There is a war going on!
You are possibly thinking – the one in the Ukraine. If not Ukraine, then the one being waged in Ethiopia … South Sudan … Yemen … or possibly Syria. None of these are the war I have in mind, though for sure, there is ample evidence of brutality aimed at children living in conflict zones. If you can believe the UNHRC (lots of times I don’t), one report indicates that while 90% of war casualties are citizens, over 50% of those affected are children below the age of eighteen. So, I am not really thinking bombs and bullets here, but destructive weapons far more subtle and ruinous.
Most reading here will know of the war taking place against women and mothers. To illustrate, Sociology is an Art’s degree – not a science degree. You would never guess that at times. In a field that is less tangible, more theoretical and rife with biased interpretative agendas, the left-leaning social engineers that populate our universities like to blow unscientific smoke … advocating for modish nonsense like pregnant males and talk about ‘birthing persons’. (1) The actual science says that there are the same numbers of genders as there are sides to a coin and the average Canadian secretly already knows men do not give birth. They say little however because they are afraid of being targeted. The preponderance of scientific evidence shows that social gender engineering is a fraud and comically absurd – but it does not appear to matter; certainly not to those in the Humanities. But I digress!
Some folks need to put down their bongs and start thinking normal!
The war I have in mind here is by a determined, secular, cultic-like machine that has our children and grandchildren in its crosshairs in this country. You can accuse me of hyperbole if you wish – but the danger is real and hardly poetic. Listen to our new intellectuals with their mainstream ‘enlightened’ talking points and they will tell us that the educated mind needs to be more spacious … less confined … more embracive … less inclined to historical (but false) social constructs … more charitable … more woke, and ‘Yes’, more ‘progressive’.
This war on our children is a war of ideas … ideologies … and conflicting world views. As this ideological push succeeds (for surely it will), society will release on itself a pandora’s box mixed with physical and emotional curses that will resist any attempt to re-confine them. After the chickens come home to roost, regrettably these so-called intelligentsia who currently populate the airwaves and print, like snowflakes in a Canadian blizzard, will be nowhere to be found, judged or called to account for their stupidity and absurdly damaging woke ideas.
The Scriptures view children as valued. Psalm 127:3 reminds us, “Children are a gift from the LORD; babies are a reward.” Secular activists see children as a means to an end, manipulating the innocent, leveraging their innocence and using them as props to further their adult, political agenda. ‘The View’, a show run by shallow adults, recently had a Halloween Special, dressing children in politically charged costumes to press their narrow ideological rants. Under Barbara Walters (1997) the ‘show’ to champion women’s voices had a valued place. Years later it is stupefying to me that it still remains on the air as a reflection of women’s collective voices. It is a pathetic reminder on why mainstream media is failing the public.
Elsewhere, Extinction-Rebellion (XR) hysteria knows no bounds – as its website trumpets “Social and ecological collapse” and “Mass extinction” happening as I reach for a cold one, a Coke. What makes it particularly egregious to me is using a 6-year-old child to push their political agenda at their climate change rallies. I mean, should this child really be told she is going to die? My, what fine parents she has.
The Scriptures see children as vulnerable, in need of protection and training. When the disciples tried to turn children away, Jesus was ‘indignant’ (Mark 10:14) for their actions. In Matthew 18, He issued a dire warning that “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, would be better for him to have a great milestone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea” (v. 6), so “See that you do not despise one of these little ones” (v. 10). Indeed, children are of great value.
Social engineers see our children as social experiments to do with them as their theories fancy and likewise ‘protect’ them from wrong-thinking parents. Using children like lab rats, they argue they know better than parents when it comes to matters like gender identity, gender expression, medically assisted suicide, and CRT, to name but a few. More about these shortly.
The 2011 documentary, “Powerful as God – The Children’s Aid Societies of Ontario,” is an eye-opener every parent should watch.
Child Services and You
Bill 89 – is now law in Ontario. It is a child protection bill whose purpose is to regulate Children’s Aid Societies, adoption, foster care and children. Though it comes with some positive changes, there are sufficient negative ones as to cause legitimate parental concern.
Now the government has always had the power to remove children from parents – especially when abuse, conflict, and mental health issues might put a child at risk. To suggest otherwise is nonsense! Still, in Ontario, the government is quick to say that they cannot take a child away from their parent. While technically, this is true, it is also familiar government wordsmithing where every word should be parsed carefully … because in this case the government’s surrogate, the Children’s Aid Society (CAS) certainly can take your child. As recent as this past January 2023 an Alberta judge ruled that the death of four-year-old Serenity in 2014 was the result of her being taken away from her mother by Children’s Services. In the words of Judge Renee Cochard, "What led up to her death started the day she was removed from the care of her mother.” We should not flippantly dismiss the power the CAS has over parental rights.
While the CAS does operate with a certain degree of autonomy [which can lead to an imbalance in the application of child service across the province] … it is hardly free of government influence and the government ‘Minister’ has extensive power and leverage [without having to consult the legislature] – as even a casual read of Bill 89 demonstrates. “Yes”, I have read the Bill.
