23 Comments December 4, 2014 at 4:00 pm

Extra, Extra: the Constitutionality of Bill C-36, the “Moral Issue” of HPV Vaccines, and Cafés of the Future

Every weekday’s end, we collect just about everything you ought to care about or ought not to miss.

The federal government’s Bill C-36—Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act—is slated to become law on Saturday. Tomorrow, 25 of Toronto’s city councillors will be presenting a letter at City Hall urging Premier Kathleen Wynne to take the bill to the Ontario Court of Appeal to establish whether it is, in fact, constitutional. The letter reads, in part, “As City Councillors, we work to promote measures that increase public safety and that materially improve the living conditions of marginalized residents. In particular, we are united in our efforts to end violence against women. To that end, we strive to identify and correct situations that, however inadvertently, create conditions that are unsafe for any woman. We fear that Bill C-36 has introduced such unsafe conditions into Canadian society, bringing foreseeable detriment and real danger to some of the most vulnerable women we represent.”

So what constitutes a pressing “moral issue” in this day and age? Apparently, whether students in the Toronto Catholic District School Board should be allowed to receive HPV vaccines, which protect girls from contracting the strains of HPV (human papillomavirus) that lead to cervical cancer. Board chair Mike Del Grande highlighted both HPV vaccines and sex education as examples of “moral dilemmas” facing the TCDSB. “There are things that are going to be contrary to our Catholic faith, and these things we need to deal with to understand how it fits in to what we teach in our schools,” he told the Star. He’s not necessarily intending to revisit the vaccine debate, however, saying, “What am I going to have for breakfast tomorrow? … I haven’t got any plans at this point.”
The Second Cup will be introducing a “café of the future” at the corner of King Street West and John Street—if it does not involve even one hoverboard, we will feel both disappointed and betrayed.