News/Canada

OTTAWA - As Ottawa petitions the Supreme Court for a six-month extension to draft an assisted suicide law, Quebec has implemented its controversial euthanasia legislation pending a decision by the province’s Court of Appeal.

OTTAWA - The papal nuncio to Canada says Pope Francis is aware of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s call for the Pope to deliver an apology for past Church abuses in Canada’s Indian residential schools and is sure he “is listening with all his heart as a pastor.”

OTTAWA - The legal phase of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) on Indian residential schools is over, but the doors are now open to a new reconciliation phase, say Catholics involved in the process.

In 43 recommendations aimed at provincial and federal legislators, the Provincial-Territorial Expert Advisory Group on Physician-Assisted Dying has recommended the widest possible access to assisted suicide and very narrow exceptions for Catholic health professionals and Catholic hospitals, nursing homes and hospices.

TORONTO - A renovated four-bedroom house in Riverdale recently sold for $2.1 million. Half of 176 houses sold in the Toronto neighbourhood earlier this year went for more than $716,000. The traffic on the neighbourhood streets is backed up with high-end Mercedes, Lexuses and other exotic brands. Coffee in the neighbourhood will set you back the better part of a $5 bill.

TORONTO - Syria’s civil war has seen families pulling their children out of school as they escape the growing violence and persecution in the area. Many have not been back to school since the war started in 2012.

TORONTO - Canadian charities count on the arrival of the Christmas spirit as the final six weeks of the year account for almost half of their annual donations.

WINDSOR, ONT. - A jury found a former priest of St. Anne parish here guilty of stealing more than $170,000 from the church Dec. 10.

Rabbi Baruch Frydman-Kohl reckons it was the first kosher meal ever served in the 190-year history of Ottawa’s Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica, though it’s hard to say for sure. But the first meeting of the national Canadian Catholic-Jewish Dialogue certainly marked a new chapter in Christian-Jewish relations in Canada.

Among the first planeload of Syrian refugees to land at Toronto Pearson International Airport around 9 p.m. Dec. 10, at least one family has made it to Canada thanks to Catholic refugee sponsorship.