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By Lloyd Mackey
 CHRISTIAN Info Canada and Ezra Levant.
These items, seemingly unrelated, all have something in common. They both have a significant connection to one Canadian city, Calgary, but have both past and future possibilities in shaping faith and life across Canada. - Christian Info Canada moved into its third era, having become, as of January 1, 2008, the charity under which The Word Guild operates.
- Ezra Levant, the publisher of the online Western Standard is a part of the continuing story about whether human rights commissions have the right to adjudicate what appears in magazines and newspapers.
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The first item, on Christian Info Canada, has received a relatively small amount of publicity, but could be a pretty important factor in the encouragement and development of Christian writers and authors. And, for this particular journalist/author, it marks a subtle but significant shift in the nature of vocation.
The best way to get the story is to read the Word document linked here.
My intention, for the next few paragraphs, is to briefly trace the three eras of Christian Info Canada.
CIC is a federally-incorporated registered charity begun in 1976, a vision of Lois Bromley and her sister, Elsa. Lois operated a Christian information centre and service for close to 20 years, in Calgary. Elsa, for several years of that time, was a board member.
Always innovative, Lois was an excellent networker. The evangelical Christian community in Calgary, particularly that part interested in Christian mission and international development, is the richer for her having been there. She moved to British Columbia in the '90s, married and has been involved in a number of mission-oriented projects since then. (Her married name is Hammond.)
In 1982, a group of Vancouver area people (including yours truly) became interested in doing some kind of Christian communication in British Columbia. We received permission from the Calgary group to use the name of Christian Info in British Columbia. The result was the incorporating of a provincially-chartered charity called Christian Info Society. CIS has grown to encompass an extensive group of publications, the best known of which is BC Christian News, as well as a highly informative website, CanadianChristianity.com. Among its weekly features is OttawaWatch.
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In the early '90s, Christian Info in Calgary wound done and, a few years later, was revived, moved to Ottawa (along with the Mackeys) and used to start Christian News Ottawa. As CNO developed, it was rolled over into another charity, the Fellowship for Print Witness, which had been publishing the highly-regarded ChristianWeek, a national Christian newspaper, for some years. It became ChristianCurrent Ottawa. After my retirement from active Christian newspaper editing and development, CC O rolled in together with ChristianCurrent Golden Triangle to become ChristianWeek Ontario. It now has a distribution of 35,000 in eastern and southwestern Ontario, as well as in the "905 belt" around Toronto.
After my semi-retirement, CIC was used to help support the OttawaWatch ministry, which is what you are reading now.
OttawaWatch will continue, as long as God grants me health, the ability to write and to analyze the faith/political interface in Ottawa and, by extension, throughout Canada.
The Word Guild leaders have kindly agreed to grant charitable receipts coming out of the OttawaWatch effort.
But the potential, now, for Christian Info Canada, is to develop and encourage many Canadian Christian authors and writers, through The Word Guild. Most people who know about TWG are aware of its Christian writing conference each June in Guelph.
So I would encourage people who want to stay acquainted with TWG and CIC, to watch both TheWordGuild.com and OttawaWatch, at CanadianChristianity.com.
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As for Ezra Levant, let me refer you to Wednesday's Calgary Herald and the excerpt there of Levant's eloquent statement before the Alberta Human Rights Commission, where he defends a free press and free speech from what he and many other journalists -- including many Christians -- believe to be an onslaught of human rights pseudo-judicial bureaucrats.
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Lloyd Mackey is a member of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery in Ottawa and author of Stephen Harper: The Case for Collaborative Governance (ECW Press, 2006). He can be reached at lmackey@canadianchristianity.com.
January 17/2008
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