat of Venezuela’s Cuba-inspired terrorist guerrillas in the 1960s, Colombia’s victory against FARC is the result of civilians awakening to the evil of totalitarian terror.

We get to hear about spectacular military feats, but how many outside Colombia realize that peasants, factory workers, teachers, students and others joined the struggle to defeat FARC, beautifully symbolized by the hundreds of thousands who took to the streets inside Colombia and around the world in 2008 to clamor for the end of terror?

There are still many challenges ahead. The lesson in courage and perseverance that Colombians have given us suggests they are ready to meet them.

I wish that we could sign a free trade deal with them like Canada’s conservative government. Canada is led by a conservative business-friendly economist, and they are very supportive of capitalist democracies like Colombia. Stephen Harper is Canada’s prime minister. He has economics degrees from the University of Calgary. Like Santos, he is very, very tough on terrorism – favoring increased defense spending to protect Canadian interests abroad. And guess what? Canada also has a free trade agreement with another South American country – Chile.

And Chile is also doing very well, even after the massive earthquake.

Excerpt:

Chile’s peso rose to a 27-month high after a report showed the country’s industrial growth accelerated to the fastest since 2006.

The peso appreciated 0.2 percent to 485.23 per U.S. dollar at 11:43 a.m. New York time, from 486.17 yesterday. The currency touched 483.61, the strongest since June 11, 2008. The peso has risen 13 percent during the quarter and 3.6 percent this month.

Chile’s economy is accelerating after the fifth-largest earthquake in a century struck in February, delaying its recovery from a 2009 recession.

“Retail sales grew and industrial production was better than expected,” said Roberto Melzi, a strategist at Barclays Capital in New York.

Retail sales expanded 13 percent in August from a year earlier, and industrial output grew 6.9 percent, the National Statistics Institute said in Santiago. That’s the most since January 2006. Industrial production shrank 17 percent after the 8.8-magnitude Feb. 27 earthquake and its accompanying tsunami, which caused damage worth more than a sixth of Chile’s gross domestic product.

Chile and Colombia are my two favorite South American countries. Both are led by conservative business-friendly economists. Chile’s president Sebastián Piñerahas a Masters and a Ph.D in economics from Harvard, and is successful in the private sector. The Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos specializes in business and economics, with graduate degrees from Harvard and the London School of Economics.

Events

Do not miss Dr. Craig Evans events in Calgary starting Friday

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The Faith Beyond Belief team is doing a series of events in Calgary featuring Canadian historical Jesus scholar Craig Evans. Evans specializes in the historical reliability of the New Testament documents.

Who is Craig Evans?

New Testament scholar, Craig Evans, is the Payzant Distinguished Professor of New Testament at Acadia Divinity College of Acadia University, in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada. A graduate of Claremont McKenna College, he received his M.Div. from Western Baptist Seminary in Portland, Oregon, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Biblical Studies from Claremont Graduate University in southern California. A well-known evangelical scholar throughout the world, he is an elected member of the prestigious SNTS, a society dedicated to New Testament studies.

After teaching one year at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, Evans taught at Trinity Western University in British Columbia for twenty-one years, where he directed the graduate program in Biblical Studies and founded the Dead Sea Scrolls Institute. He was also a Visiting Fellow at Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, New Jersey.

Author and editor of more than sixty books, including a feature in Lee Strobel’s the Case for the Real Jesus, and hundreds of articles and reviews, Professor Evans has given lectures at Cambridge, Oxford, Yale, the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa and the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, among others. He also regularly lectures and gives talks at popular conferences and retreats on the Jesus, Archaeology, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible.

Along with countless interviews on radio networks across Canada and the US, Evans has been seen on Dateline NBC, CBC, CTV, Day of Discovery, and many documentaries aired on BBC, The Discovery Channel, History Channel, History Television and others. He also has served as a consultant for the National Geographic Society.

To find out more about Dr.Evans, please visit his website.

The event schedule is here.

Event schedule

Dr. Craig Evans will be speaking at the following Calgary* events. Except where otherwise noted, the talks are free of charge.

To RSVP for any of these events, please email info@faithbeyondbelief.ca or call (403) 689-5890.

Friday, September 24th, 2010

Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospel

Pastor’s breakfast
Full Gospel Tabernacle
9 am – 11 am

The New Testament: Reliable, Relevant and Redemptive

A talk for Christian post-secondary students & faculty
Rocky Mountain College, Chapel
1 pm – 3 pm

4039 Brentwood Road NW, Calgary, Alberta T2L 1L1
rockymountaincollege.ca

Is the Bible Reliable History?: A Discussion

An interactive forum (talk followed by Q&A); open to the public
University of Calgary, Room KNB 132
5:45 pm – 9 pm

Co-sponsored by the Freethinkers of the University of Calgary

2500 University Dr NW, Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4
ucalgary.ca

Saturday, September 25th, 2010

The Origins of Christianity & the Importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls

Also includes a talk from our special guest, Dr. Craig Hazen (founder of the M.A. Program in Christian Apologetics at Biola University)

Public seminar, $20 at the door ($10 for students) – cash only
Full Gospel Tabernacle
9 am – 5 pm

Why We Trust the Bible

A youth event
Full Gospel Tabernacle
7 pm – 10 pm

Sunday, September 26th, 2010

The Crux of Christianity: Evidence for the Resurrection

Sunday service
Full Gospel Tabernacle
10 am – 12 pm

Where is this happening?

* Note: All events will be held at the Full Gospel Tabernacle, unless otherwise indicated. A free-will offering will be taken at events at this venue only.

Full Gospel Tabernacle
155 Falconridge Cres NE, Calgary, Alberta T3J 1Z9
fullgospeltabernacle.org

If you would like to donate to Faith Beyond Belief, and you should, you can donate at the Faith Beyond Belief web site. The Faith Beyond Belief team informs me that they could really use your support, and please tell them that WK (me) sent you.

Craig Evans is first-rate scholar who is respected across the ideological spectrum. He has been doing stuff with John Ankerberg, participating in debates with John Dominic Crossan, and debating against Bart Ehrman. Canadians should be thrilled to get someone of his caliber in their country. The fact that the organizers have not neglected to schedule academic outreach events is significant. Calgary is the best city in Canada, and located next to the Rocky Mountains.

If you can’t attend the events, but want to learn more about Craig Evans, try this: