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Media bias, News

Canada's news ban one year later

It's been a year now since Meta banned Canadian news from its Facebook and Instagram platforms, in response to Canada's 2023 "Online News Act." This Act required large "digital news intermediaries" – only Google and Meta met the criteria – to compensate Canadian news outlets for news articles the social media giants shared on their platforms. Instead of paying up, Meta instead chose to stop sharing these news links.

Now, a year later, a report from the Media Ecosystem Observatory (MEO) highlights how the ban has hurt Canadian media's online presence. The report estimated that pre-ban, Canadian news outlets' social media engagement amounted to more than 19 million a day, but post ban that has dropped by 8 million or roughly 43%. It has hit local news particularly hard because many were only on Facebook, and not other platforms.

The results also include almost a third of Canadian news outlets going effectively dark on the social web, no longer posting to it. 770 outlets were posting prior to the ban, and a year later that's down by 215.

So in some pretty significant ways the Online News Act is hurting, rather than helping, Canadian news outlets.

The premise behind the Act was always flawed. It was built on the presumption that by linking to news articles, these two companies, in some way, owed the news outlets something. Google and Meta were making money off of sharing these news links, as Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram rank one, two, and three among the places Canadians turn to for their news. Being a home to these links brought more traffic, which meant more ad revenue. But Meta and Google were helping their bottom line by also helping these news outlets. Any online creator, big or small, wants their content shared – that's how we can reach further. No shares means no reads, watches, or listens. That's why companies will pay Meta and Google to share their posts – so we can reach more people. The idea of penalizing these companies for sharing links to news articles is akin to penalizing them for giving out free promotional ads.

Both Google and Meta threatened to simply stop carrying any Canadian news – if what they were doing was going to be viewed as theft, then they would stop "stealing." However, shortly before the Act came into force, Google negotiated an agreement with the Canadian government, giving it $100 million a year to be distributed as the government so decides. The Act becomes yet another medium for the Liberal government to direct dollars to the media outlets it wants to support.

Meta held firm – it would not pay – so it chose instead to stop allowing Canadian news shares on its platforms. The government backed them into a corner, and they decided to show just how helpful (and not harmful) they were to Canada's news outlets... by no longer helping them. A year later, and the point has been well made. Canadians are still turning to Facebook and Instagram for their news, but there isn't much to find. The Online News Act has effectively prevented many Canadians from being able to access Canadian news coverage.

So, will the government learn its lesson and back down? Or is the Liberal government happy with Canadians being limited in their access to Canadian news? If that first doesn't happen, it only makes the second seem quite plausible.

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News

Saturday Selections – August 3, 2024

Click on the titles below to go to the linked articles... Are memories stored in the brain? History shows that the deeper we delve into how wondrous...

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Saturday Selections – July 27, 2024

How questions can help you offer a good answer (7 min) In the New Testament, Jesus asks as many questions as he offers answers. Why? Maybe because qu...

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BC finally declares Covid emergency is over

Fired healthcare workers can now apply for work ***** Over four years after declaring a public health emergency over Covid-19, BC’s provincial hea...

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Former cop, coroner and mayor does a 180 on drug policy

News

Saturday Selections – July 20, 2024

Reagan's deeply personal argument for a Creator (10 min read / 1 min video) It was an analogy he returned to frequently, with students at an evangelism camp, and even with the leader of the Soviet Union... Syphilis is up this year. What can a godless government do? "Just as smoking a cigar is bad but puffing on a joint is OK, so spreading illnesses by being unvaccinated is evil while spreading disease through sexual indulgence is a mere technical problem." Christian nationalism is a much discussed topics these days, and while this article doesn't make the case for it, it does highlight the problem with the opposite: a godless government simply isn't able to offer the moral answer needed to stop the spread of a sickness that is caused by immoral choices. US women to be draft eligible? US men over 18 have to register for the draft so that, should a war occur, the government will have a list at the ready of fighting-age men. And now they want women to register too, pretending that women are just as capable as men of being mean, green, fighting machines. But when most women failed the required fitness standards, the problem was addressed by lowering the standards. Why does the world cling so desperately to the pretense that men and women are not simply equal, but identical in all abilities? It's because ability is their basis for equality. We don't normally treat dissimilar things the same – a kid's art is hung up on a fridge, and a Rembrandt is hung up in a museum even though both are art. So on what basis would we treat men and women – obviously dissimilar in many ways – the same? All the world's got is pretending that they are equal in all abilities...even though they are obviously not. Christians too, believe in an equality of the sexes, but we have a firm foundation for it – one that does not require us to willfully blind ourselves to reality. God made us male and female, and our worth comes not from being identical in ability, but in us all being made in God's Image (Gen. 1:27). Thus, the argument we have to offer against women in the draft is also the evangelistic one: to point people to reality as God defines it. Best predictor of happiness? Marriage More than money, location, or education, the God-given gift of marriage turns out to be the best predictor of happiness. Archeology shows the Bible was telling the truth All sorts of experts have critiqued the Bible as not being based in history. And when such a critique is first offered, it might be hard to counter it. But, eventually, the truth comes out: "a recent article in Britain’s The Daily Mail suggested that the prophets Amos and Zechariah may have had something right." Rachel Holt's heartbreaking pro-life song, "I was gonna be" This young lady's first big song had a hundred thousand hits this past month. ...

