Church fire on Canadian indigenous land on National Day for Truth and Reconciliation

RCMP said the September 30 fire at Alexander First Nation’s Roman Catholic church in Alberta was ‘suspicious,’ marking yet another potential attack on Catholics, particularly those of indigenous heritage.

In what seems to be yet another attack on Catholics, the Roman Catholic church on Alexander First Nation in Alberta was reduced to rubble in what police are calling a “suspicious” fire.

On September 30, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) got a call just after midnight that the local Catholic church of the Alexander First Nation was on fire. Soon after, fire crews from the Alexander First Nation, as well as neighboring communities, worked together to halt the blaze. Alexander First Nation is located in northern Alberta near the town of Morinville.

Despite an earnest effort by firefighters, the church was damaged beyond repair and is considered a total loss, police confirmed.

RCMP said in a press release that the “circumstances around this fire do appear suspicious,” and it is currently investigating the incident further.

“RCMP will be working to determine the cause of the fire,” said police.

In a Facebook post later in the day, the Alexander First Nation Fire Department Chief Wyatt Arcand said it was with great “sadness” that the First Nation’s church was lost.

“It is with great sadness that we confirm that our Nation’s church burned down last night,” wrote Arcand. “I would like to thank the Nation’s Fire Department staff, Public Works and Security and all those who assisted and continue to assist today in ensuring the fire is completely out.”

The Alexander First Nation church fire is the second church fire in less than a week. On September 28, an Anglican church in Loon Lake, Saskatchewan, was also reduced to a pile of ashes. The fires are just the two most recent in a string of church burnings and vandalism incidents which have plagued the country, particular indigenous Catholics.

Indeed, since the spring of 2021, some 112 churches, most of them Catholic, have been either burnt to the ground, vandalized or defiled across the country.

The church attacks started in earnest in 2021 when the mainstream media and federal government ran with the inflammatory and dubious claims that hundreds of children were buried and disregarded by Catholic priests and nuns who ran schools as part of the now-defunct residential schools system.

LifeSiteNews reported late last month that the Trudeau cabinet’s own data confirms there was a massive uptick in church attacks following the unproven claim that 215 “unmarked graves” were discovered at the Kamloops Residential School in British Columbia. With no bodies having been recovered, and the claims being made based off of soil disturbances found with ground-penetrating radar, Kamloops First Nation has since changed its claim of 215 graves to 200 “potential burials.” 

While the attacks have rocked Catholics as a whole, they have had a particular impact on indigenous Catholics as many of the churches targeted have been located on First Nations.

Despite the devastating impact the dubious residential school claims have had on Catholics, including indigenous Catholics, a backbencher MP from the socialist New Democratic Party (NDP) Leah Gazan wants to criminalize through legislation those who deny the system was a “genocide.”

Anyone with information about the fire but wants to remain anonymous is asked to contact the local Crime Stoppers by phone at 1‐800‐222‐8477 (TIPS), or at www.tipsubmit.com. All others can contact the Morinville RCMP at 780-939-4520.

Related Topics:#AnthonyMurdoch #LifeSiteNews AlbertaChurchFire AlexanderFirstNation ChurchFire

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MAiD

Disability groups files legal challenge against Canada’s euthanasia regime

Published on October 2, 2024

Todayville

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

‘Instead of providing the support and resources we need to live, our government is offering death,’ a coalition of disability advocacy groups said in a press release about its legal challenge to Canada’s euthanasia regime.

A coalition of Canadian disability advocacy groups have banded together to file a “Charter Challenge” against the federal government for allowing the euthanasia of people who are not terminally ill but suffer from chronic illness or disability.

The coalition said its legal challenge, which is before the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, “is about protecting the equality and human rights of all people with disabilities in Canada,” as set out in the nation’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

“Instead of providing the support and resources we need to live, our government is offering death. It’s unacceptable, and we won’t stand for it,” noted National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities (CCD) Heather Walkus in a press release for the coalition released on September 27.

The coalition is made up of the CCD, Inclusion Canada, Indigenous Disability Canada (IDC/BCANDS), DAWN Canada, and two people who were harmed by Canada’s so-called “Track 2 MAiD” allowances.

The group said it “opposes” Track 2 of Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) law, “which provides assisted suicide to people with a disability who are not dying, or whose death is not ‘reasonably foreseeable.’”

The group is claiming in its court challenge that making MAiD available to people who are not dying but may have a serious medical condition is a violation of their “fundamental rights” to liberty and security of the person.

According to Inclusion Canada’s Executive Vice-President Krista Carr, people in Canada “are dying” as a consequence of the current law.

