The writ has dropped and election fever has been raising political temperatures for some time.
Designated lobbying groups have been busy on the internet and phones for a few months.
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A few of them have already published voters’ guide to candidates who would maintain and advance their particular causes.
But in the upcoming weeks, a point of contact of enormous and eternal significance with the electorate would be missing in election publicity affairs and glad handling — that of reliance on divine intervention.
If the word of God is to be believed, that “the authorities that exist have been established by God,” then it makes sense that the highest authority, namely God almighty, be made at least a consultant and perhaps even an appellant on behalf of the aspirants to Parliament Hill.
Honestly, I have had my candidate and party picked since even before the writ was dropped. Now, as a campaign observer, I wait on tiptoes to expedite that person’s victory, releasing my daily prayers in the process.
The Bible urges us to pray for national leaders before they arrive on Parliament Hill and take their seats. It urges us to invoke blessing upon their steps preparatory to the climb.
Notwithstanding scandals and controversies or fighting among parties on both sides of the pipeline or vaccination issues, other national spectacles, small or big, have been greatly besmirching and simply annoying.
Therefore, in the next few weeks, a bit more soul searching, before casting our ballots, might be helpful in order to check a candidate’s moral, ethical and spiritual stances.
Can Canada raise a sleeping moral majority that is waiting to be set loose? I believe it can and should. Is it time to restore spiritual values in public life?
Doing our own things and the resultant spiral of vicious degenerative cycles of brokenness in society emanate from the society’s failure to understand man’s need of God.
The right of religious people of all faiths to influence Canada’s public and political process can still slow down, if not prevent, erosion of godly ethics so essential to democracy.
Seeking God’s kingdom and his righteousness was a slogan of Jesus in his ministry on Earth.
When he spoke of the kingdom of God, Jesus was not only referring to the general sovereignty of God over nature and history, but also to that specific rule over his own people, which he himself had inaugurated and which begins in anybody’s life when he humbles himself.
It is not clear why Jesus distinguished between his kingdom and righteousness as twin, but separate, objects of priority in our godly quest.
God’s rule is a righteous rule. Therefore, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught us to hunger and thirst for righteousness, to be willing to be persecuted for it and to exhibit a righteousness greater than that of the phony law-keepers, namely the Pharisees.
The difference between the two lies in the fact that God’s kingdom exists where he is consciously acknowledged. To be in his kingdom is synonymous with enjoying his salvation.
But God’s righteousness is a wider concept than God’s kingdom. It includes individual and societal righteousness, as well.
Because God is righteous, he desires righteousness in every human community, not just in the Christian community.
For some years in recent past, Christians have been looking to politics and politicians to save Canada.
We thought that the right prime minister, the right parliament and the right Supreme Court judges would ensure that religious rights would be respected.
We saw ourselves as heirs to the Christian political tradition that fought for women’s right to vote, an end human trafficking and all-round welfare for all.
Is it time to take stock of both national politics and our spirituality, to reflect and chew the thought whether our political convictions have produced the desired results?
Things are hardly better. Social statistics are largely unchanged. Divorces are growing. More children are growing up in single parent homes or in foster care.
More and more Canadians are living in intractable poverty. Educational achievement is hardly soaring.
People of goodwill in all faith traditions can disagree about income splitting, health-care policies or the war of words to solve the Afghanistan and Middle East problems. These disagreements prevent relationships and fellowship of hearts.
The time is now to develop greater intimacy with God and follow a way to be humble in God’s sight, starting with our politicians and national leaders.
Perhaps we would be a better electorate if we eschew red hot politics in order to focus more on practising compassion.
We need to spend more time studying the Sermon on the Mount and less time scrutinizing party platforms.
And, along with that, let us keep our eyes and hearts open in preparation to choose men and women “who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom …” (Acts 6:3) — the real servants of people who elected them.
“I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgiving be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Saviour, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (1 Timothy 2:1-4, ESV, in the New Testament).
Narayan Mitra is a volunteer chaplain at Thompson Rivers University. His email address is ryanmitra225@gmail.com.
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MONTREAL – A Quebec political party has voted to support one of its members facing backlash for saying that racialized people are regularly disparaged at the provincial legislature.
Québec solidaire members adopted an emergency resolution at the party’s convention late Sunday condemning the hate directed at Haroun Bouazzi, without endorsing his comments.
Bouazzi, who represents a Montreal riding, had told a community group that he hears comments every day at the legislature that portray North African, Muslim, Black or Indigenous people as the “other,” and that paint their cultures are dangerous or inferior.
Other political parties have said Bouazzi’s remarks labelled elected officials as racists, and the co-leaders of his own party had rebuked him for his “clumsy and exaggerated” comments.
Bouazzi, who has said he never intended to describe his colleagues as racist, thanked his party for their support and for their commitment to the fight against systemic racism.
Party co-spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois said after Sunday’s closed-door debate that he considers the matter to be closed.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 18, 2024.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Democrats who control both chambers of the Virginia legislature are hoping to make good on promises made on the campaign trail, including becoming the first Southern state to expand constitutional protections for abortion access.
The House Privileges and Elections Committee advanced three proposed constitutional amendments Wednesday, including a measure to protect reproductive rights. Its members also discussed measures to repeal a now-defunct state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and ways to revise Virginia’s process to restore voting rights for people who served time for felony crimes.
“This meeting was an important next step considering the moment in history we find ourselves in,” Democratic Del. Cia Price, the committee chair, said during a news conference. “We have urgent threats to our freedoms that could impact constituents in all of the districts we serve.”
