{mosimage}Remember 1989, when all politicians in the House of Commons voted in favour of “eliminating poverty among Canadian children by the year 2000”? Surely the politicians would rather forget, because today — seven years after that deadline — poverty is alive and well among Canadian children.

{mosimage}The Reasonable Accommodation Commission hearings in Quebec have been described by some observers as a “horror show” or “circus” demonstrating some of the more xenophobic aspects of Quebecois culture. For that, however, they should be lauded rather than condemned. They have done all Canadians a favour.

{mosimage}Since 2002, Remembrance Days have taken on a special poignancy. The memories of loved ones fallen in battle are no longer from the distant past. Today, they include those who have died in Afghanistan.

{mosimage}The Speech from the Throne, read with pomp and ceremony by the Governor General of Canada, is supposed to represent a vision of hope and ambition for the entire nation. In fact, this is just what Stephen Harper’s Conservative government promised in its Oct. 16 address to Parliament. Unfortunately, this vision appears myopic and stunted, a thing focused less on building a grand nation than winning the next election.

{mosimage}On Oct. 10, Ontario brought a bruising provincial election campaign to a close. On Oct. 11, Ontario Catholics faced the beginning of what could be an even more wounding battle over the very existence of their publicly funded schools.

{mosimage}In many of his homilies and speeches since coming to Toronto, Archbishop Thomas Collins has returned time and again to the theme of joy. It is an attribute implicit to being Christian, yet it is all too rare in practice.

{mosimage}Prime Minister Stephen Harper was in a rather indecent rush recently to turn the $14-billion federal surplus from last year into a $725-million tax cut for all Canadians. Granted, we’d all love an extra $30 or so to go shopping at the mall, but before we accept this as a fait accompli, shouldn’t we at least talk about it.

{mosimage}In the middle of a highly emotional public debate over religious education, a new report has just been released by the Institute for Catholic Education on the current sense of how concerned Ontario Catholics feel about their publicly funded separate school system. The political context gives this report a necessary urgency.

{mosimage}Just as Canadians were waking up to discover that for the first time in history married couples were in the minority earlier this month, they were also reminded of what they had lost. The words came from Pope Benedict XVI, and they were the epitome of common sense.

{mosimage}Clashes between religion and politics are breaking out all over these days. Those predictions a generation ago that religion would die quietly in a new enlightened secular age appear to be the only thing to have passed to the Great Beyond. Religion is hale and hearty by comparison, though it is appearing in situations that are causing people of faith to squirm.