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For all those people who missed their religious services this weekend

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For every week of every year of their entire lives, billions of people around the world in some way celebrate their sabbath.   Whether Saturday, or Friday, or Sunday, it’s part of the routine of life.  Going to Church, or Temple, or Mosque is no different and no less important than eating and sleeping and participating in any of our passions.  We just can’t really imagine life without it.

In this part of the world (Canada’s prairies) building a Church was often top of mind for European immigrants who arrived here about 100 to 150 years ago. People who literally scraped a small farm from the earth with nothing but the most rudimentary tools and their own muscles would use that same earth to create their first home in North America from sod.  Their first priority was to feed their families.  As soon as they could, they’d build a box out of wood, slap a window and a door on it, and call it a house.  By this time there was an extremely good chance they were also spending time with their neighbours, often from the same part of the world, speaking the same language and practicing the same faith.  While they personally lived in sod or poorly insulated wood huts, they’d be building something far more substantial to celebrate their faith in.

That hasn’t changed much today.  Now immigrants come from all over the earth.  When they arrive, one of their top priorities is to locate other people from their part of the world.  They may be integrating quickly into a new language and culture and all that means, but they are deeply attracted to any links to their language and culture, and faith. So it’s not uncommon to see Mosques on the prairie or Egyptian Coptic Churches, or a Sikh Temple.

We’ve all heard of the term Freedom of Religion.  It’s an important aspect of Western Society, maybe especially for all those who understand it as being Free From Religion.  That’s important too.  As a result, the vast majority of people who go somewhere to celebrate their faith are doing it of their own free will.  They want to be there.  They feel they need to be there.  They have a lot of other options.

That brings me to my life today.  Our family goes to a Catholic Church every Sunday.  Without fail.  I’m an adult and I’ve missed a couple of Sunday masses in my life, but not many.  Even at the heights of my personal struggle with faith and when I’m frankly mad at God, I still go.  It’s at these times, my culture, the example my parents set for me, and maybe even the stories of the saints convince me that this anger or doubt may be deep, but it will eventually pass.  I don’t go to Mass because I think it’s some kind of ticket to the afterlife.  I need it.  Going to Mass is part of my culture, as much a part of me as the language I speak and the food I eat.  It’s who I am.  So when I heard Mass was cancelled this weekend, I immediately thought of my parents.  My mom has never missed mass to my knowledge.  I still remember the one time my dad missed mass.  He couldn’t really get out of bed that day.  Unless he was going to the bathroom.  Then I thought of the important role of the Eucharist in the Catholic Mass.  That’s a whole other discussion.

It wasn’t until I came upon this reflection from Father Emmanuel that I started to feel better, much better.  I think it’s worth sharing with anyone else who is feeling out of sorts in a way we could never imagine in this lifetime in this part of the world.  We cannot attend out religious service.  Please enjoy these words from Father Mbah.

From Father Emmanuel Mbah 

Everything Works Out Together for Good…

When I hear people complaining about the current situation of things, especially with regards to some of the precautionary measures that have been put in place due to the coronavirus pandemic, I cannot help but marvel. I have also heard some women and men of faith crying out that this is the devil’s attack on the Church, owing that churches should remain open and should not be shut down. They see the shutting down of churches as an indirect attack on the faith. Thus, I am drawn to even a deeper wonder: Is it not true that in most cases, we fail to realize the value of what we have until after we have lost it? This cuts across individuals in interpersonal relationship and corporate bodies in employer-employee relationship.

A lot of Christians before now, complain about their different churches; either the priest/pastor is not preaching well or preaching too long, or that parishioners or church members are not friendly and welcoming. Could it be that God is also offering us this time to stay home and experience what it is like not to come together as a worshipping community on the day of the Lord? So that at the end of it all, we would be wiser and more appreciative of the deposit of our faith and the communion and fellowship that we share.

As I reflect further, I also recall Joseph’s experience in the Old Testament, when the brothers out of jealousy sold him out. But at the end of the day, there was not only a happy ending and reunion but Joseph forgave his brothers and said to them, “As for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Genesis 50:20). As such, I believe that everything works out together for good… (Romans 8:28). In other words, something good will come out of our current situation. It will all end in praise to the glory of God.

Stay safe and healthy- Happy Sunday!


