By Julia Beazley and Beth Hiemstra (post revised as of Oct. 20, 2016) Please pray for three very positive initiatives in the House of Commons this fall. These are private member’s bills or motions, brought forward by individual MPs, and they will be debated and voted on in the next few months. 1. Palliative care… Read More
The EFC just made a four-page submission to the standing parliamentary Committee on the Status of Women, which is studying violence against girls and young women in Canada. Over the last several years, as we have researched, consulted and networked broadly on prostitution and human trafficking, we realized that these issues are part of a… Read More
We don’t allow children to drive, vote or drink alcohol before certain legal ages, not because we want to arbitrarily restrict the actions of young people, but because it has long been accepted that there are developmental considerations to our ability to handle certain responsibilities. Yes, much of the human brain is fully developed by… Read More
By Julia Beazley, policy analyst Saturday, December 6 was an historic day for Canada, and a day of deep personal reflection and gratitude for me. Canada’s new prostitution laws came into force, and for the first time in Canadian history, buying or attempting to buy sex is illegal. These new laws represent a paradigm shift… Read More
Julia Beazley is a policy analyst with the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada. Much attention is being paid to the role of Evangelical Christian voices — or those deemed Evangelical by association — in the debate over Bill C-36, the new proposed prostitution law. For some time now, those in favour of decriminalizing prostitution have been trying to… Read More
By Julia Beazley We’re now less than 24 hours before the Supreme Court of Canada is set to release its ruling in the Bedford prostitution case Friday morning. Those who have been involved in the case know well what is at stake. But I remain concerned that much of society has yet to look honestly and critically… Read More
By Julia Beazley Last night, it was my privilege to participate on a panel discussing the protection of young people from the harms of pornography. Hosted by MP Joy Smith (Kildonan-St. Paul), the evening on Parliament Hill featured Dr. Gail Dines, an internationally-acclaimed speaker and author (Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked our Sexuality, 2011). The… Read More
As originally published in the National Post, June 17, 2013 By Julia Beazley Last week, an article in these pages (Legalize the Sex Trade, Kate Shannon and Sandra Ka Hon Chu, June 11), saw the authors declare that “the science is unequivocal: criminalization of sex work in Canada, and globally, has been an abject failure… Read More
by Julia Beazley On February 26, in a rare and vitally important show of non-partisanship, Parliament voted unanimously in favour of Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett’s (St. Paul’s) motion to establish a special parliamentary committee to study the disappearance of far too many aboriginal women and girls in Canada. When I heard the news, my heart… Read More
By Julia Beazley Millions of Canadians live in core housing need – housing that doesn’t meet their needs or those of their family. Upward of 300,000 are homeless. The United Nations has identified that Canada falls short in a key area: homelessness is a domestic human rights crisis. The UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing… Read More