News

The attempted assassination of a President

The roles of divine providence and the human condition **** Saturday marked the end of the longest span between domestic assassination attempts of U.S. presidents and presidential candidates since President Lincoln was killed at Ford’s Theatre in 1865. President Garfield was killed in 1881; Mckinley in 1901. Attempts were made at Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, Franklin Roosevelt in 1933, and Truman in 1950. President JFK was killed in 1963 and candidate RFK in 1968. Candidate George Wallace was shot and survived in 1972, and two attempts were made at President Ford in 1975. The most recent domestic assassination attempt prior to Saturday was over forty years ago, when Ronald Reagan was shot and survived, and afterward quipped to his wife Nancy, “Honey, I forgot to duck.” While the frequency of this violent history may be surprising, it does not diminish the horrific and evil nature of Saturday’s shooting nor the tremendous loss experienced by the family of Corey Comperatore. According to the New York Times, Comperatore died when he “threw himself over his family members to shield them.” A former fire chief, Comperatore was also, according to his daughter, "he best dad a girl could ever ask for. My sister and I never needed for anything. You call, he would answer. … e could talk and make friends with anyone, which he was doing all day (at the rally) and loved every minute of it. He was a man of God, loved Jesus fiercely, and also looked after our church and our members as family." Questions abound about this attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, from the motivations of the shooter to the seemingly unfathomable reality that the 20-year-old was able to reach an elevated position with direct line-of-sight only 130 yards or so from the President. There’s also the many “what might have been” questions, about the President personally and about the nation, questions that have only shudder-inducing speculative answers. And there are the worldview questions that arise in historic moments like this, about the reality of God and the role of divine providence in national and international affairs; and about the human condition, especially the frailty of life and the moral significance of our actions. As Dr. Al Mohler helpfully articulated in The Briefing, “ife and death can come down to the matter of seconds and to a matter of a millimeter.” The former President seems to also recognize that his survival was due to that level of precision, acknowledging to the New York Post, “I’m not supposed to be here. … By luck or by God, many people are saying it’s by God I’m still here.” That it is by God and not luck, Christians know for sure (and it seems, so does the President). At the same time, this clear teaching of Scripture, that God oversees the affairs of men particularly in raising up and casting down those in power, is not easy to understand. Why would God spare the President’s life but not Mr. Comperatore? By all indications, Mr. Trump turned his head to a chart on a screen and was somehow saved. Mr. Comperatore made the decision to throw himself between his family and an assassin, and it cost him his life. How does that make any sense? “Here,” Mohler continued, “Christians understand we have nowhere to go but the Doctrine of Providence. … It is essential to our Christian understanding of the world.” God’s providence extends to every moment of human history, not just the seemingly exceptional ones. The world is never outside of His control, even when the outcome is not as we hoped. Put differently, the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 was providential for both England and Spain. The fog that enabled the Dunkirk rescue was providential for the British, the Germans, and the entire world. And yet, just as essential to the Christian understanding of the world is the moral capacity of human beings and the meaningfulness of human actions. A Hindu leader once noted to theologian and missionary Lesslie Newbigin, "I find in your Bible a unique interpretation of universal history, the history of the whole of creation and the history of the human race. And therefore, a unique interpretation of the human person as a responsible actor in history. That is unique. There is nothing else in the whole religious literature of the world to put alongside it." There is no conflict between God’s sovereignty and man’s moral responsibility. In fact, the alternatives would be far worse. If no sovereign God exists, then life and all that happens is random and meaningless, except for some preferred interpretation we choose to impose on it. If all is predetermined, either by “nature” or by some heartless deity, we have no cause to expect better behavior of ourselves or others. The meaningfulness of our actions and the constant presence and oversight of our loving Creator may be difficult to reconcile, but it is a far better scenario. Thus we can say, both truthfully and meaningfully, that God graciously spared the former President, that the shooter’s actions were evil and heinous, and that Mr. Comperatore was heroic to protect his family. We can also, truthfully and meaningfully, judge the words and the actions of ourselves, our leaders, and our press in response to this tragedy. We can act so that, by God’s grace, this kind of thing will not become normal. We can pray that, having lived through this attempt on his life, President Trump is brought to a place of gratitude to God and a sense of responsibility, rather than to a sense of entitlement. At the same time, we should pray that God’s grace and mercy covers the Comperatore family and that He will use His church to do so. We should know also that our moral actions matter as well, as citizens and voters who follow Christ. How God’s people respond to this telling and troubling political moment will either point this world to Christ or not. So, here’s a prayer for us all: O Lord, we beseech thee mercifully to receive the prayers of thy people who call upon thee, and grant that they may both perceive and know what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfill the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. If you’re a fan of Breakpoint, leave a review on your favorite podcast app. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org. This is reprinted with permission from the Colson Center. Photo credit: rblfmr/Shutterstock.com...

