Cold Weather Alerts - Warming Information

During extreme cold weather, the Ray Twinney Recreation Complex and the Magna Centre are open as a temporary warming centre during regular hours of operation. 

Ray Twinney Recreation Complex, 100 Eagle Street West, Monday to Sunday from 5:30 am to 11 pm and the Magna Centre, 800 Mulock Drive from 5:30 am to 11 pm daily.  

In York Region, anyone experiencing homelessness or looking for shelter during a Cold Weather Alert should call the York Region Emergency Housing Central Intake Line at 1-877-464-9675 ext. 76140 or contact a seasonal shelter provider listed on https://www.york.ca/support/housing/emergency-and-transitional-housing

- Information and photo provided by Victor Woodhouse, Councillor for Ward 2 Newmarket

Troubled with depression or mood swings?

 Are you or somebody you know troubled with depression or mood swings? Start here.

Shalom - Conference Spiritual Reading

irisphoto2 - Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

Conference spiritual reading chosen by Deacon Steve Pitre

“When the Lord greeted his disciples and friends after his Resurrection, he said, “Shalom” or in English “Peace”. He simply used the Jewish greeting, which meant “Good morning”, or “Good day”, or “Good evening.” But what did this greeting mean on the lips of the risen Jesus?

It was the proclamation of the world’s healing. It meant that the whole plan of the Father had been fulfilled, that the mystery of the kingdom lived now in the universe, that the glory of God was being poured into every atom of creation through the transformed mind, body, heart, and soul of Jesus the Messiah, the risen Son of God.

It meant that all of the broken relationships in the universe had been healed at their root: that our separation from God was no more, that our alienation from one another, our enmities and misunderstandings and all our estrangements were over, that our individual fragmentations had been healed, that our separation from the animals and from all material creation had ended in reconciliation.

Jesus greeting meant that the harmony of God’s perfect order, the fullness of his life, was filling all things as it was meant to at the beginning. Easter is light, radiance, and splendor, clarity, luminosity, and brightness because it is the dawn of the new creation. It is a new day, the eternal day, and Jesus says, “Good morning.””

- by Fr. Bob Pelton, “The Asceticism of Joy,” Restoration, April 2021, Vol. 74, No.4, p. 1, Combermere

Does Canada need a law to combat environmental racism?

Image: Steve Greenberg

The following is an excerpt from...

Why Canada needs a law to combat environmental racism

Read the full article here

At a time when health and environmental crises dominate the public conversation, Black History Month in February was a stark reminder of the pervasive environmental struggles racialized communities, past and present, disproportionately face.

This month, there may be good news on the horizon. Nova Scotia Liberal MP Lenore Zann has introduced Bill C-230 in the House of Commons, the National Strategy to Redress Environmental Racism Act. It’s scheduled for a March vote.

The historical link between the civil rights and environmental justice movements is widely acknowledged, yet these struggles have become increasingly isolated over time. While environmental laws and regulations have grown exponentially since the NIMBY protests of the 1970s, the concerns of racialized communities have rarely, if ever, been at their forefront.

Instead, environmental governance and zoning regulations have often been deployed against the interests of Black, Indigenous and immigrant communities in North America. Well-known Canadian cases include Ontario’s chemical industry cluster that surrounds the Aamjiwnaang First Nation and Nova Scotia’s hazardous waste siting in historical Africville.

Environmental injustice is just one aspect of the systemic racial discrimination that continues to plague Canada from coast to coast to coast.

In December, researchers Amanda Giang and Kaitlin Castellani from the University of British Columbia published research showing that the cumulative air pollution burden in Canada’s three major cities (Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal) disproportionately affects racialized communities. In Montreal, immigrant residents consistently experience higher cumulative air pollution, while in Toronto, this burden falls on low-income residents. In Vancouver, it’s Indigenous residents. These disparities in exposure to air pollution are just one dimension of the generalized pattern of environmental injustice affecting historically marginalized groups: Indigenous Peoples, racialized newcomers and the urban poor.

Read the rest of this article here.

Environmental Racism

 

Environmental racism occurs when racialised communities are targeted for the establishment of environmentally hazardous sites and the subsequent neglect of those communities in relation to the cleanup of those sites, especially where this happens with respect to environmental policy-making by any level of government.

A private member's bill that aims to address environmental racism is headed for debate in the House of Commons this month.

According to a CBC news article: "Introduced by Nova Scotia MP Lenore Zann, Bill C-230 is seeking a national strategy to examine the link between race, socio-economic status and environmental risk, as well as the connection between hazardous sites and negative health outcomes in communities where Black and Indigenous people and people of colour live." Read the full article here: Bill that aims to address environmental racism heads for debate in House of Commons.

The bill was inspired by Ingrid Waldron, associate professor in the faculty of health at Dalhousie University in Halifax and author of "There's Something in the Water: Environmental Racism in Indigenous and Black Communities", which in turn inspired the 2019 Netflix documentary featuring actors Elliot Page and Ian Daniel.

If you have Netflix, do yourself a favour and watch this documentary, "There's Something In the Water."

Ontario Workers Need Paid Sick Leave

 

PAID SICK LEAVE FOR ONTARIO WORKERS.

Medical experts, labour activists and scientists all agree that the fact most workers do not have easy access to paid sick leave is a major contributor to the spread of COVID-19 in Ontario workplaces.

Sign this petition demanding paid sick leave for workers.

