Free Republic

A Christian bus driver in Toronto has been charged with a "hate crime" for distributing pamphlets saying homosexuality can lead to diseases and that Jesus can save gay people if they repent. Bill Whatcott "distributed anti-gay material which promoted hatred toward the gay community," Toronto Police Service said in a statement, adding that he was arrested in Calgary and later returned to Toronto. The 51-year-old Christian man was charged with "willful promotion of hatred against an identifiable group, namely the gay community." The pamphlets he allegedly distributed said homosexuality is associated with sexually transmitted diseases, including HPV of the rectum,...

A plaque has been removed from Canada's Holocaust memorial because it neglected to mention Jewish people. PM Justin Trudeau opened the National Holocaust Monument last week in the capital Ottawa. The plaque commemorated the "millions of men, women and children murdered" but did not specifically mention Jewish people or anti-Semitism.

Health Care Systems: A return to private health care is rising from the grass roots north of the border. While we rush headlong toward socialized medicine, Canadians are saying, "No, thanks — been there, done that." We recently told the story of Ava Isabella Stinson, born 13 weeks premature at St. Joseph's hospital in Hamilton, Ontario. She weighed all of two pounds and had no time to be put on a waiting list. But there were no open neonatal intensive care beds for her at St. Joseph's or anywhere else in the entire province of Ontario it seems. Canada's perfectly...

Medical Care: A leaked report shows that Vancouver's health authority is considering cutting thousands of surgeries to balance the budget. However organized, government-run health care inevitably leads to rationing.Defenders of ObamaCare continually point out that their plan is not like Canada's, that holding that country's system up as an example of impending medical doom is invalid. Canada's system is different. Instead of having a single national plan, Canada's national health insurance, a kind of public option, is composed of 13 interlocking provincial and territorial plans, all framed under the Canada Health Act. But based on a report leaked to the...

Health Reform: A critically ill premature baby is moved to a U.S hospital to get the treatment she couldn't get in the system we're told we should emulate. Cost-effective care? In Canada, as elsewhere, you get what you pay for.Ava Isabella Stinson was born last Thursday at St. Joseph's hospital in Hamilton, Ontario. Weighing only two pounds, she was born 13 weeks premature and needed some very special care. Unfortunately, there were no open neonatal intensive care beds for her at St. Joseph's — or anywhere else in the entire province of Ontario, it seems.

Barack Obama has a high opinion of the Canadian single-payer health-care system. In March, he lamented that the only thing separating us from Canada’s system was our “legacy” of employer-based health care, and of course free markets and private contracting, neither of which have been allowed in Canada. That may account for why Canada’s system, in an effort to reduce wait times, now contracts with American providers across the border: Hospitals in border cities, including Detroit, are forging lucrative arrangements with Canadian health agencies to provide care not widely available across the border.

FREDERICTON, New Brunswick, July 7 (UPI) -- Because a blind man's guide dog cannot understand English commands, a New Brunswick university has barred a French Canadian man from taking English classes. Yvon Tessier of Ottawa enrolled in an intensive five-week English immersion program at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton but was shocked when he learned his dog, Pavot couldn't attend with him. Pavot is a black Labrador retriever who has guided Tessier for two years. He responds to French commands, and doesn't understand any other language, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. said Wednesday. University Student Recruitment Director Susan Mesheau...