News

Saturday Selections – July 13, 2024

Click on the titles below for the linked articles... One thing Trump and Biden agree on: tariffs Both Trump and Biden want to protect American producers by imposing tariffs (i.e., fines) on foreign goods. Their approach would make those foreign goods more expensive for Americans. If the fine is high enough, it will also make American-made versions of those same goods look comparatively attractive.... which is then supposed to save some American jobs. While tariffs do save some local jobs, they can do so only at the expense of other local jobs. Any American company that uses a tariffed good to make their own products, will have to pay these inflated prices, which in turn will make their own products more expensive... and less competitive in the international marketplace. Thus the tariff will cost them jobs. Tariffs also help some local producers by hurting local consumers, who have to pay more now. The overall impact of tariffs, then, is to help some domestic producers... but only at the expense of other domestic producers and domestic consumers overall. That leaves us with the question: why should the government be picking winners and losers, giving advantages to some citizens at the expense of others? How the US Republicans became pro-choice This is a US article but with real relevance to Canadian voters for its explanation of "median voter theorem." As Joe Carter outlines, it is only when a block of principled voters are willing to abandon a party that they gain influence over that party. If all their voters will always vote for the slightly lesser of two evils, then that is what their party will give them. The party only takes more extreme positions to appeal to voters who won't otherwise vote for them. Southern Baptists take on IVF Last month, the US's biggest protestant denomination passed a resolution on IVF. As Albert Mohler shares: "Far too many Christians say they believe in the sanctity and dignity of human life at every stage, from fertilization to natural death, but when the issue turns to the massive ethical issues related to IVF, many evangelicals, including far too many Southern Baptists, have refused to connect the dots." Jack Phillips still won't bake the cake After 12 years of legal battles and a Supreme Court victory, a Colorado baker is being dragged to court yet again for the same supposed crime – he will not decorate cakes to celebrate depravity. John Stonestreet explains that Baker Jack Phillips won't live by lies – it would be easier to bake the cake, but he will not call good what God calls evil. So, Phillips is working out his theology of getting fired. Forget grocery store boycotts - to lower food prices end supply management instead "...regulation that restricts supply and controls imports... shields Canadian producers of milk, eggs and poultry from competition, allowing them to maintain higher prices for their products than would otherwise exist in a competitive market.... due to supply management the average Canadian household pays an estimated extra $300 to $444 annually for groceries." Don't fall for projection Projecting is a particular form of hypocrisy in which you accuse others of the sin you are guilty of. A recent example is Kamala Harris accusing Donald Trump of planning to use lawfare on his opponents. Paul has an answer to the vice president in Romans 2:1: "Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things." A recent, particularly blatant, instances of projection happens is this commercial below from Australia's Victoria State government below – they accuse a smaller woman of making a big guy in a dress feel "unsafe." The Left uses projection as a weapon to deflect, much like when one of your kids is called to account and wants to talk about what their sibling, neighbor, classmate, or even you did, rather than facing accountability for what they've done. Projection works on the soft-hearted, so it's a particularly effective tool against Christians. But there is a time and place to acknowledge your own sins, and a time when it isn't about you. When the prophets confronted God's people, they didn't do so as perfect representatives of God. Sinful though they were, they brought His Truth. So, if a homosexual accuses you of being unloving – if they are screaming it in your face, OR TYPING IT IN ALL CAPS – then now is not the time to acknowledge how you could have said things better, parsed your words more carefully or expressed the grace of God more clearly. Think like a parent, and realize that if you let their projection deflect you from expressing the truth they need to hear, you aren't doing them any good. ...