PS.  We sort of attended Mass this Sunday.  We joined a few hundred other people on a Facebook live feed from a church in Kerrobert, Saskatchewan.  The Priest there is in charge of four churches in four communities.  Instead of performing four masses over these 24 hours in four different towns, he performed Mass in front of a video camera, all by himself.  He began the virtual Mass by telling us when the church in each community was established.  The youngest one was 97 years old.  In all that time, not during a world war, not even during the Spanish Flu epidemic, this was the first Sunday that the people of this faith have not come together on Sunday.  We’re living in very strange times.  We need all the wisdom we can get.  Thank you Father Emmanuel.

First Nations Trapper calling for a team to support farmers, loggers, miners, and “fossil fuel people”

After 15 years as a TV reporter with Global and CBC and as news director of RDTV in Red Deer, Duane set out on his own 2008 as a visual storyteller. During this period, he became fascinated with a burgeoning online world and how it could better serve local communities. This fascination led to Todayville, launched in 2016.

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COVID-19

Pfizer reportedly withheld presence of cancer-linked DNA in COVID jabs from FDA, Health Canada

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From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

According to information released by the Epoch Times, Pfizer purposefully failed to advise drug regulators, including Health Canada, the U.S. FDA and the European Medicines Agency, that the cancer-linked SV40 DNA enhancer was present in their experimental COVID shot.

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer reportedly “chose not to” inform Health Canada, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and other regulatory agencies that the cancer-linked Polyomavirus Simian Virus 40 (SV40) DNA sequence was in their widely distributed COVID-19 vaccine.  

According to information released April 23 by the Epoch Times, Pfizer purposefully failed to advise drug regulators, including Health Canada, the U.S. Food and Drugs Administration, and the European Medicines Agency, that SV40 was present in their experimental COVID shot.   

“I understand that there have been internal discussions at CBER [Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research] regarding the presents [sic] of an SV40 enhancer/promoter sequence, noting that its presence is unrelated to the purpose of the Pfizer’s plasmid as a transcription template for their mRNA COVID-19 vaccine,” Dr. Dean Smith, a senior scientific evaluator in Health Canada’s Vaccine Quality Division, wrote in an email to a colleague at the FDA about SV40. 

The August email was obtained by an access to information request by the Epoch Times.  

“Pfizer has communicated to us recently, that they apparently chose not to mention this information to EMA, FDA or HC at the time of their initial or subsequent submissions,” he added. 

Smith noted that Kevin McKernan, a microbiologist and former researcher and team leader for the MIT Human Genome project, and Dr. Phillip J. Buckhaults, who is a professor of cancer genomics as well as the director of the Cancer Genetics Lab at the University of South Carolina, had raised in a public manner earlier this year how SV40 was present in the jabs. 

While Health Canada originally told Canadians it was unaware of the SV40 enhancer’s presence, the agency has since confirmed the presence of the monkey-linked DNA sequence known to cause cancer when it was used in old polio vaccines. 

SV40 is used to enhance gene transcription when the shots are made. It has been linked to the spread of turbo cancers in those who have been exposed to the virus via contaminated injections.   

According to a 2002 study published in the Lancet, there is evidence that links the older polio vaccines, which were filed with SV40 contaminants, to certain forms of cancer.  

The authors of the 2002 study claim that the SV40-contaminated polio vaccine may have caused up to half of the 55,000 cases of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma diagnosed each year.  

SV40, according to the late vaccine developer Dr. Maurice Hilleman, was put in the polio vaccine and then put into wide circulation by Big Pharma company Merck inadvertently. 

Unfortunately, this is not the first evidence that Pfizer hid the presence of SV40 from drug regulators.  

According to Dr. Janci Lindsay, who works as the director of toxicology and molecular biology for Toxicology Support Services, Pfizer did not disclose the presence of SV40 “promoters” to both Health Canada and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, as well as the European Medicines Agency.  

She said, as reported in The Epoch Times, that the drug company “hid them.” 

“So it’s not just the fact that they’re there, it’s the fact that they were purposefully hidden from the regulators,” she noted. 

The news of Pfizer’s purposeful withholding of information comes as adverse effects from the first round of COVID shots have resulted in a growing number of Canadians who have filed for financial compensation over alleged injuries from the jabs, via Canada’s Vaccine Injury Program (VISP). 

Thus far, some VISP has already paid over $6 million to those injured by COVID injections, with some 2,000 claims remaining to be settled. 

Additionally, a recent study done by researchers with Canada-based Correlation Research in the Public Interest showed that 17 countries have found a “definite causal link” between peaks in all-cause mortality and the fast rollouts of the COVID shots as well as boosters. 