“We are witnessing an alarming trend where people with disabilities are seeking assisted suicide due to social deprivation, poverty, and lack of essential supports,” noted Carr.

When MAiD was first legalized by the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2016 it was restricted to those whose death was considered “reasonably foreseeable.” While euthanasia is tantamount to murder and thus gravely immoral even in cases of terminal illness, as taught by the Catholic Church, the law was loosened further in 2021 with the allowance of “Track 2” cases.

In its press release, the coalition noted that “Track 2 MAiD” has resulted in “premature deaths and an increase in discrimination and stigma towards people with disabilities across the country.”

“While they are not challenging MAiD Track 1 in this case, they recognize that it too can pose significant problems for people with disabilities. Track 2 MAiD has had a direct negative impact on the lives of people with disabilities.”

The coalition, which supports “Track 1” cases, is “urging the court” to “strike down Track 2 of Canada’s MAiD law, arguing that providing assisted death solely on the basis of disability is unconstitutional.”

Despite the immorality of euthanasia in general, and the extra threat posed by Canada’s additional allowance of “Track 2” cases, euthanasia advocates continue to insist the laws be further expanded.

LifeSiteNews recently reported how the Quebec government said it will soon allow early “advance” requests for euthanasia despite it being disallowed by current federal law. If such a practice were allowed, it would mean a person in Quebec could “agree” to be killed at some point in the future, and thus would not have to give consent at the time of their actual death.

Beyond current “Track 2” cases, Trudeau’s Liberal government has even tried to expand euthanasia to those suffering solely from mental illness.

In February, after pushback from pro-life, medical, and mental health groups as well as most of Canada’s provinces, the federal government delayed the mental illness expansion until 2027.

Overall, the number of Canadians killed by lethal injection under the nation’s MAiD program since 2016 stands at close to 65,000, with an estimated 16,000 deaths in 2023 alone. Many fear that because the official statistics are manipulated the number may be even higher.

Economy

Federal government should listen to Canadians and trim the bureaucracy

Published on October 2, 2024

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Jake Fuss and Grady Munro

Under Prime Minister Trudeau the government has introduced sweeping national programs in the areas of dental care, daycare and pharmacare, increased cash transfers to some Canadians while also spending billions on corporate welfare.

Under the Trudeau government, the number of federal government employees has grown substantially, and new polling shows that many Canadians would prefer to see that number decline. This would be a step in the right direction, as the growing size of government imposes costs on Canadians with little to no evidence suggesting they’re better off because of it.

Specifically, from 2015 (the year Prime Minister Trudeau was first elected) to March 2024 (the latest month of available data), the number of federal employees grew from 257,034 to 367,772. In other words, in nine years the Trudeau government has increased the size of the federal bureaucracy by 43.1 per cent, nearly three times the rate of population growth (15.2 per cent) over that same period.

In response, many Canadians believe the government should begin cutting back. According a recent poll, when made aware of this increase, nearly half (47 per cent) of respondents said the federal government should start reducing the number of employees while only 7 per cent said the government should hire more.

The growth of the federal public service is part of the Trudeau government’s approach to governance, which has been to increase Ottawa’s involvement in the economy and day-to-day lives of Canadians. Under Prime Minister Trudeau the government has introduced sweeping national programs in the areas of dental care, daycare and pharmacare, increased cash transfers to some Canadians while also spending billions on corporate welfare.

In other words, the Trudeau government has vastly increased the size of government in Canada.

One way to understand the size of government is to measure government spending as a share of the overall economy (GDP), which shows the extent to which economic activity is directly or indirectly controlled by government activities. From 2014/15 to 2024/25, total federal spending (as a share of GDP) will increase from 14.1 per cent to a projected 17.9 per cent—meaning federal bureaucrats now control a larger share of economic activity than they did before the Trudeau government came to power.

Of course, Canadian taxpayers ultimately foot the bill for a larger federal government, and 86 per cent of middle-income Canadians now pay higher taxes than in 2015. Yet for all this increased spending and taxation, it’s unclear Canadians are better off.

In fact, inflation-adjusted GDP per person (a broad measure of living standards) has been in a historic decline since mid-2019, and as of the second quarter of 2024 it sat below the level it was at the end of 2014. And recent polling shows that 74 per cent of respondents feel the average Canadian family is overtaxed, while 44 per cent feel they receive “poor” or “very poor” value from government services.

Clearly, the federal government should break from the status quo and take a different approach focused on smaller and smarter government. A good first step would be to listen to Canadians and trim the number of bureaucrats.