News

Saturday Selections – July 6, 2024

How social media keeps you poor (10 min) Though the two commentators here aren't Christian, the warning they offer may help us better resist social media's siren call. Spider silk might be ideal for nerve repairs Spider silk may be a great medium to regrow severed nerves in people, and that's just one of its amazing properties. If Man could make it, he would, but despite all our genius and equipment, we can't duplicate what a spider, with a brain the size of a pin, can make all on its own. Motherhood myth busting Feminists have women fearful of having children, with fertility treated more as a problem to be solved than as a gift (or if they deny God, an ability) specific to women. They look to children from a cost/benefit perspective and don't see how the pleasure derived from children can outweigh the bother. And from that self-absorbed perspective, it will be hard to enjoy any kids you might have. But, "if life has meaning beyond comfort and pleasure, then something can be difficult and worth pursuing at the same time. " Parents' guide to smartphones (10-minute read) The folks at Axis cover the highs and lows. It's a longer read but there is so much helpful material in here that this is a must-read for parents with teens. Communicating about sex in the first years of marriage "How can you have meaningful conversations about sex with your spouse? You should be sure to address wants, worries, ways, and why's..." When the government bets your house Like previous installments in this "Unintended Consequences" series, these are well-intentioned plans going wildly awry. While this is a secular presentation, the lesson being pitched is one Christians can get behind: there is an overall need for humility, because even (especially?) experts can get things really, really wrong. This humility wouldn't simply mean leaders, and the experts they follow, need to double-check their work. What it means is that our leaders and these experts need to admit to not being able to do many of the things they are currently trying to do now.... and they need to stop meddling in them. Just consider if, in the Sri Lankan case presented below, only some of the farmers had tried organic pesticides. Maybe they would have tried it as a marketing effort – get your organic rice from us! It would have been an experiment, but the farmers would have been gambling with their own land, money, and work. That's high stakes for them, but they are betting on themselves, their own smarts, and their efforts. And because it is only some farmers, win or lose, it isn't a high-stakes gamble for the whole country. If they had succeeded, they would have gotten the benefit and they would have been an example for others to learn from and copy. And if they'd failed, then others could also learn and avoid their mistake. However, when the government made the decision to ban inorganic pesticides for everyone, they were gambling with land, money, and work that wasn't theirs. And they were forcing everyone into just the one experiment. If it succeeded, wonderful, but the problem is, were it to fail, they were taking everyone down with them. That makes it a much, much higher stakes gamble. And anyone who has any humility shouldn't even think to bet someone else's house on their best guess. ...

News

New Brunswick still isn’t banning smartphones in school

News

Young men building a home for the Reformed confessions

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Saturday Selections – June 29, 2024

Click on the titles below for the linked articles... Presidential debate was between a pro-choice candidate and a pro-abortion one Two US presidents...

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"It's wrong to mutilate minors," says governor

Both Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis and Alberta’s Premier Danielle Smith have backed bans on transgender “treatments” – breast and genital ...

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Saturday Selections – June 22, 2024

What's wrong with marijuana This is the practical case against marijuana. For the Christian case, check out "Is recreational marijuana sinful?". Mothers' milk is amazing If you believe in evolution, you have to credit everything to the interaction of time and chance. That includes something you may never have considered before: the origin of mothers' milk. We know God designed moms to be specially able to care for their babies this way, so Christians shouldn't be surprised to learn that the closer we look at mothers' milk, the more amazing we find it to be. But if you think it evolved from "a glandular skin secretion in synapsids" then you might think that the human-designed substitutes available on store shelves would be the superior product. You might think that; it'd be a logical conclusion based on evolutionary presuppositions. But it ain't so. If Satan was a marriage counselor... ...he'd sound a lot like a newspaper advice column. Your family needs you (and you need them) My kids make me happy, but when they don't, can I abandon them? And what of my parents? If they become a burden or trouble to me, isn't that a reason to cut such "toxic people" out of my life? That's what the world would tell you. But as John Stonestreet explains (in this older piece), God says something very different. Baptists come out against IVF At their annual meetings last week, the US's largest protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, passed a resolution formally opposing the use of in vitro fertilization (IVF). While the majority voted for the resolution, many of the delegates opposed it, and spoke to how they believed IVF was a pro-life procedure, since it created life. But as IVF is practiced, it leads to the creation of "excess" embryos – "excess" children – that will either be destroyed (ie. killed) or frozen, which treats the child as a thing, not a human being. Some of these frozen children will then be given away via "snowflake adoptions" where the embryo is implanted in the adoptive mother's womb. But while the couples doing the adopting are rescuing these frozen children, it is still wrong for the biological parents to have engaged in a procedure that would leave them with "excess" children. Adoption is a rescue, but parents should never deliberately create a situation in which their children would need to be rescued. Homosexuals & some professing Christians redefine "love" It's been said that the opposition shares our vocabulary, but not our dictionary – they define words like marriage, hate, gender, tolerance, pride, and love very differently from how God defines them. With Pride Month in full swing, Christians need to be able to share that it isn't love to celebrate what God hates for the very same reason it isn't love to affirm anorexia – we wouldn't be doing the person any good to affirm as right the wrong they are struggling with. It's for their sake and for their good that we don't want to encourage their rebellious lifestyle. ...

