In 2018, the Winnipeg Free Press announced it wanted to do a better job of engaging the various communities in Winnipeg. Did that include the faith community? I decided to find out.

I went to see editor Paul Samyn and then-publisher Bob Cox. As the faith page columnist at the Free Press since 2003, I knew that people in the faith community were disappointed by religion coverage in the newspaper. If there was news about religion, it was usually something bad — a priest involved in scandal or someone blowing things up in the name of God in a far-away country.

The daily life of people of faith, including the many positive contributions they made in Winnipeg and around the world, was mostly absent from the newspaper.

I told Paul and Bob if they wanted to do a better job of serving all the communities in the city, one place to start would be by creating a faith beat. They agreed. But, they said, the newspaper had no money for that. “What if I go out and raise it?” I asked. If I could do that, the Free Press would create the beat, they said.

Bill C-9, the government’s anti-hate legislation, also known as the Combatting Hate Act, has prompted criticism from some religious groups due to its removal of what is called the “good faith religious belief defence.”

That defence, which currently exists in the Criminal Code, states that something is not hate “if, in good faith, the person expressed or attempted to establish by an argument an opinion on a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text.”

It has never been put to the test in a court of law.

The defence was removed from Bill C-9 by the government at the request of the Bloc Quebecois, who offered to support it in what was then a minority Parliament — but only if the defence was taken out of the legislation.

Does God feel far away? Does your spiritual life feel flat? Is your prayer life unsatisfying? Or maybe things are going well, but you just want to feel closer to God or the divine in your life.

If that describes your situation, you might want to consider meeting with a spiritual director.

Spiritual direction is a practice where a trained guide helps people enter into a deeper relationship with God — however they describe God — in order to grow spiritually. It’s like having a spiritual mentor and companion.

Through spiritual direction, people can become more aware of God’s movement in their lives, and how they can respond to the promptings of the spirit. The goal is not to solve problems, but to hear what God might be saying — in good times, and also in times of crisis.

There’s a big change taking place in the way Canada provides foreign aid — and faith-based relief and development agencies are concerned about it.

In the past, decisions about where to spend international development dollars were based on the needs of the world’s poorest citizens. But now the federal government is linking aid with trade in order to benefit Canadian businesses.

“Having development support our trade is key,” Randeep Sarai, the secretary of state for international development, told me earlier this year.

Emergency humanitarian aid would not be affected by the change, he said. But money intended for development projects — things like health care, education and agriculture — would be linked to trade. “We are trying to focus on where there are trade opportunities,” he said.

“We May Not Be Big, But We’re Small.” That was the motto of The Vinyl Cafe, a fictional record store owned by Dave, a character featured in the stories of the late Canadian author and CBC radio host Stuart McLean.

It could also be the motto for the United Church of Canada, according to moderator Kimberly Heath.

I spoke with Heath last September, after she was elected to that position. Looking ahead to her new role, she noted that United Church members still liked to think of their church as big — even though that was no longer the case.

The numbers prove the point. From a high of just over one million members in 1965, the church reported having about 325,000 in 2023. According to the Church’s own projections, that figure may decrease to 110,000 members by 2035.