Rudy Wiebe keynote speaker at Write! Canada

(Staff) The internationally acclaimed novelist Rudy Wiebe will be the keynote speaker at Canada’s largest Christian writers’ conference.

Wiebe has top billing at Write! Canada, June 14-16 in Guelph, Ont., and is expected to draw on his Christian faith to explore the conference theme, “Writing Canada: Telling Stories with Soul.”

The award-winning Edmontonian is the recipient of two Governor General’s Literary Awards for his novels The Temptations of Big Bear and A Discovery of Strangers. His latest book, Of This Earth: A Mennonite Boyhood in the Boreal Forest, is a memoir of a boy’s coming of age, and a hymn to a lost place and distant time.

The Globe and Mail named Of This Earth one of its top books of 2006 and called Wiebe “Western Canada’s iconic novelist,” while The Edmonton Journal called the book a masterpiece that will become a classic. He has been hailed as “one of Canada’s most gifted writers – a peerless delineator of his country’s history and soul,” by The Canadian Jewish News. The Calgary Herald said Wiebe succeeds in making history “dramatic, intriguing, romantic

and tragic.” 

Wiebe taught literature and creative writing at colleges and universities in Canada, the United States and Germany for 30 years. In addition to his three plenary talks at Write! Canada, he will lead a workshop dealing with point of view in fiction writing.

Homeless program stalled

Photo:  Sue Careless  

A Toronto church has had its outreach program to the homeless stalled by local residents opposed to the plan. St. Aidan’s on Silver Birch Ave. in the Beaches had hoped to offer an Out of the Cold program to a dozen men and women on Jan. 8 but halted its plans when a lawyer representing some local residents threatened the church with a legal injunction. Over 100 people had volunteered to help with the Monday night program that was to have lasted twelve weeks. Rev. Stephen Kirkegaard told the Globe and Mail, “The homeless don’t need to be feared; they can help us to become more generous, compassionate and caring people.” After holding a community meeting with an independent mediator, the church now hopes to launch the program on Jan 22. Out of the Cold began in 1987. Today 19 churches and synagogues across Toronto provide dinner, overnight shelter and breakfast to the homeless one night a week throughout the winter.

Carleton Pro-Life Group Granted Club Status

On Jan. 9 the Carleton University Student Association voted to grant club status to the campus pro-life group, Carleton LifeLine, after banning the group only a month earlier. The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada had been considering legal action against CUSA for the ban. The press had also reproached CUSA for limiting freedom of speech.

CUSA members voted almost unanimously to approve LifeLine as an official club, with only one vote cast against it. There is, however, now a new CUSA policy statement that “actions such as campaigns, distributions, solicitations, lobbying efforts, displays, events, etc. that seek to limit or remove a woman’s options in the

event of pregnancy will not be supported.”

Nicholas McLeod, spokesperson for LifeLine, told the Ottawa Citizen the group has no idea if their planned activities such as pamphlet distribution and recruitment of new members will be considered unacceptable by CUSA, now that they have club status.

“I don’t know which one of these things violates this new policy because they all do if you take the policy extremely literally,” said Mr. McLeod. “So I don’t know where the students’ association is going to draw the line.” 

Shelley Melanson, vice-president of finance for CUSA, said it was a “misconception” that the controversial policy was adopted because of Life-Line. While Melanson said LifeLine’s activities will be monitored, as all other clubs are monitored, she said public debates would not violate the CUSA policy. - LifeSiteNews.com

Biblical names popular

Sarah and Hannah, both strong women in the Old Testament, were two of the most popular girls’ names in Canada in 2005 according to Today’s Parent. The non-biblical Emma, Emily and Madison were also in the top five. As for the five most popular boys’ names the Old Testament supplied Jacob and Joshua and the New Testament Matthew, alongside the non-biblical Ethan and Nicholas. Other popular biblical names in 2005 and 2006 included Abigail, Grace, Nathan, Benjamin and Michael.

Stanley Lieberson, a sociologist at Harvard and author of A Matter of Taste: How Names, Fashions, and Cultures Change, noted that biblical names are almost always in fashion, although the actual names change. He observed that the biblical name Ruth was popular for girls in Illinois in the early 1900s, but was eventually replaced by Judith in 1945 and then by Deborah in 1955. “Once one Old Testament name gets exhausted, another comes along.”