Economics, News

Premier Ford calls on the feds to make EV cars more expensive

Ontario’s premier has asked the federal government to impose a 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles, which would make these cars twice as expensive as they would otherwise be. Why would Premier Doug Ford want to so strongly discourage consumers from buying these EVs? Aren’t EVs the way of the future? The premier explained he wants the tariff to protect Ontario jobs. Back in April, he announced he was gifting $2.5 billion of Ontario taxpayers’ money to induce Honda to build four EV manufacturing plants in the province. The federal government added in their own $2.5 billion in tax credits. Combined, this $5 billion would create 1,000 jobs, which works out to a cost of $5 million per job. It’s not surprising then, that the premier wants to protect these positions – they were a very expensive purchase. But why are these Chinese cars so cheap? In an interview with the Toronto Sun’s Brian Lilley, the president of Canada’s Automotive Parts Association, Flavio Volpe, raised the possibility of forced labor – slaves – sometimes being involved. That could be a reason to ban sales altogether, not simply penalize them. Another critique is that the Chinese government is heavily subsiding these vehicles. But The Hub has calculated that overall, the federal, Ontario, and Quebec governments have combined to offer $40 billion in subsidies and tax credits to our own EV industry. Or as Kiernan Green noted: “This represents 15 percent more than the companies themselves have put forward for their investments in Canada’s EV sector.” If subsidization is an unfair business practice, then shouldn’t we should stop it ourselves (Matt. 7:12)? And if it isn’t unfair, why are we complaining? There are other issues involved here: as Flavio Volpe noted, the same federal government that is subsidizing Canadian production is also involved in subsidizing foreign EV production too – the Liberals announced a program this past December that could credit EV manufacturers, both domestic and foreign, with as much as a $20,0000 credit per EV car sold. It is more complicated than that, but the short of it is, the government has gotten itself so muddled up in this market that its right hand is actively working against its left hand. Might that be evidence that it should get both hands, and its nose, out of the business sphere? Taxpayers are shouldering a heavy burden for EV cars. And now, if this tariff goes through, Canadians will be asked to shoulder even more, as less expensive Chinese competitors will be tariffed out of the marketplace. There is a broader lesson here, as this is what tariffs always do, protecting local producers at the expense of local consumers. God calls on the government to administer justice, and one of the first principles of justice is impartiality (Lev. 19:15, James 2:8). What we have happening here is an example of the government picking winners and losers, favoring EV producers over EV purchasers (and all of it done at the expensive of taxpayers). Why the one over the other? What business is it of government to show such favoritism? Picture credit: adapted from a photo by Bruce Reeve/flickr.com and used under a Creative Commons CC BY-SA 2.0 license....

News

Mortgage delinquencies up more than 20%

Increased spending and costs are catching up with Canadian households, according to the latest figures from the credit agency Equifax Canada. Mortgage debt makes up a whopping three quarters (74.4%) of total consumer debt, even though the number of new mortgages hit an all-time low in the first quarter of 2024. More than a third (37.1%) of consumers extended their mortgage amortization as the effects of increased mortgage rates began to take hold. Particularly troubling is the increase in delinquencies, i.e. missed payments. In Ontario, the balance of mortgages in “severe delinquency” – 90 or more days without payment – increased to over $1 billion, or twice the level of severe delinquency before Covid. Rebecca Oakes, VP of Advanced Analytics at Equifax Canada, explained that “mortgage stress testing,” introduced back in 2016, helped prevent even more delinquencies. This “test” gauged whether or not a borrower would still be able to handle their mortgage payments if rates were to take an unfortunate bounce upward. “ has helped to mitigate against the full effect of sustained high interest rates, but we still saw more than 34,000 consumers missing a payment on their mortgage in Q1, which is up 22.7 per cent compared to 12 months ago.” In recent years our federal government has led the charge in running massive debts, with many provincial governments following suit. Although political parties used to campaign on the promise of balanced budgets, Canadians have rewarded parties who promise increased spending and large deficits. And especially since 2020, Canadians have followed their example, racking up massive debt from both home purchases and other big expenses. A few thousand years ago, a wise teacher taught us that “the borrower is a slave of the lender” (Proverbs 22:7). Our government acts as if it is possible to incur debt and not pay for it, but we mustn’t let their example mislead us. Solomon’s ancient warning remains every bit as relevant to today, so take on debt with great caution!...