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Alberta

Red Deer Doctor critical of Alberta’s COVID response to submit report to Danielle Smith this May

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Leading the task force is Dr. Gary Davidson, who was skeptical of mandates at the time.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith will soon be receiving a little-known report she commissioned which tasked an Alberta doctor who was critical of the previous administration’s handling of COVID to look into how accurate the province’s COVID data collection was, as well as the previous administration’s decision-making process and effectiveness. 

As noted in a recent Globe and Mail report, records it obtained show that just less than one month after becoming Premier of Alberta in November of 2022, Smith tasked then-health minister Jason Copping to create the COVID data task force. 

Documents show that the Alberta government under Smith gave the new task force, led by Dr. Gary Davidson – who used to work as an emergency doctor in Red Deer, Alberta – a sweeping mandate to look at whether the “right data” was obtained during COVID as well as to assess the “integrity, validity, reliability and quality of the data/information used to inform pandemic decisions” by members of Alberta Health Services (AHS).  

As reported by LifeSiteNews in 2021, Davidson said during the height of COVID that the hospital capacity crisis in his province was “created,” was not a new phenomenon, and had nothing to do with COVID.

“We have a crisis, and we have a crisis because we have no staff, because our staff quit, because they’re burned out, they’re not burnt out from COVID,” Davidson said at the time. 

Davidson also claimed that the previous United Conservative Party government under former Premier Jason Kenney had been manipulating COVID statistics.  

In comments sent to the media, Smith said that in her view it was a good idea to have a “contrarian perspective” with Davidson looking at “everything that happened with some fresh eyes.” 

“I needed somebody who was going to look at everything that happened with some fresh eyes and maybe with a little bit of a contrarian perspective because we’ve only ever been given one perspective,” she told reporters Tuesday. 

“I left it to [Davidson] to assemble the panel with the guidance that I would like to have a broad range of perspectives.” 

After assuming her role as premier, Smith promptly fired the province’s top doctor, Deena Hinshaw, and the entire AHS board of directors, all of whom oversaw the implementation of COVID mandates. 

Under Kenney, thousands of nurses, doctors, and other healthcare and government workers lost their jobs for choosing to not get the jabs, leading Smith to say – only minutes after being sworn in – that over the past year the “unvaccinated” were the “most discriminated against” group of people in her lifetime. 

As for AHS, it still is promoting the COVID shots, for babies as young as six months old, as recently reported by LifeSiteNews.  

Task force made up of doctors both for and against COVID mandates  

In addition to COVID skeptic Dr. Gary Davidson, the rather secretive COVID task force includes other health professionals who were critical of COVID mandates and health restrictions, including vaccine mandates.  

The task force was given about $2 million to conduct its review, according to The Globe and Mail, and is completely separate from another task force headed by former Canadian MP Preston Manning, who led the Reform Party for years before it merged with another party to form the modern-day Conservative Party of Canada. 

Manning’s task force, known as the Public Health Emergencies Governance Review Panel (PHEGRP), released its findings last year. It recommend that many pro-freedom policies be implemented, such as strengthening personal medical freedoms via legislation so that one does not lose their job for refusing a vaccine, as well as concluding that Albertans’ rights were indeed infringed upon. 

The Smith government task force is run through the Health Quality Council of Alberta (HQCA) which is a provincial agency involved in healthcare research.  

Last March, Davidson was given a project description and terms of reference and was told to have a final report delivered to Alberta’s Health Minister by December of 2023. 

As of now, the task force’s final report won’t be available until May, as per Andrea Smith, press secretary to Health Minister Adriana LaGrange, who noted that the goal of the task force is to look at Alberta’s COVID response compared to other provinces.  

According to the Globe and Mail report, another person working on the task force is anesthetist Blaine Achen, who was part of a group of doctors that legally challenged AHS’s now-rescinded mandatory COVID jab policy for workers. 

Some doctors on the task force, whom the Globe and Mail noted held “more conventional views regarding the pandemic,” left it only after a few meetings. 

In a seeming attempt to prevent another draconian crackdown on civil liberties, the UCP government under Smith has already taken concrete action.

The Smith government late last year passed a new law, Bill 6, or the Public Health Amendment Act, that holds politicians accountable in times of a health crisis by putting sole decision-making on them for health matters instead of unelected medical officers. 

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