TORONTO - Opponents of Bill-13 lost the debate over gay-straight alliances because they seemed either fearful or contemptuous of the word gay in presentations at committee, said NDP and Liberal legislators during debate at final reading of the Accepting Schools Act.

“We know that homophobia is real. The committee hearings proved it is real,” said NDP MP Cheri DiNovo.

VICTORIA, B.C. - A team of Western pro-lifers has begun a month-long trek to Ottawa in what the group is calling the New Abortion Caravan.

“Our journey will begin with how the opposition began (in 1970) — with a caravan,” said Stephanie Gray, the executive director of Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform (CCBR). “They did graphic, bloody dramatizations of illegal abortions. We will demonstrate with graphic, bloody images showing the reality of all abortions.”

Gray understands that CCBR’s tactics may cause controversy, but notes the graphic images are necessary to focus discussion on what actually happens in an abortion.

“The pictures of abortion are shocking because abortion is shocking,” she said.

“The images are disturbing because killing a child is a disturbing thing.”

The caravan launched on May 29 from the Vancouver Art Gallery amid shouts of protest from pro-abortionists. It is a project of the Calgary-based CCBR. 

In 1970, a group of woman gathered outside the Vancouver Art Gallery to begin its Abortion Caravan — a touring protest demanding unrestricted access to free abortions on demand in Canada.

The group made its way from Vancouver to Ottawa, where it burned then prime minister Pierre Trudeau in effigy and dumped a coffin full of coat-hangers at his Sussex Drive residence. 

Eighteen years later, the Supreme Court repealed all restrictions on abortion.

The CCBR has turned the tables and will retrace the 1970 caravan by travelling through British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario before reaching Ottawa on Canada Day weekend.

The tour kicked off with a rendition of O Canada by Vancouver Canucks’ anthem singer Mark Donnelly. He said the event was for all Canadians and hoped it would spark a national debate on abortion. As he sang, protesters chanted: “This isn’t a Canadian issue.”

“We have taken the sacred cow of Canada’s abortion rights movement and are using it to advance the cause for pre-born children,” said Gray.

“Last year, we announced our new EndtheKilling plan to eradicate abortion from our country in our lifetime. We have given ourselves an 18-year deadline to achieve justice for the pre-born.”

Many of CCBR’s staff were born after Canada’s abortion laws were struck down and see themselves as a part of a survivor generation.

“Too many of our peers have died and now the young people of Canada are standing up to lead the New Abortion Caravan,” said Lauren Kyfiuk, a CCBR summer intern.

“It’s our responsibility as survivors to speak out for those who have been killed and to be a voice for the voiceless.”

The group will engage the cities they tour using a variety of mediums. Young pro-lifers will drive trucks with large posters of aborted children on the outside, while other staff will demonstrate on street corners holding large signs with similar images. CCBR will circulate graphic postcards at peoples’ homes and will engage the public through debates and presentations.

“We must bring that which is done in darkness into the light and confront the culture with the graphic reality of abortion,” said Kyfiuk. “We must have the courage to tell the truth in love if we aim to EndtheKilling in our lifetime.”

After several stops in British Columbia, the tour was to visit Edmonton, Saskatoon and Regina from June 6-9, and then stop in Brandon, Man. June 12 and Winnipeg June 13, before making these Ontario stops: Thunder Bay June 16, Sudbury June 20, Brampton June 21, London June 25, Toronto June 28 and Ottawa July 2. For more information visit: www.unmaskingchoice.ca.

(With files from the B.C. Catholic)

TORONTO - Heavy rain that wreaked havoc on Toronto May 31 wasn’t enough to deter thousands from lining up outside St. Maria Goretti Church for a chance to spend 30 seconds with a relic of the parish’s patron saint.

“The church was jammed from the beginning to the end,” said pastor Fr. Edwin Galea. “We expected a good level of interest but we were fairly overwhelmed by the extent of interest. It was far beyond our imagination.”

TORONTO - Former Rogers Sportsnet host Damian Goddard is accustomed to talking into a camera. But with the lights temporarily shut off on his TV career he is looking forward to telling his story to a live audience.

Goddard will be a featured speaker at the Toronto Pro-Life Forum 2012 to be held June 15-16 at Hotel Novotel in Toronto.

Goddard was fired by Sportsnet, part of Rogers Media, in May 2011 after he tweeted support for hockey agent Todd Reynolds’s position against gay marriage. Rogers says the firing was unrelated to Goddard’s tweet. A year later, still seeking fulltime employment in the broadcast industry, Goddard stands behind his words.

OTTAWA - A call by an influential Saudi sheikh to destroy all churches on the Arabian Peninsula has led the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Human Rights Committee to voice its concern to the government of Saudi Arabia.

In a May 30 letter to Saudi Ambassador Osamah Al Sanosi Ahmad, Bishop François Lapierre, chairman of the CCCB’s Human Rights Committee, referred to a March 12 statement by Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah, who said: “only one religion,” Islam, “should exist in the Arabian Peninsula” and thus “it is necessary to destroy all churches in the region.”

OTTAWA - A looming humanitarian crisis in West Africa’s drought-ravaged Sahel region has prompted Canada’s Catholic bishops to join forces with the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace in an appeal for donations.

D&P executive director Michael Casey called the growing food shortages “a major crisis,” but one that has received little to no media attention.  

“The needs are extensive and will only increase,” he said.

THUNDER BAY, ONT. - St. Peter’s parish, in the city’s east end, has become an around-the-clock emergency help centre for hundreds of local residents affected by flooding in this northern Ontario city.

“We have one of the only dry basements in this area,” said Fr. Terry Sawchuk, pastor of the parish. “We are providing help 24/7, and we will provide it for as long as it’s necessary.”

An estimated 600 people packed a downtown Toronto square on May 31 before marching to Queen's Park to protest the Ontario Liberal government's Bill 13.

"We are here to make a very public statement against the absolutely totalitarian legislation called Bill 13," said Jack Fonseca of Campaign Life Catholics. "Dalton McGuinty has set before us a choice between liberty and tyranny. It's requiring the Catholic Church to violate its religious beliefs in many respects."

The bitter history of Canada's attempt to wipe out aboriginal culture through a system of Church-run schools has come to Canada's largest and most invisible Native community — and it's biggest city.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada is meeting with 600 delegates, including about 100 residential school survivors, in downtown Toronto at a May 31 to June 2 community-organized event called The Meeting Place, a name that freely translates the Mohawk word ktaronto, which eventually became the name of the city. There are about 80,000 aboriginal Canadians — Metis, Indian and Inuit — living in Toronto.

OTTAWA - The head of the London-based World Community for Christian Meditation, Benedictine monk Fr. Laurence Freeman OSB,  was made an Officer of the Order of Canada May 25.

Freeman was recognized for “a lifetime of achievement and merit of a high degree, especially in service to Canada or to humanity at large” as an “an internationally recognized spiritual leader and proponent of peace and interfaith dialogue and understanding.”

Freeman said he was “astounded” and “honored” to be named, but he said he would receive the award “on behalf of the Canadian Christian meditation community.”