The at-times raucous meeting will pave the way for the House and Senate to take up the resolutions early next year after lawmakers tabled the measures last January. Democrats previously said the move was standard practice, given that amendments are typically introduced in odd-numbered years. But Republican Minority Leader Todd Gilbert said Wednesday the committee should not have delved into the amendments before next year’s legislative session. He said the resolutions, particularly the abortion amendment, need further vetting.
“No one who is still serving remembers it being done in this way ever,” Gilbert said after the meeting. “Certainly not for something this important. This is as big and weighty an issue as it gets.”
The Democrats’ legislative lineup comes after Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin, to the dismay of voting-rights advocates, rolled back a process to restore people’s civil rights after they completed sentences for felonies. Virginia is the only state that permanently bans anyone convicted of a felony from voting unless a governor restores their rights.
“This amendment creates a process that is bounded by transparent rules and criteria that will apply to everybody — it’s not left to the discretion of a single individual,” Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, the patron of the voting rights resolution, which passed along party lines, said at the news conference.
Though Democrats have sparred with the governor over their legislative agenda, constitutional amendments put forth by lawmakers do not require his signature, allowing the Democrat-led House and Senate to bypass Youngkin’s blessing.
Instead, the General Assembly must pass proposed amendments twice in at least two years, with a legislative election sandwiched between each statehouse session. After that, the public can vote by referendum on the issues. The cumbersome process will likely hinge upon the success of all three amendments on Democrats’ ability to preserve their edge in the House and Senate, where they hold razor-thin majorities.
It’s not the first time lawmakers have attempted to champion the three amendments. Republicans in a House subcommittee killed a constitutional amendment to restore voting rights in 2022, a year after the measure passed in a Democrat-led House. The same subcommittee also struck down legislation supporting a constitutional amendment to repeal an amendment from 2006 banning marriage equality.
On Wednesday, a bipartisan group of lawmakers voted 16-5 in favor of legislation protecting same-sex marriage, with four Republicans supporting the resolution.
“To say the least, voters enacted this (amendment) in 2006, and we have had 100,000 voters a year become of voting age since then,” said Del. Mark Sickles, who sponsored the amendment as one of the first openly gay men serving in the General Assembly. “Many people have changed their opinions of this as the years have passed.”
A constitutional amendment protecting abortion previously passed the Senate in 2023 but died in a Republican-led House. On Wednesday, the amendment passed on party lines.
If successful, the resolution proposed by House Majority Leader Charniele Herring would be part of a growing trend of reproductive rights-related ballot questions given to voters. Since 2022, 18 questions have gone before voters across the U.S., and they have sided with abortion rights advocates 14 times.
The voters have approved constitutional amendments ensuring the right to abortion until fetal viability in nine states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Ohio and Vermont. Voters also passed a right-to-abortion measure in Nevada in 2024, but it must be passed again in 2026 to be added to the state constitution.
As lawmakers debated the measure, roughly 18 members spoke. Mercedes Perkins, at 38 weeks pregnant, described the importance of women making decisions about their own bodies. Rhea Simon, another Virginia resident, anecdotally described how reproductive health care shaped her life.
Then all at once, more than 50 people lined up to speak against the abortion amendment.
“Let’s do the compassionate thing and care for mothers and all unborn children,” resident Sheila Furey said.
The audience gave a collective “Amen,” followed by a round of applause.
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Associated Press writer Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, contributed to this report.
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Olivia Diaz is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative.
NEW YORK (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump says he will nominate anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, putting him in charge of a massive agency that oversees everything from drug, vaccine and food safety to medical research and the social safety net programs Medicare and Medicaid.
“For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social site announcing the appointment. Kennedy, he said, would “Make America Great and Healthy Again!”
Kennedy, a former Democrat who ran as an independent in this year’s presidential race, abandoned his bid after striking a deal to give Trump his endorsement with a promise to have a role in health policy in the administration.
He and Trump have since become good friends, with Kennedy frequently receiving loud applause at Trump’s rallies.
The expected appointment was first reported by Politico Thursday.
A longtime vaccine skeptic, Kennedy is an attorney who has built a loyal following over several decades of people who admire his lawsuits against major pesticide and pharmaceutical companies. He has pushed for tighter regulations around the ingredients in foods.
With the Trump campaign, he worked to shore up support among young mothers in particular, with his message of making food healthier in the U.S., promising to model regulations imposed in Europe. In a nod to Trump’s original campaign slogan, he named the effort “Make America Healthy Again.”
It remains unclear how that will square with Trump’s history of deregulation of big industries, including food. Trump pushed for fewer inspections of the meat industry, for example.
Kennedy’s stance on vaccines has also made him a controversial figure among Democrats and some Republicans, raising question about his ability to get confirmed, even in a GOP-controlled Senate. Kennedy has espoused misinformation around the safety of vaccines, including pushing a totally discredited theory that childhood vaccines cause autism.
He also has said he would recommend removing fluoride from drinking water. The addition of the material has been cited as leading to improved dental health.
HHS has more than 80,000 employees across the country. It houses the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Medicare and Medicaid programs and the National Institutes of Health.
Kennedy’s anti-vaccine nonprofit group, Children’s Health Defense, currently has a lawsuit pending against a number of news organizations, among them The Associated Press, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking action to identify misinformation, including about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy took leave from the group when he announced his run for president but is listed as one of its attorneys in the lawsuit.