Paid Sick Days Ontario

Reprinted from the Advocacy Newsletter of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul

 

Love and Faith Go Together

 Love and faith go together.
- a relection by Deacon Steve Pitre

"Our work to be fruitful and to be all for God, and to be beautiful, has to be built on faith - faith in Christ who has said, “I was hungry, I was naked, I was sick, and I was homeless and you did that to Me.” On these words of His all our work is based…Faith to be true has to be a giving love. Love and faith go together. They complete each other."
- Saint Teresa of Calcutta

This passage (Matt 25) was the basis for St. Teresa of Calcutta’s conviction that Jesus is present in the poor: with absolute faith in His words, she regarded her apostolate as a service done to Jesus Himself. Her faith in His presence in the “least of His brethren” was so real that every encounter with the poor meant a mystical encounter with Jesus Himself: “We are contemplatives in action right in the heart of the world, seeing and loving and serving Jesus twenty-four hours in the distressing disguise of the poorest of the poor.”

“Where There is Love, There is God” Mother Theresa, ed. Brian Kolodiejchuk, M.C. p. 141-142

Deacon Steve Pitre is Spiritual Advisor to the Newmarket Conference of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul

Season of Creation 2020 - Jubilee for the Earth

 

Endorsed by Pope Francis in 2015 and supported by the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, the annual month-long ecumenical celebration entitled the Season of Creation will begin on 1 September (World Day of Prayer for Creation) and continue until 4 October 2020 (feast of Saint Francis of Assisi). 

The celebration calls on the global Christian community to promote prayer and action to protect our common home, and is one of the initiatives to celebrate the Special Laudato Si’ Anniversary Year which runs from 24 May 2020 until 24 May 2021. The theme for this year’s season is “Jubilee for the Earth”. 

For more information and resources on the Season of Creation, please visit the website at https://seasonofcreation.org/

Reproduced from the website of the  Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB)

Laudato Si’ Day 3 - #48 Inseparable and interactive coexistence

Having meditated on the two prayers which the Pope has proposed, we now contemplate paragraphs #48 through #52 from “Laudato Si’”. We follow the same steps each day from now on:

1. Read what the Pope wrote a first time.
2. Read it again, finding and reflecting on a word, phrase or sentence that stands out for you.
3. While reading a third time, prayerfully and with a listening heart, tell the Lord in your own words how you feel about what you have just read, and why. Does anything need to change for you, personally?
4. Quieten your mind and allow time for silence and the Holy Spirit.
5. Finally, pray “A Christian Prayer in Union with Creation”.

How are we operating under COVID-19 conditions?

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in governments the world over imposing restrictions on society's social contacts with varying degrees of strictness resulting in hardship for everyone, but particularly the poor, the vulnerable, and those already isolated and alone - the very people to whom the Society of St. Vincent de Paul is called to assist.

The priest, the scribe and the Good Samaritan

... and who is my neighbour?

"Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) - German Lutheran pastor and anti-Nazi dissident who was martyred for his words and actions at Flossenburg prison camp in 1945. After the war some German Christians did not think Bonhoeffer should be called a martyr because he was not executed for "religious" reasons.

When Religion Cannot Ignore Politics

Those of us who believe in the sacred inviolability of life from conception to natural death usually have no difficulty speaking out against politicians and governments on the issue of abortion. For some reason, we tend to tread more lightly and be less vocal when it comes to quality of life for children after birth. Newsweek sent me the following daily briefing in my email. I was appalled by what I read.

I hope Newsweek does not mind too much that I reproduce it here without comment other than to say, in my personal opinion, politics has crossed the line.

What is Harm Reduction?

What is Harm Reduction?

On their web page dedicated to this topic, the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) tells us...

Harm Reduction is an evidence-based, client-centred approach that seeks to reduce the health and social harms associated with addiction and substance use, without necessarily requiring people who use substances from abstaining or stopping. Included in the harm reduction approach to substance use is a series of programs, services and practices. Essential to a harm reduction approach is that it provides people who use substances a choice of how they will minimize harms through non-judgemental and non-coercive strategies in order to enhance skills and knowledge to live safer and healthier lives.

CMHA goes on to tell us...

Harm reduction acknowledges that many individuals coping with addiction and problematic substance use may not be in a position to remain abstinent from their substance of choice. The harm reduction approach provides an option for users to engage with peers, medical and social services in a non-judgemental way that will ‘meet them where they are.’  This allows for a health oriented response to substance use, and it has been proven that those who engage in harm reduction services are more likely to engage in ongoing treatment as a result of accessing these services. Some harm reduction initiatives have also reduced blood borne illnesses such as HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C, and have decreased the rates of deaths due to drug overdoses.

Read more here to find out some examples of harm reduction and the goals of harm reduction.

The health of immigrant and refugee children after their arrival in Canada

As Vincentians, we not only want to help the poor, but we need to work with others to find and address the root causes of poverty and its effects in all its forms.

The first comprehensive research project in Canada examining the health of immigrant and refugee children after their arrival in the country was published on the web in May 2018.

The study found a number of things. For starters, it emerges that research studies over the past 15 years have found that immigrants arrive in better health than Canadians — with a lower incidence of chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes — but suffer a decline in their health as their time in Canada increases.

A  highly readable digest of this study was published recently (April 9, 2019) by Vatanparast and Lane under the title: Immigrant children’s health declines rapidly after arrival in Canada.
https://theconversation.com/immigrant-childrens-health-declines-rapidly-after-arrival-in-canada-114421

Study authors:
Hassan Vatanparast
Professor of Public Health, University of Saskatchewan

Ginny Lane
Postdoctoral Fellow in Public Health, University of Saskatchewan