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Stories about religious and multicultural issues in Quebec:
Assault charge revives kirpan debate
A Sikh boy faces criminal charges alleging that he used his kirpan to threaten two classmates near a Montreal high school, reigniting the volatile debate in Quebec over whether the religious dagger is a symbol or a weapon.
Globe and Mail, September 25
New ethics-religion class draws more flak
A Drummondville couple have launched a court challenge against the provincial Education Department's new ethics and religious-culture course. The couple are asking a Quebec Superior Court justice to rule that making the course mandatory is unconstitutional. The couple argue the compulsory course, which is being taught in all grades, except Grade 9, takes away parents' free choice, said the couple's lawyer, Jean-Yves Cote. Loyola High School in Montreal has also initiated legal action after the Education Department refused a request to exempt the private boys school from teaching the course.
Montreal Gazette, September 30
Earlier: Quebec commission calls for "open secularism"
Other stories from the past week:
Convicted youth excelled at training camp
Full story of 'kids' charged in 'terror plot' emerges as guilty verdict allows publication ban to be lifted
Toronto Star, September 27
Earlier: Stories about Islam and the West
Real women
I missed my opportunity to mark the precise 25th anniversary of REAL Women of Canada, celebrated at the Chateau Laurier last weekend, owing to distraction with market meltdowns and other little things.
David Warren, Ottawa Citizen, September 28
Earlier: Stories about REAL Women's 25th anniversary
People fearful as RCMP search for killer of pastor's daughter in Edson, Alta
RCMP were urging people in a tough energy town in western Alberta not to take the law into their own hands as more than 30 Mounties scoured the region for a man who killed the 14-year-old daughter of a pastor and left her body on a trail.The slaying of Emily Stauffer in broad daylight on Saturday afternoon has filled many in the Edson area, 200 kilometres west of Edmonton, with grief and fear.
Canadian Press, September 29
Continue article >>
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Spiritualism, activism join in a noble cause
Documentary proposes that people achieve real meaning by reconciling the two forces
Vancouver Sun, October 1
Anti-abortion protester acquitted
A 60-year-old Toronto grandmother who has been arrested more than a dozen times for silently protesting in front of a Cabbagetown abortion clinic was acquitted yesterday of her latest charges. Over the past 14 years, Linda Gibbons estimates she has spent a total of about 75 months in jail. It's because she continues to violate a 1994 court order that prohibits counselling and anti-abortion outreach within 60 feet of The Scott Clinic on Gerrard Street.
National Post, October 1
Earlier: Charges against journalist dropped
You will never guess who made this awfully spiritual remark
"I do not feel that I am the product of chance, a speck of dust in the universe, but someone who was expected, prepared, prefigured. In short, a being whom only a Creator could put here; and this idea of a creating hand refers to God."
Douglas Todd, The Search, Vancouver Sun, October 2
Chaplains help troops ease fears, doubts
In an age when the military also brings psychiatrists, mental-health nurses and sociologists to the war zone, many soldiers still seem to gravitate to the spiritual counsellors who have marched alongside Canadian troops since the Boer War. As defence minister in 1993, Kim Campbell proposed doing away with the full-time chaplaincy, although the military brass argued her out of it, says Duff Crerar, a historian who has written extensively about the soldier clerics.
National Post, October 2
Research: Religious people more kind - but only on two conditions
Religious people tend to behave more ethically on condition they believe it will enhance their reputation among their group, and only when they have been freshly reminded of their belief in God, said Norenzayan.
Douglas Todd, The Search, Vancouver Sun, October 2
October 2/2007
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