Bill 89 is divided in four Schedules and expands the list of ‘rights’ for consideration in child welfare cases. Schedule 1 which enacts a harmless sounding “Supporting Children, Youth and Families Acts, 2017, is anything but harmless. It reads in Part (Section 74).
To recognize that services to children and young persons should be provided in a manner that respects . . . a child’s or young person’s race, ancestry, place of origin, colour, ethnic origin, citizenship, family diversity, disability, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression.” [BTW – this above list has never been part of this law]
“Bill 89 has extended the trans-affirming mandate into the family – the foster family, the adoptive family,
and every family.”
ARPA Canada [Association for Reformed Political Action].
Now, these Ontario Human Rights Code antidiscrimination provisions above were only intended to apply to employers and service providers – but in a slight-of-hand, move, Bill 89 signals a seismic shift towards now intervening in family affairs as well. To use a metaphor here, much of the iceberg is below the surface. Further, with religion now subsumed under the term “creed” it remains to be seen whether those staffing these agencies and boards are honest brokers or just political appointments, with religious bias.
Review Section 74(2a-o) of Bill 89 – especially 2f when you have a moment. The act does not specifically mention gender identity or expression, but the substance is sufficiently broad as to accommodate any manner of ‘factors’. A child’s protection ‘from parents’ who might not accept their child’s gender identity or expression would merely be one such possibility. Think I’m kidding? Read on!
QP Briefing is a political newsletter publication in Toronto that monitors political activity at Queen’s Park and throughout the province – covering everything imaginable. Listen to what QP Briefing reported about Michael Coteau, the current Minister of Children and Youth Services and Bill 89 sponsor and his thinking on the matter:
“Coteau said … that it could be abuse for an LGBT teen to be told their identity is wrong and they should change. ‘I would consider that a form of abuse, when a child identities one way and a caregiver is saying no, you need to do this differently … a child can be removed from that environment and placed in protection where the abuse stops.’”
There is more. Theresa Stevens is The Executive Director of the Association of Native Children and Family Services Agencies in Ontario. While giving testimony about Bill 89 to the Justice Committee, April 6, 2017, she omnisciently asked:
“Holding the child welfare system more accountable on the surface looks like a good thing, but … it is not balanced. It gives too much power to the minister …. How will we ensure that the appointments to our agencies and boards are non-partisan and not just political appointments who support the party line?”
Yes, precisely how will we ensure…? Obviously, we can’t … and in most cases we never will know – Plain and Simple!
At its basic level, Bill 89 does not single out believers specifically, but there is cause for genuine alarm among parents, especially those Christian, who do not accept today’s latest culturally acceptable views on gender identity. For sure, we should not make this a battle between non-Christians and Christians. Still, we should have a very healthy caution for the power of law, because as we have recently seen in this post-covid environment, Canadian law can and has been weaponized against those with alternative views, Christians certainly included.
With gender ideology now embedded into Child Services, if you are hoping to be a foster or adoptive parent but reject today’s modern ideologies on sex and gender, your climb is all up-hill. And who suffers? – the child!
I wonder if finding loving families will play second to political ideology. This progressive ideology currently touches every area of Canadian society – so why should we conclude that child services is different or immune? It isn’t! Hug your child tonight. Who knows what tomorrow may bring.
Childhood MAID and Euthanasia.
When I was a chaplain at the University Health Network in Toronto, Ontario, there were ongoing conversations a few blocks over at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children on providing Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) in a paediatric setting. So, I was not surprised when in 2018 doctors, administrators and ethicists at Sick Kids laid out their policies and procedures, including scenarios where parents would only be informed after their child’s death. If someone is thinking, but MAID is currently only legal for adults … the ‘trial-balloon’ policy paper states that the policy was developed “with an eye to a future when MAID may well become accessible to capable minors.”
Who would have thought that an Ontario hospital called ‘Sick Kids’ would ever conceive of euthanizing ‘sick kids.’ They have … and a 2018 beta-version policy has been crafted. The death train is slowly making its way out of the station.
But there is more! On September 7, 2022, of this past year, Louis Roy of the Quebec College of Physicians to the Special Joint Committee on MAID urged Canada’s government to permit child euthanasia as well. The National Post reported Roy saying that medical assistance can be appropriate for infants with “severe malformations” and “grave and severe symptoms” where their “prospect for survival is null, so to speak.” The moral test of any government is how it treats those in the dawn of their lives and Canadians should be alarmed at such comments.
Remember the saying, ‘Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it?’ Actually, those who do learn from history are doomed to repeat it as well! Why? Because human nature is ugly!
Now to be clear here, assisted suicide and euthanasia are not the same – but children can be the victims of both. According to the Health Law Institute, Dalhousie University.
“Assisted suicide and euthanasia are different. Assisted suicide is providing another with the knowledge or means to intentionally end his or her own life’ euthanasia is deliberate action undertaken by one person with the intention of ending the life of another … where that act is the cause of death.”
