Darwin Toivo, a member of the BCHA, forwarded me the letter he recently sent to the Mayor of Philadelphia. Darwin argues that the city shouldn’t have paid for a Catholic mass during the Pope’s recent visit to the city to investigate the city’s issues with homelessness. You can read his letter below.

Gord Leslie, Vice-President of the BC Humanist Association, gives the following report on the BCHA at Car Free Day 2015 on Commercial Drive in Vancouver.

The following obituary was written by Glenn Hardie, a long-time friend of Gerard and Trudy.

Yet another instance of Christian doctors claiming to be persecuted because they are being denied their self-arrogated “right” to impose their superstitions on their patients. If you can’t put your duties as a doctor above your imagined “duties” to your religion, you need to stop pretending to be a doctor. The last thing a desperate patient needs is to run into a decoy doctor who is really a religious zealot refusing to provide or refer for a needed, legal, medical service.

BCHA President Sue Hughson's letter to the editor in the Vancouver Sun on Wednesday, March 25: Secularism aids dialogue; Only one in three British Columbians say they practise a faith

Mumtaz Qadri’s appeal of his murder conviction for assassinating the governor of the Punjab has been rejected over the massive objections of Islamist fundamentalists in Pakistan.  Islamists claim that the murder was justified because the governor was trying to eliminate anti-blasphemy laws.

CBC has the details of today’s Canadian Supreme Court victory for Dying with Dignity. This historic ruling represents a victory for compassion over blind adherence to outmoded “suffering is good for the soul” ideology. While it has been clear to an overwhelming majority of the Canadian population for a long time now, this decision makes it clear in law that it is NOT a criminal act to help a friend or loved one end pointless suffering in the manner of the patient’s clearly expressed choice.  The spurious slippery slope arguments put up against this concept have now failed in law as they have failed in the public debate. This is a Good Day for human progress.

It was an honour and privilege for me to be present with representatives from BCCLA and supporters to hear the Supreme Court ruling early on Friday morning. We initially received a short message stating that the appeal had been won. An overwhelmed silence ensued, not applause or joy. We needed to hear more. Josh Paterson called in shortly afterward to verify the ruling, and to let us know it was unanimous! 9-0!

This past week, Dying With Dignity (DWD) announced that the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has annulled its charitable status. The CRA had been auditing DWD’s political activities and ruled it was wrong to grant the organization charitable status when it was first registered. This news follows a string of recent audits of charities, which started in 2012 when the Harper Government sought to crackdown on charities they worried were getting too political. Under Canadian law, a registered charity cannot devote more than 10% of its resources (money and time) to political campaigning and cannot support or oppose a particular politician or political party.