When Justin Connors visited New York City pizzeria Lombardi’s with his wife Sarah, he thought “Man, there is nothing like that at home.”

The St. Thomas University student and father of two couldn’t find any-thing like the NYC pizza in Fredericton, so he “went out on a quest to recreate it.” A year and many pizzas later, he de-veloped recipes and decided to try a mobile stand at the market together with his first cousin and best friend Jeff Starkey.

“I think Fredericton is really starting to see people that are excited about good food. We’re all fresh, everything is handmade and we use local ingredi-ents,” says the 27-year-old.

He’s been selling pizza for a month now at the North Side Market. Con-nors and his business partner Jeff have made a slight profit each week. Since his wife is a full-time nursing student at the University of New Brunswick and he’s a Media Studies student at STU, the stand helps to pay off the bills at the end of the month.

Before STU, he had a job in a call cen-tre and also worked as a freelance web designer.

“When we had Hannah [our daugh-ter], I was in call centres working. You know it’s like a ten dollar an hour job, so you wanna make the decision: Do I wanna stay here and survive for the rest of my life, or why should this de-fine my life?

“So many people have kids and that’s

it. They never go back to school, they just kinda get stuck for a while. So, my wife and I, we said ‘Hey, let’s just do it! It will be hard, but it’ll be worth it.”

Connors’ day starts at 6 a.m. when he gets up to make sure his four-year-old daughter and his two-year-old son are ready to go. He makes their lunch-es, drops them off at kindergarten and day care, and worries then about his courses.

“I wouldn’t even consider that I’m good at [time management]. But then I guess, I look at other people and they’re not doing half the stuff I’m doing and they can barely handle it. So, I guess in a sense, I must be okay at it. But it’s defi-nitely stressful.”

Connors has no classes Mondays, so he uses the free time to study for his

classes on Tuesdays. Wednesday is his shopping day, when he buys all pizza ingredients.

Throughout the week, family time is limited for the Connors with both par-ents studying. So, they bring their chil-dren along to the market.

“Hannah, my daughter, she likes to come, cause she wants to think she’s working. So, she’ll sit on the pop cooler and with some orders like Coke or Pepsi, she’ll bend in and get it. It’s funny, cus-tomers laugh, cause they can’t see her at all, cause we have a big, high counter. And all of a sudden, they order a coke and there’s a little hand and a coke up in the air.”

Connors says he wants his children to know that they can always come to him about anything. He wants them to

be safe about their choices and to have integrity and character.

According to him it would have been easier to go through university without children, but nonetheless it’s enriching. Once he’s fifty, his kids will be in univer-sity and gone. Then, he and Sarah can travel or do whatever they like.

“Right now, I guess, the coolest part about it is that I can spend more time than I would think if I had a forty hours per week job. Cause I do have odd times in my schedule and last summer I got to spend the whole summer with them. Nobody really get to do that, right? Most people work all the time. So, being in school afforded me that, to see them grow in their young years. I wouldn’t trade it. For sure it’s hectic, but I wouldn’t trade it.”

Kerstin SchloteThe Aquinian

He has two kids, a wife, and a pizza business - and he’s working on his BA

Student strives to achieve his pizza pie dreams

In a recent New York Times ar-ticle, Jack Ewing drew attention to what I believe is the biggest challenge faced by religious peo-ple today: the ignorance of our

secular society.Clashes of religious freedoms

in a secular world are common-place. The banning of the niqab in France, the recent anti-Islamic film blamed for protests and vio-lence all across the middle east, and now a German rabbi facing criminal complaints for perform-ing circumcision as demanded by Jewish law.

Closer to home, it`s the rheto-ric surrounding bill M-312 in Par-liament. People have been up in arms about how “the religious right is trying to criminalize abor-tion.” The minister for the status of women, Rona Ambrose is get-ting all kinds of criticism for her support of the bill.

I’m impressed by Ms. Am-brose’s vote and proud of her for taking a politically unpopular po-sition on behalf of women not yet able to vote for themselves.

A few facts to understand where I, and many other people of faith, are coming from on this:

in the Morgentaler decision, the Supreme Court did not declare a constitutional right to abortion or freedom of choice. Although the decision has been interpreted by many as having decriminalized abortion in Canada, it only said the law was too restrictive and sent it back to Parliament to de-cide. Parliament in turn deferred it to the provinces to legislate as a health care matter.

The reason we continue to protest abortion is that for us the issue was never closed. Striking down one law isn’t good enough if a new one clarifying the will of the people isn’t written.

Bill M-312 was not a bill to criminalize abortion. It was to strike a committee to study at what point the life inside a preg-nant woman’s belly becomes a human and therefore protected by the Charter.

Yes, such a committee’s find-ings could be used to draft new abortion legislation. Like the

findings of many other commit-tees, it could also just be filed away somewhere in Ottawa. How can we settle the issue if we can’t discuss the primary objection of half the population?

In the years since Morgental-er, access has opened up in most provinces. People on both sides of the debate have spent hours arguing womens’ rights and how terrible the quality of life must be for unwanted children.

I can understand and appreci-ate the “every child should be a wanted child” position the pro-choice movement has taken in recent years. My father and his siblings are adopted. His birth mother may not have wanted him, but my grandparents did. I’ve heard of couples waiting up to ten years to adopt a new-born baby.

I’m pro-life, and firmly so. But I don’t want to criminalize abor-tion across the country.

I want access to be more

limited so it can’t be used as a means of sex-selection. This is a concern which was raised in a medical journal last year fol-lowing a study of the birth rates of boys and girls to immigrant families.

I want access limited so it can’t be used to prevent parents from having an “imperfect” child. Peo-ple with physical and mental dis-abilities are a source of inspira-tion because of the challenges they overcome every day. They are perfect the way they are and society is richer for their being a part of it.

I want access limited so abor-tion won’t be an option when it`s inconvenient for someone to have a baby.

Life is not meant to be easy. One of the most beautiful things about people is their ability to survive, adapt, and blossom in rough of circumstances. I believe people learn and mature most from difficult times in their lives.

Secular ignorance and abortion

Meredith GillisThe Aquinian

(Cara Smith/AQ)