So, Canada might consider killing babies should doctors predict there is no hope for them? “That’s impossible, right?” I remind you that this practice is already currently happening in the Netherlands, under the Groningen Protocol. As Drs. Eduard Verhagen and Pieter J.J. Sauer, in speaking about this protocol, wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine, “This approach suits our legal and social culture…”(March 10, 2005N Engl J Med 2005; 352:959-962).
History reminds us that during WWII, a mobile killing unit called the Einsatzgruppen – a security police and SS intelligence service, followed behind the German army as it invaded and occupied much of Europe. Their job was to search for all opponents of the Reich – and execute them. By the Spring of 1943, they had executed 1.25 million Jews, excluding Roma, Russians, prisoners of war and civilians. It was the inefficiency and psychological impact on the shooters that led to the development of carbon monoxide gas vans … and ultimately gas chambers in concentration camps.
Richard Kretschmar was in Einsatzgruppe C, joining in the summer of 1942. In a letter dated October 15, 1942, he sent a letter to Hitler, stating that his 5-month-old baby boy, later known as Gerhard Herbert Kretschmar, born February 20, 1939, was blind, had one leg and part of and arm missing and was described as ‘an idiot’. Hitler, long an advocate of mercy-killing, sent his personal physician, Karl Brant, to the hospital in Leipzig to confirm the truth of the child’s condition. If the father’s letter was accurate, Brant was instructed to have the doctors euthanize the child – in the Chancellor’s name. On July 25, 1939, these instructions were carried out. What had started as a regional answer to hospital overcrowding soon spread. Who in their omniscience can guarantee this would never happen in Canada, as our current health care system lies tattered, over-burdened and distressed?
The German T4 Euthanasia Program started with one parent’s request and before it was over, another
300,000 others with disabilities died.
Legal since 2016, Canada now has some of the loosest assisted dying laws in the world, with MAID cases surging ten-fold in just 5 years – with over 10,000 euthanized in 2021. Slowly, methodically … and intentionally, vulnerable infants are on the list of ‘services’ government wishes to provide patents.
Did you know that beginning this March 17, 2023, Bill C-14 (put in place in 2021), will now allow patients with mental health issues but no qualifying physical ailment to be euthanized within 90 days, if two doctors agree? In fact, our generous Canadian government will even pay the bill. Notice the incremental slide from physical disabilities, now to mental disabilities. Yes, incremental creep! Read my December 2020 blog on the ‘Overton Window’ and you will understand how activists turn abnormal to normal. It’s a well thought out plan!
Now to be clear here theologically, the enemies waging war against our children ultimately are not made of flesh and blood; the enemy are “the rulers … the authorities … the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12). The enemy is not living in Ottawa, Canada, or Washington D.C or Davos, Switzerland, for that matter. If it were, we could consider storming the Bastille as in the French Revolutionary days and be done with it. But it is not that simple! Our adversary is far more formidable and cunning that any head of state, and at this very moment he is “going to and fro on the earth” (Job 1:7).
We have become indifferent to the reality of evil, substituting it for secular rationality, epistemology and relativism. And while we sit idly by, our children are sacrificed to Molech once again.
I also know who my cultural opponents are! For sure, some Christians will cringe at any talk of ‘opponents’, so if you prefer softer, kinder, gentler words like competitor, disputant or counteragent … then substitute accordingly. Haggle, if we must over word choice, but a strong public Christian voice on social issues adds balance to an otherwise out-of-control social narrative that is abusing our kids! Of this I am confident: flipping off the ‘light’ of our faith in the marketplace of ideas is not something that readily draws a “well done though good and faithful servant” from God.
Our doxologies of praise to God, who thankfully has everything under His control, should not inhibit our voices from also speaking in the public square – where we can flavour, challenge and illuminate. It would be silly to think believers are not permitted a voice … and even sillier to think that ‘loving your neighbour’ means having to stay mute! The Book of Ecclesiastes (1:9) reminds us, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” No argument here! But Ecclesiastes is hardly a biblical call to passivism or non-intervention.
Surely the effort of believers to discover and apply the will of God with reference to the social problems of the day cannot be an evil thing. Living, teaching, and ‘yes,’ … even speaking the truth (Yah, I know – “in love”) is very much a biblical idea: Think Dietrich Bonhoeffer, William Wilberforce, and Frederick Douglas. It is doubtful that not engaging culture on behalf of the innocent and vulnerable is some exalted form of Christian charity. More poignantly, can it be that we have simply become adjusted to these things? God have mercy on believers who sit idly by and mute while the modern-day cult of Molech and its neo-pagans decide the fate of our children and our neighbours’ children. “Only Saying …”
(1) Eric Kaufman, professor of politics at Birkbeck College of the University of London, in his report Academic Freedom in Crisis: Punishment, Political Discrimination and Self Censorship found that some 73% of academics sampled from 40 top-ranked Canadian universities identified as left-wing, 4% as right-wing. Interestingly, liberal bias is so prevalent that if you expressed support for former president Trump, 45% of liberal academics said they would not hire you.
[See Eric Kaufman, Center for the Study of Partisanship, and Ideology. Report. No. 2, March 1, 2021]
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