News

We aren’t alone! 1,000+ converge in Texas for courageous faith

In 1 Kings 19 we find Elijah lamenting to God that the Israelites had rejected God’s covenant and that he alone was left, and Queen Jezebel was out to kill him too. God informed Elijah that he had it wrong, and that God had reserved a throng of 7,000 others who had not bowed to Baal. I recently assembled with a couple dozen Canadians and over a thousand others in Arlington, Texas for the 2024 Colson Center national conference. Listening to the stories and seeing this throng of believers, it was very evident that God continues to preserve His people through each age, and that He also calls us to stand firm in the face of the Jezebels of our day. As I’ve shared before, the Colson Center equips Christians to apply their faith to the cultural moment where God has placed us. This particular conference was focused on equipping attendees for “courageous faith.” As the organizers explained: “Faithfulness to Christ is not possible when we capitulate to profane cultural narratives, no matter how often or loud they are repeated…. The clash between the sacred and the profane is no longer ‘out there’ and the pressure to compromise is not merely hypothetical.” Courage past and present In the opening session on “courageous citizenship,” the Colson Center’s John Stonestreet interviewed Rod Dreher, the author of the well-known book Live Not by Lies, and also Kamila Bendová, who was featured in Dreher’s book. Dr. Bendová and her family live in the Czech Republic. Along with her late husband Václav Benda, they raised six children while holding underground seminars in opposition to their communist government, all while having their home bugged. Dr. Bendová shared how she didn’t protect her children from their resistance efforts but rather involved them. Now, many decades later, she reflects that all of her children and grandchildren have remained faithful. We can learn from the past, but need to live in the present. Doctor Kristin Collier spoke about the courage to change your mind, recounting how her journey from unbelief to faith in Christ resulted in 180 degree changes to her convictions about contentious issues like abortion. God then forced her to make a choice to follow Him in her public work as well, which came at a cost. She pointed us to Deuteronomy 6:4: “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one,” noting that at the core of courage is listening to and obeying the Word of God. Reverend Calvin Robinson, a broadcaster and commentator from England who himself was cancelled for his faith, challenged participants “we are called to be cancelled for our faith. We should embrace it rather than be afraid of it.” He proceeded to outline how our spiritual enemy is trying to divide and conquer by having Christians look to each other as moral compasses rather than looking to the teachings of Christ. Other speakers bravely and compassionately shared their stories and lessons about critical theory, cultivating a healthy identity, artificial reproduction, transgenderism, palliative care, and encountering suffering, all through the lens of living faithfully for our Lord. Conference connections It is one thing to read articles, listen to podcasts, or watch videos about these matters and another to be physically present with hundreds of other followers of Christ, growing in our walk together. We don’t all get the privilege of doing that at a conference like this, but we do have the ability to gather with our brothers and sisters in church weekly, in addition to Bible studies and fellowship in our homes. Let’s not miss these opportunities to spur each other on to godliness in this present age! If it interests you, the next Colson Center national conference is scheduled for May 30 to June 1, 2025 in Louisville, Kentucky, and we heard that Reformed authors Carl Trueman and Rosaria Butterfield are both scheduled to speak there. Pro-life apologist Scott Klusendorf will also be there. You can find out more at ColsonConference.org. Although Canada isn’t blessed with a conference like this, Reformed Perspective hopes to help change this with something similar (though much smaller and simpler) in the years to come. As valuable as a magazine, podcast, newsletter, website, and apps are, there is no substitute to gathering with others to worship God together and spur each other on in our walk. Mark and Jaclyn Penninga were just a couple of the Canadians at the Colson Conference. Other Reformed Christians included Rev. and Mrs. Slomp, and RP contributor Mark Slomp and his wife Jennifer....

News

Should government try to boost fertility?

In his article, “We are not taking Canada’s fertility crisis seriously enough,” economist Tim Sargent highlights that a society with fewer coupl...

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Saturday Selections – June 15, 2024

Dr. Matthew Wielicki: I refused to stay silent about climate change (8 min) One silver lining to the COVID-related censorship that happened on social...

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Oh deer! Government paying non-Canadians to hunt

Like many Canadian regions, Sidney Island has a deer problem. The small island, not far from Victoria, BC, is home to European Fallow deer, whose grow...

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Saturday Selections – June 8, 2024

Looking deeper at tiny, extraordinary engineers Hives have been called the pinnacles of biological engineering, and we're only now learning just ho...

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Ticked-off hockey fans, and 1.4 billion other reasons to defund the CBC

