Two-tier medicine that puts the rich at the head of the line for everything from cancer therapy to hip replacements and legislation that would make cheap and easy euthanasia more readily available than quality palliative care are issues the Catholic Health Association hopes voters will question before they cast their ballots Oct. 14.

Jesuit Father Jim Profit is hopeful that political debate in Canada has begun to take notice of the state of the ecology. "Ultimately if the Earth doesn't survive the rest of us won't survive either. It's a key issue," said the director of the Jesuit Collaborative for Ecology, Forestry and Agriculture in Guelph.

It probably comes as no surprise to many Catholics that Nicole Charbonneau Barron, is running in the Montreal riding of St. Bruno-St. Hubert for the Conservatives. Charbonneau Barron is a member of Opus Dei, and the personnel prelature to the pope is generally associated with conservative, right wing politics.

{mosimage}Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte, archbishop of Montreal, is returning his Order of Canada to protest the decision to honour Dr. Henry Morgantaler with Canada's highest civilian award.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's promise to get Canadian troops out of Afghanistan at the end of 2011 is good, but not good enough for Catholics for Peace – Toronto.

{mosimage}TORONTO - With 97 Canadian soldiers dead and many more injured, a record year for attacks on development workers and mounting evidence that NATO is losing the war in Afghanistan some might have expected the war to be a major issue in the Canadian election campaign.

"It's not an issue because the Liberals gave the issue away when they voted for the Conservative extension to 2011, so there's no difference really between the Conservative and the Liberal position on this," said left-leaning Rideau Institute defence analyst Stephen Staples.

{mosimage}TORONTO - The Make Poverty History coalition of more than 1,000 individuals, churches, unions and organizations complains that the Conservative Party is missing in action on poverty issues.

Make Poverty History managed to get four of the five national party leaders to answer specific questions on poverty reduction leading up to the Oct. 14 federal election. The video of those interviews is available at www.makepovertyhistory.ca/ontherecord .

OTTAWA — People who think poverty is an election issue are getting their chance with a five party debate in Ottawa Oct. 6.

{mosimage}The Social Investment Organization grades the Liberals and the Conservatives with a D and an F on the issue of transparency for investors in Canada's stock markets.

The SIO gives top marks to the Greens and Bloc Quebecois and places the NDP in the middle. The Greens rate an A+, the Bloc a B+ and the NDP a B-.

{mosimage}TORONTO - The church doesn’t have a mission. Christ’s mission has a church. For 90 years the Scarboro Missions have been convinced the mission comes first.

At 10 a.m., Nov. 9, at the mission society’s main chapel, 2685 Kingston Rd. in Scarborough, Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins will lead a Mass of thanksgiving for the 90 years Scarboros have been serving Christ’s mission. The missionaries will give thanks for the likes of Scarboro founder Msgr. John Fraser, first North American priest to take on missionary work in China, and Fr. Art MacKinnon, killed in the Dominican Republic in 1965 for standing up against arbitrary arrest and torture of young men in his parish.