THIS IS 4MY CANADA.

MY CANADA REPORT FROM LAST WEEK'S DELEGATION TO PARLIAMENT HILL!

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"This week has changed my life." - Kevin B, Josiah 8 team member.

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69 MEETINGS IN 5 DAYS! It is now the week after MYC's 8th Josiah team and looking back on it we can say that it was an incredible success. Our team of 19 young adults from across Canada were a force on Parliament Hill last week, speaking with 69 Members of Parliament, Cabinet Ministers, the Prime Minister's Office, and Senators about issues like euthanasia, human trafficking, Israel, life and suicide. Thank you so much to everyone who stood with us in prayer and partnership. We felt your presence and your prayers at every moment and are truly grateful that you were on the team with us.

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GOOD REPORT HIGHLIGHTS:

1. PRIME MINISTER'S OFFICE: Meeting with a representative from the Prime Minister's Office for 90 minutes as each young adult got to shared their heart on current issues. A report from the meeting will be brought back to Prime Minister Stephen Harper about what young people in Canada are saying.
2. NATIONAL SUICIDE MOTION: Meeting with Harold Albrecht to pray with him hours before his Motion on online suicide predators was to be voted on in the House of Commons (see report below on how it went!).
3. HONOURING A CHAMPION FIGHTING HUMAN TRAFFICKING: Presenting Joy Smith with the MY Canada hero award at our Parliamentary reception for her work on human trafficking.
4. LIBERAL PARTY LEADERS: Meeting with Bob Rae, Alan Tonks, Bonnie Crombie, Judy Foote and others from the Liberal party (many for the first time) to speak with them about socially conservative values.
5. NDP LEADERS: Meeting with Peter Stoffer (NDP) for almost two hours to speak about issues like child pornography, euthanasia, and abstinence in schools. (Note to previous Josiah teams: none of us hit the bullseye on his dartboard either).
6. ENCOURAGING AND HONOURING: Getting to pray for, bless, and encourage many Members of Parliament and present them with gifts of honour in our meetings and at the National Reception that we hosted for them. So many of them said "No one has ever done this before, can you come back every day?"
7. SPEAKING TO THE ISSUES: Being a voice for life on the issue of euthanasia and hearing from so many Members of Parliament about their conviction to stand against it, and other issues like elder abuse, in our nation.
8. BEING A FORCE IN PRAYER: Praying as a team for our nation in various locations on Parliament Hill and knowing that God is doing something not only in our nation but with the young generation and prayer movement in Canada as well.

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ADD YOUR VOICE FOR MULTIPLIED IMPACT: We encourage you to add your voice to movement. Send your MP an e-mail this week and share your hearts on some of these issues. It is great that they heard from us, but if they hear from you too it will significantly increase the impact of the message.

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Read through the rest of this e-blast and follow the action points below for three issues you can speak on immediately to build upon the success of Josiah!

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ONLINE SUICIDE PREDATOR MOTION PASSES UNANIMOUSLY IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS!

HOW YOU CAN BE A VOICE FOR LIFE RIGHT NOW

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Harold Albrecht's Motion on Online Suicide Predators, Motion 388, passed unanimously in the House of Commons last Wednesday! This motion called upon the government of Canada to clarify that encouraging, counseling, or helping someone to commit suicide over the internet or text messaging is a Criminal Offense.

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NADIA'S STORY: Last year Nadia Koujiji, an 18 year old university student, committed suicide after a middle aged male nurse posed as a young woman and befriended her on the internet. This nurse encouraged Nadia to commit suicide and even made a suicide pact with her, asking her to hang herself on webcam so he could watch. He has admitted to doing the same thing to at least five other young adults, but has not been charged with a crime. Ottawa police have suggested that they will not pursue charges because they cannot prove he is the reason Nadia committed suicide even though the Criminal Code defines the act of encouragement and counseling as the crime whether the person commits suicide or not.

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WHAT NEXT? Now it is up to the Conservative party (and in particular the Justice Minister) to decide if they will write a bill that will reflect the broad support in the House for stopping online suicide predators. This is the time to add momentum to this Motion and contact Parliament about addressing the issue of youth suicide in Canada (see action points below on how to contact the Justice Minister). Click here to read press release from Harold Albrecht on the passing of his Motion and where to go from here.

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NATIONAL SUICIDE PREVENTION STRATEGY: According to Statistics Canada, Canadian First Nations young men between 15 and 24 have the highest suicide rate of any people group in the world, and 25% of young adult deaths in Canada are because of suicide. Yet Canada does not have a National Suicide Prevention Plan in place. Harold Albrecht has begun to raise awareness on this issue in the House of Commons and is asking the government to fund a National Suicide Prevention Plan. Your Life Counts is a suicide prevention stategy already in place that the government could adopt through federal funding for a national campaign. For more information check out their website @ yourlifecounts.org.

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ACTION POINTS:

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IMPORTANT UPDATE ON CHILD TRAFFICKING BILL

ONLY THREE WEEKS LEFT TO SEE IT PASS BEFORE THE OLYMPICS - ACT NOW!

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Joy Smith, Member of Parliament, introduced a bill called Mandatory Minimums for Trafficking Minors. It would change the Criminal Code to create a mandatory minimum sentence of five years for anyone who trafficks a person under 18 in the sex trade, and six years if the trafficking involved kidnapping. It passed through the House of Commons on September 30th and went to the Senate, where it now has to pass through Committee and vote before becoming law.

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SENSE OF URGENCY: Right now C-268 is stalled in the Senate. In order for it to become law before the 2010 Olympic games, it needs to pass through the Human Rights Committee in the next three weeks (before Parliament closes for Christmas break) so that it can be voted on first thing when Parliament resumes in January. After the Athens Olympics, the Greek Minister of Public Safety reported that human trafficking cases doubled during the games, and the British government is already putting plans into place to prevent human trafficking at the 2012 London Olympics. Three weeks is not a lot of time to put a law into place that would bring Canada's child trafficking laws up to par with Thailand's (currently, Canada does not have a minimum sentence. Convicted traffickers are getting sentences of 2 years, and serving less than one. Thailand already has a minimum sentence of five years for trafficking girls under 18).

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Click here to read National Post article on human trafficking and the Olympics.

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ACTION POINTS:

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UPDATE: EUTHANASIA VOTE PUSHED BACK UNTIL FEBRUARY 2

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Click here for more information and to download free postcards to send to your MP.

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C-384, Dying with Dignity, will now be voted on February 2nd. Francine Lalonde, the Member of Parliamet who tabled this bill, has switched her vote date again to push it back even further, likely because she knows she does not have enough support in the House of Commons to pass the bill and because it continues to be an issue debated in the media while it is on the table. Stay tuned at 4mycanada.ca for more information and updates. Please continue to write letters to the editor and contact your Member of Parliament about this issue.

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THE SIEGE TORONTO IS COMING DECEMBER 10-12th!

GET READY