The CBC got into trouble last week, when it broadcast the finale of the Eastern Conference between two American NHL teams, but not the last two games of the Western Conference Final, which featured the Edmonton Oilers as the last Canadian team standing. That got folks upset, including Conservative Party Deputy Leader Tim Uppal, who tweeted: “The Edmonton Oilers are the only Canadian team left in the playoffs. Despite receiving $1.4 billion in taxpayer dollars this year, CBC decided not to air the Oilers games. Instead, CBC aired a Just For Laughs replay. It's time to defund the CBC. #DefundCBC” It’s not just those two missed games – there are 1.4 billion other reasons the CBC should be defunded. And they’re not the only reporters the government is funding – legacy media outlets like the National Post and the Globe and Mail divvied up approximately $885 million taxpayer dollars over the course of the last 5 years. The CBC took in more than $5 billion tax dollars over that 5-year span, and also more than $2.5 billion in ad dollars. How much of that advertising revenue could online independents like the Western Standard or True North have had coming their way if they weren’t competing against these taxpayer-propped-up giants? We haven’t even gotten into the CBC’s ”Pride” pushing, abortion-affirming, and transmutilation-defending agenda. On these three fronts, and more, the CBC is opposing God Himself. Then there’s the enormous problem of the government subsidizing the very media that is supposed to hold it to account. We can be thankful that some independent outlets do still exist, and the Opposition Leader has learned how to use his YouTube channel to sidestep the media altogether to get his message out. But it shouldn't surprise us if the CBC and the now paid-for legacy media is reluctant to bite the hand that feeds them. So yes, let’s defund the CBC. And let’s do more than that. As the Fraser Institute reported in their “Federal Support for Journalism” study, the government’s attempts to support journalism haven’t even preserved journalists’ jobs. Since 2011 more media outlets have closed each year than new outlets have begun. The Liberals’ most recent “media-supporting” effort, Bill C-11, has hurt rather than helped. It was supposed to support legacy media outlets by squeezing money out of social media heavyweights like Google and Meta whenever they listed a Canadian news article. While the government did get some money from Google, Meta decided that, instead of paying, they’d simply get rid of all the Canadian news off of Facebook. That hurt Canadian news organizations, big and small, by shutting off access to their own social media audience. So the government should defund the CBC, but it shouldn’t stop there. The government needs to stop meddling in the media in every other way too. Who knows what kind of media we might get if only open, fair competition were allowed to exist....

News

Saturday Selections – June 1, 2024

If there is a common theme to this week's edition it might be government overreach. For Christians, who know God has set up different governments for different purposes – Family, Church, Civil – we understand that our elected leaders should only rule in a limited realm. But leaders who reject there is a God above them seem increasingly eager to step into His unlimited role. They want to expand their impact... but that they aren't doing so well with the areas already under their influence only underscores the importance of God's limits. Minimum wage up to $20 in California (6 min) Minimum wage laws are put in place by governments that run a deficit every year. If they can't mind their own business, why would they think they can run everyone else's (Matt. 7:3-5)? And it gets worse – as John Stossel notes below, some US minimum wage laws were originally put in place to discriminate against blacks. Raw sewage in the Thames: an actual environmental ill we can fix Some of the political leaders promising they can adjust the world's weather are having problems with more local matters – there is raw sewage hitting the Thames (Luke 16:10, Luke 19:17). "More people will die from real environmental problems than from the climate in 2050, whether it’s warmer or colder. We need to move beyond attention-grabbing headlines about distant imaginary threats and focus on actual ones." South Korea down to just 0.72 children a woman To keep its population stable, South Korea would need to triple its birth rate. Canada, in comparison, is at 1.33 children per woman (as of 2022) or about two-thirds of the 2.1 children per woman we'd need to keep our population stable. Canada was last at the 2.1 figure way back in 1971 (that so shocked me, I tripled-checked, but I think I have it right) and has masked its declining birth rate with massive levels of immigration. South Korea is not interested in that approach and is instead looking to government programs for the fix, but to this point throwing money at the problem hasn't really helped anywhere else in the world. Why not? Well, maybe it's because having kids is always a leap of faith, and the secular world is without hope. Christians are still having kids though; we have a God worthy of our faith. Another reason is the communion of saints that He provides can help lighten the load. June 1 is Dinosaur Day! Everyone loves dinosaurs, but there are some tall tales being told about them. So here are some fun facts to counter the fake news. Click on the title above for an entire chapter on dinosaurs – something for the serious reader – and for something shorter see below: Did dinosaurs fit on Noah's Ark? Is there scientific proof dinosaur fossils aren't millions of years old? Is there evidence dinosaurs died in the flood? Is there cultural evidence dinosaurs lived at the same time as Man? Yes, NBC, homosexuality is "natural" but so are... Just in time for Pride Month, NBC is broadcasting a series called "Queer Planet" to show that homosexuality exists among animals. True enough... but so does rape, slavery, necrophilia, and cannibalism, so "natural" hardly means right. As Kurt Mahlburg notes, we can aspire to act better than animals, because we are different from them, made in the very image of God. Jordan Peterson and whether euthanasia victims are drowning to death Euthanasia was sold to Canadians as a means of providing near-death patients some mercy and autonomy. But where is the mercy and autonomy for 49-year-old Roger Foley? When he admitted to medical staff that despair was driving him to have suicidal thoughts, he wasn't helped, but was encouraged in that direction. And, he says, since euthanasia has been put in place, his care has suffered. Perhaps that's because he's now seen as a patient who is stubbornly refusing "treatment." In the article linked above, Jordan Peterson is involved in a discussion about how the drugs Canadian doctors use to "mercifully" murder their patients may, effectively, cause them to die via drowning, with a paralytic drug preventing them from crying out. The neglectful care for Foley, and the possibility that euthanasia victims are dying slow drowning deaths, are both horrific. But the issue here isn't how euthanasia is being offered, or how it is being administered. (If it were, then we could be satisfied if only it were offered and administered better.) The real debate – the real battle – is over whose life is it? and who owns our life? The Christian answer to both questions is, God. He says, do not murder, even ourselves. The contrast we need to present then, is how following His ways leads to true compassion and mercy, and a culture of life, while following the culture of death, and its lies of autonomy, leads to where "even the mercy of the wicked is cruel" (Prov. 12:10b). ...

