Weekly Update: to

by | March 23, 2019

Here’s your Canadian Atheist Weekly Update for to .

  • [] Three senior members of the council that regulates Ontario chiropractors have made anti-vaccination statements

    Chiropractic in and of itself is pseudoscientific quackery, and quacks tend to flock together, so vaccine denial is rampant among chiropractors. What’s most frustrating about these guys is that despite being flagrantly and blatantly anti-vaxs, and being confronted with the evidence to prove it, they deny that they are. That’s the way the game is played these days – they’re not “anti-vaxx”, they’re just “concerned”, and they just want people to “make their own choices”.

  • [] Canada’s Social Spending is Still Among the Lowest in the Industrialized World

    This is depressing information. Arguably, the reason Canada has done so well compared to the US was due to our social spending. But if this is where we are now, we could be looking at serious repercussions in the future. It seems unlikely that there will be any reversal of this trend in the near future either.

  • [] Hamilton priest suspended over allegations he had sexual relationship with a minor in Portugal

    Wow, there’s a lot in here. It doesn’t seem like Antunes will face any real justice, because Portugal has a baffling law that child rapes have to be reported within six months of turning 18.

  • [] Convicted Cornwall priest charged with 2 historic sex assaults

    Well this is a bit of a blast from the past, in more ways than one. One of the things that led up to breaking the Catholic sex abuse scandal into the mainstream was the Cornwall Inquiry, and Project Truth, which started in the mid-1990s Deslaurier was apparently one of the clergy involved in that decade-plus-long investigation. But these are new charges.

  • [] Ontarians trust doctors, academics — but not religious leaders — when it comes to sex-ed

    So after scrapping the modern sex ed curriculum to satisfy his social conservative backers, the Ford government has pretty much reinstated the whole things. Oh, sure, they’ve jiggered it a bit, shifting around when certain concepts get introduced (which has been criticized by the experts, but I feel that goes without say when talking about any decisions of the Ford government these days). But all that time, money, and confusion appears to have been all for nothing.

  • [] Crucifix in Montreal council chambers coming down, executive committee says

    One of the most common criticisms of the Québec government’s so-called “secularism” is that they seem to very keen on targeting religious minorities, while giving Christianity, and Catholicism in particular, a free pass. The most obvious example of that is that while insisting on removing “religious symbols” from elementary school teachers, they’re keeping a giant crucifix up in the National Assembly. Once again, Montréal is calling out the provincial government’s hypocrisy. Well done, in any case.

  • [] MRU cancels speech by ex-Muslim-turned-atheist in light of New Zealand terror attack

    I’m having a really hard time mustering up any outrage for this story. In the first place, Navabi isn’t hate-spewing bigot… but he’s not exactly the most nuanced or thoughtful critic of Islam either. On top of that, a talk about how Islam can’t be reformed less than a week after an islamophobic massacre seems… untimely.

  • [] Most Albertans believe assisted dying should be allowed at all public hospitals: poll

    I am astounded at how clear and decisive public opinion is on this issue, especially in comparison to the waffling of the government. As the infographic shows, 80% support requiring all publicly-funded hospitals to allow assisted dying… but 47%, almost half, strongly support it. Even when asked specifically if a hospital should be allowed to refuse assisted dying requests if the hospital is religious, only 23% said yes. Even more amazing is that even among Catholics76% say all publicly-funded hospitals should be required to allow assisted dying. Every demographic group supports such a requirement. The lowest levels of support come from Protestants and people who support the UCP, but they’re still up there at around 2⁄3.

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