Andrew Coyne: Stephen Harper’s long overdue talk about Canada’s pension crisis

Courtesy of: nationalpost

At last, the hidden agenda, and not a moment too soon. Vague, indirect and overseas as it was, Stephen Harper’s Davos speech was perilously close to a vision statement, of a kind the prime minister has seldom made until now, and will henceforth have to make often.

It would be nice if he had shared with us his concerns about the ageing of the population, and the threat it poses to our long-run social and economic health, sometime before the last election, rather than joining in the all-party consensus that there was nothing wrong with Canada that could not be fixed with more and richer promises to the elderly.

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Let's deep-six 'family values'- Shocking Article

Some days, honestly, I feel like a feminist version of Rip Van Winkle (Wrinkle?) or maybe it’s Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, waking up in a world that would have once been unthinkable after so many battles fought and won for contraception on demand, reproductive freedom, women’s equality and gay rights.

Why hang Ian Thomson for the ‘crime’ of protecting himself?

Just when was Ian Thomson guilty of unsafe storage of a firearm? Mr. Thomson is the Port Colborne, Ont., man currently standing trial in a Welland, Ont. courtroom after he and his home were attacked by firebombers in August, 2010. (That’s correct, in the topsy-turvy world of Canadian criminal justice, Mr. Thomson and his home were the ones attacked and yet he is the one on trial.)

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Gay divorce first, religious freedom a distant second

One thing the “great gay divorce crisis of January 2012” has shown is that our government can move fast when it feels the need to get something important done. The same-sex marriage debacle lasted all of about three days and ended Friday with the government assuring all gay couples who married here, but do not reside here, that not only is their marriage valid but they could come here anytime to enjoy the weather, curling and get a divorce.

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Expand burka ban, says Muslim group

TORONTO - A Muslim group is urging Canada’s immigration minister to extend his recent burka ban beyond the citizenship courts.

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MPs have ‘duty’ to debate rights of unborn, backbench Tory argues

Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth has restated his interest in examining the point at which a person becomes a human being, saying he will decide in February how to open that discussion in Parliament.

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Too controversial to question

Texas passed a law imposing informed consent on women seeking abortions. In future, women there will have a sonogram, with the heartbeat audible and the image of the fetus visible to them. They will also hear a description of how the unborn baby would develop. It is quite likely that many of them will think twice about aborting, and will consider other options.

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Attempts to fire up abortion debate in Canada fizzle

Anyone paying attention over the past few weeks would have spotted the most unlikely of Canadian events: a debate over abortion.

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