News

RP's 2025 Summer Photo Contest: Double the fun; two challenges in one!

This summer we’re doubling up on our photo contest with one challenge for the adults and a completely different one for the under 18 set. As always, the themes are meant as a springboard for your creativity and not any sort of limitation on it. So just try things, have fun, and share what you capture with all of us! Get out there and start clicking! ADULTS: People are cool. Why? Because we’re made in God’s image. We are fallen, but that Imago Dei exists still (Gen. 9:6) so we want you to capture striking images of people doing people things, because God made us special. UNDER 18: What’s your favorite _____? God has given us so much to enjoy, and we want you to find a way to share your favorites on film. A basketball nut? Then what’s the coolest basketball photo you can take? Really like bananas? I don’t know how you are going to take a dramatic banana picture, but it sure could be fun trying. Just start clicking, and see what you can do, with whatever you love. And be sure to include a line or two explain what about your favorite makes it so special. Categories: Children and youth (under 18) Adults (18+) Rules: Maximum 2 entries per person Must be an original photo, taken in the last 12 months Include a line to explain how the photo relates to the theme (max. 100 words) Provide permission to RP to publish your photo online and/or in print if selected Include the name of the photographer and photo title, and for the under 18 entries, the photographer's age. Prizes: Winner and runner-up, and a selection of other entries, for both categories will be printed in Reformed Perspective this Fall. Winner of each category will receive a $150 gift certificate from Reformed Book Services or Providence Books and Press; runner-up will receive a $75 gift certificate. Deadline: Send your photo (high-resolution) to [email protected] before Aug 1, 2025 ...

News

Saturday Selections – May 25, 2024

Click on the titles for the linked articles... Annie Wilson: Songs about Whiskey We've all heard country songs about drinking whiskey, but this one is of a very different sort. Why the best gift for your child is a brother or sister God says children are a blessing (Ps. 127:3-5), and, as this secular article shares, that blessing doesn't just extend to their parents. Is the transgender movement collapsing after the Cass Review? Parents with confused boys were sold this bill of goods: "Would you rather have a dead son or a living daughter?" This false dilemma has been exposed with the Cass Review, the world's largest overview of these surgical and chemical mutilations. The Cass Review is good news, but Jonathon Van Maren is more optimistic than I am that the transgender movement might now be collapsing. I am less so because of how the reversal came about – there is no return here to God's Truth and no submission to the reality that He made us male and female. One lie has been toppled, but the world is ready with many more (see Matt. 12:43-45). What the world needs are not more common-sense conservative commentators, but a clear Christian witness. And to turn to God's Truth, they first need to hear it, from us. Why is Canada (and the US) short of doctors? When I ask my kids why this-or-that major problem has occurred, experience has taught them that there's a likely culprit: the government. In both Canada and the US, the government has overseen a deliberate restriction of the number of positions available for medical students so our current doctor shortages can be laid squarely at their feet. The Canadian situation is described above and the US here. So what's the solution? Some might think it a matter of firing the incompetent bureaucrats and replacing them with better ones. But what human being is ever going to be smart enough to know precisely how many doctors we're going to need in 10 or 20 years' time? The problem isn't so much a lack of competence, as a failure to, in humility, acknowledge a lack of omnipotence – we shouldn't expect our government to have this sort of know-how, and they should stop pretending they possess it. Consistency matters on IVF too In the US, after Roe vs. Wade was overturned, the IVF industry was threatened, because if embryos were recognized as precious human beings, then that industry would no longer be allowed to continue their inhuman freezing and disposal of any of the embryos they produce. But with more and more people having fertility difficulties, IVF has grown in popularity such that a very confused, supposedly pro-life senator is now trying to effectively enshrine a right to IVF. But, as Rachel Roth Aldhizer writes, if we are pro-life then that logic should extend to IVF too. What Christians just don't get about LGBT folk (3 min) Rosaria Butterfield: "Being a lesbian wasn't my biggest sin. Being an unbeliever was." ...

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Media bias, News

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Saturday Selections – June 8, 2024

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Ticked-off hockey fans, and 1.4 billion other reasons to defund the CBC

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Saturday Selections – June 1, 2024

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RP's 2025 Summer Photo Contest: Double the fun; two challenges in one!

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Saturday Selections – May 25, 2024