U.S. Lawmakers Want Canada On Religious Persecution List For Treatment Of Christians

Lawmakers in the United States say religious persecution in Canada is exemplified by the treatment of Christian Pastor Artur Pawlawski.

Legislators have introduced a resolution in the Ohio House of Representatives urging the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom(USCIRF) to add Canada to its Religious Persecution Watch List.

The resolution references the treatment of Christian Pastor Artur Pawlowski, currently confined at the Calgary Remand Centre. Pawlawski remains jailed in solitary confinement for 23 hours per day after being denied bail twice, prompting outrage from 10,000 people who have signed a congressional letter. The resolution also references the treatment of Pastor James Coates of Edmonton, as well as Pastor Tobias Tissen of Steinbach, Manitoba.

"Since the pandemic, churches throughout Canada have faced imprisoned pastors, locked facilities, steep fines and continued interference from government officials," reported Fox News.

That's Fox News in the United States. Here in Canada, media have applied standard policy to issue: they haven't said a word about it. Based on such patterns, an entire oeuvre of political and religious conditions are being hidden from Canadians.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom(USCIRF) is a focus group dedicated to the identification of worldwide religious persecution. An element of their mandate is to identify governments guilty of persecuting Christian communities. Included among"countries of particular concern" are China, North Korea, Iran, Pakistan and India. A "special watch list" includes Afghanistan, Cuba, Egypt, and Indonesia.

Canada's watch list includes nothing at all. Mainstream media in our country do not breathe a word about any of this. While oppression against Muslims is a prominent media focus, an entire spectrum of Christian persecution fails to register on the Canadian news radar.

Why? According to Statistics Canada, 67.3% of citizens report an affiliation with the Christian faith(2011). Within the world of media control, the publisher of Globe and Mail is a fellow named Peter Crawley. It's editor-in-chief is David Wamsley. Publisher of the Toronto Star is Jordan Bitove. Editor of the National Post is Ann Marie-Owens.

Canada's leading journalists are named Coyne, Hebert, Ibbitson, Glavin, Ivison, Scoffield and Fife. Under the circumstances, why do our press omit Christian oppression from their menu of media topics? Why would a predominantly Anglophone-Francophone media refuse to speak of the mistreatment of Pastor Art Pawlawski of the Street Church in Calgary?

An organization called Open Doors International publish an annual report listing the world's worst persecutors of Christian communities. Countries which appear on an annual basis include Afghanistan, Pakistan, North Korea, Iran, Somalia, Libya, Yemen.

Extent to which CBC, CTV, Globe & Mail and Toronto Star reference these realities? That would be nothing at all. And yet, when a hijab is torn off the head of a Muslim schoolgirl, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau brands Canada an "Islamophobic" society. Why, within a country in which a majority of citizens are secular or religious Christians, do we fall into this structure? Isn't this one of the most odd-ball political dynamics you ever heard of?

Let us offer a theory as to reasons why. It is not that our society as a whole is anti-Christian. As much as PM Trudeau and NDP Party leader Jagmeet Singh would like self-hatred to permeate Anglophone and Christian communities, it isn't the case. Anti-Christian Canada is not a populist movement-- it is an institutional movement. The advocates are not truckers at protest rallies, but rather academics in schools of so-called "higher learning."

Government, media, academia-- this is where the animus is found. As these concepts begin to crystalize, we recognize the irony. While Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh rant about "systemic racism" sensible Canadians recognize the hypocrisy.

Systemic bigotry against Christians exists"within the system." If it didn't, news like this would occasionally appear in our media:

"Report: 17 Christians killed every day in Nigeria in first half of 2021"

We take a step forward. Under which forms of governance is the persecution of Christians most prominent? The answer is within communist and theocratic societies. Is Canada one of these? Not according to Justin Trudeau or the CBC it isn't. Why then is government currently emulating their behaviours?

When the conditions are not reported, government do not have to answer for the circumstances. How nice for Trudeau to be off-the-hook. What remains is systemic prejudice against Christian Canadians. Art Pawlawski, Covid-justified church closures, fines and punitive measures against Christian religious institutions. An equivalent has never existed for Sikh and Islamic religious institutions. Media say nothing.

If one didn't know better, one might believe that Canada is presently undergoing radical social transformation. All of it sounding akin to life within countries like China and Cuba. Is this what PM Justin Trudeau and his Liberals have intentionally installed within society?