News/Canada

On any given day more than 160,000 Canadians over 18 are in jail, though only 38,000 of them have been convicted of a crime. Despite a decline in crime rates, the rate at which Canadians are jailed rose by five per cent between 2001 and 2011, according to Statistics Canada.

OTTAWA - Nova Scotia’s Antigonish diocese plans a series of public encounters to reach out to sexual abuse victims and those hurt by a former bishop’s child porn conviction.

OTTAWA - Documents from the Mulroney era prior to the last attempt to pass a federal law restricting abortion reveal a deep divide in the Conservative cabinet, says Canadian Press.

OTTAWA - With the Conservative Party aiming to take a hard line with unions, a number of Catholic voices are speaking out, both pro and con.

MEXICO CITY - Archbishop Terrence Prendergast of Ottawa, Ont., recalled once having a parish that needed a new furnace and was considering hiring a youth pastor. The parishioners raised $90,000 in three weeks for the furnace, but failed to find funds for the youth pastor, figuring there were few young people to serve.

TORONTO - In a crowded church basement, surrounded by boxes of emergency supplies donated and packed by parishioners, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced a quadrupling of Canada’s aid to the typhoon stricken Philippines.

Toronto - The love we have for one another is hope and peace in this dark hour, says Cardinal Thomas Collins at a packed mass for the victims of Typhoon Haiyan at Our Lady of the Assumption parish, a hub for many Filipino Catholics.

TORONTO - While pleased the federal government has committed to clearing up the backlog of permanent residency applications through its Live-in Caregiver Program, Faye Arellano is waiting to see the results before she begins to jump with joy.

With the legalization of buying and selling sex soon to be decided at Canada’s Supreme Court, a new documentary is taking Canadians to places where prostitution and sexual exploitation are either flourishing or dying off and asks why this is the case.

As of Friday morning, Nov. 15,  Canada’s Catholic aid agency had raised over a quarter million dollars in emergency relief for the typhoon stricken Philippines.