The story of how a B.C. man found his birth mother
After his adopted parents died, Dave Rogers set out to learn more about his birth mother. DNA results and a little help from friendly strangers would put him on a path to a small town in England.
After Indian-born British novelist Salman Rushdie was attacked during a writing conference in western New York on Friday, current and former Canadian politicians are weighing in on what such attacks mean for freedom of expression and thought.
Former Liberal Party of Canada leader Michael Ignatieff, who is a friend of Rushdie and has known him since 1984, told CTV News Channel he felt a personal reaction of “sorrow, dismay, and anger” after learning of the incident.
He considers such an attack a threat to freedom of thought.
“I just think fanaticism is a danger to free expression everywhere,” he said. “It’s a danger to every writer and every free thinker. We have to stand against it everywhere it raises its head.”
Rushdie’s novel “The Satanic Verses,” published in 1988, drew death threats from Iran’s leaders, who viewed the book as blasphemy towards Islamic faith and offered a reward for the death of its author. Rushdie was stabbed numerous times in the neck and abdomen on Friday and was rushed to the hospital.
“I just think this is an example of the ways in which a young person, adrift possibly in American society, thought his life had purpose if he executed a religious warrant for an execution,” Ignatieff said.
“That’s what’s dangerous going forward — that there will be other people who will think their lives will suddenly have meaning if they can execute the same warrant laid down 30 or more years ago.”
Ignatieff believes the attack is a painful reminder of what’s at stake, and what, he said, must be protected.
“What we have to defend here is the right of an artist of the word to use words to raise any subject,” he said.
“Every single belief, every single doctrine, including my own, should be subject to criticism, comedy, good jokes, bad jokes. That’s how freedom thrives.”
Ignatieff said blasphemy, as a concept, “should not exist.”
“I respect people who live their faiths,” he said. “I respect them as individuals. But I’m not under their obligation to respect their faith whether they’re Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or, you know, Liberal seculars. I’m not required to respect a faith. I’m required to respect persons. And I do. Whatever their faith. And I think that’s the distinction we need to hold.”
The former Liberal Party leader added that “every belief needs to be questioned. And that’s what he’s fought and that’s what he’s stood for. And that’s why [Rushdie] has paid the price he’s paid.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also weighed in on the attack.
“The cowardly attack on Salman Rushdie is a strike on the freedom of expression that our world relies on,” he tweeted on Saturday.
“No one should be threatened or harmed on the basis of what they have written. I’m wishing him a speedy recovery.”
After his adopted parents died, Dave Rogers set out to learn more about his birth mother. DNA results and a little help from friendly strangers would put him on a path to a small town in England.
A Montreal man is warning Tesla drivers about using the Smart Summon feature after his vehicle hit another in a parking lot.
Italy's mafia rarely dirties its hands with blood these days. Extortion rackets have gone out of fashion and murders are largely frowned upon by the godfathers.
The Israel-Hamas war has led to a spike in 'violent rhetoric' from 'extremist actors' that could prompt some in Canada to turn to violence, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service warns.
Russia plans to hold drills simulating the use of battlefield nuclear weapons, the Defense Ministry announced Monday, days after the Kremlin reacted angrily to comments by senior Western officials about the war in Ukraine and Moscow warned that tensions with the West are deepening.
As Canadians brace themselves for summer temperatures, forecasters say a weakening El Nino cycle doesn’t mean relief from the heat.
Actor Bernard Hill, who delivered a rousing cry before leading his people into battle in 'The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King' and went down with the ship as the captain in 'Titanic,' has died.
Police say it’s fortunate no one was injured or killed in a collision at North Vancouver’s Park and Tilford shopping centre Saturday evening that sent one vehicle careening into a flower shop and another into a set of concrete barriers outside a Winners store.
The Israeli army on Monday ordered tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza's southern city of Rafah to start evacuating from the area, signalling that a long-promised ground invasion there could be imminent.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.