Wednesday October 4th, 2017 – The Day Democracy Finally Died in Ontario
by Jakki Jeffs
Executive Director of Alliance for Life Ontario
On August 30th 2017, Alliance for Life Ontario joined Campaign Life Coalition and ARPA in a 90 minute discussion with staff at the Ontario Attorney General’s office regarding Ontario’s proposed [safe]access zone legislation. It was obvious from the start, that this meeting was arranged to fulfill the need to say we spoke with the pro-life community as the government contemplated the introduction of draconian legislation regarding access to abortion facilities in Ontario.
The Press conference held yesterday by the Attorney General was preceded by a tweet from him regarding the event. In who’s universe of professionalism is it acceptable to “tweet” an announcement of such import? If you watched the press conference itself, you may have been like me telling the screen, that’s a lie! You have no evidence! That is not true! There is no right to abortion! and much more.
Our Minister of the Status of Women told us “access to abortion is a basic human right” In your dreams Minister but not in reality in Canada. The Attorney General stated that “Our government will always stand up for a woman’s right to choice” Oh please how many times does it have to be said? There is no right to abortion in Canada. The Attorney General also said that violence has increased at abortion facilities and there have been similar reports in Ontario. I think at that point I said lies, lies and damn lies!!!!
We presented to the AG’s staff the first ever report on abortion providers and their environment and it found “Canadian facilities reported minimal or no harassment… Yet somehow the Attorney General has dreamed up some rising threat that does not exist. The real truth is that the access zone legislation is a law based on exception, it is a solution to a problem that we do not have in Canada let alone Ontario, but it is a great opportunity to try and destroy pro-life opinion and expression in Ontario.
If you had watched the press conference you would be hard pressed not to believe that abortion facilities are besieged war zones when in fact they have pro-life presence sometimes, either for showing opposition to abortion, counseling and offering help, life-chain, forty days or possibly show the truth or the Gap project all of which come under the Charter freedoms we enjoy or have enjoyed until now.
What is so devastating about this move by the government of Ontario is that this horrendous trampling of human rights is to protect a right which does not exist in Canada. It appears that pro-abortion advocates feel that if they say it enough, it will make it so – well it will not! All that the Attorney General could find is a supposed spitting incident in Ottawa, which apparently tipped him over the edge to react in such a knee-jerk way even when there are perfectly adequate laws to deal with this kind of appalling occurrence already.
This legislation has a petulant quality to it, trampling without second thought freedoms which are the hallmark of true democracy. It is as though the Ontario government’s obvious pro-abortion position will not allow it to tolerate any citizen believing, or thinking differently and now with an absolute and utter misuse of power are trying to stifle and silence expression of the freedoms guaranteed in our Charter. I would imagine the leaders of North Korea, Syria, Iran, Russia and China, to name a few, would recognize and commend this kind of government action as they also shut their people up with similar tyrannical government action.
The abortion industry must believe it has gone to Heaven – see below for one of the supposed voices of choice.
“We are thrilled with the new Safe Access Zone Legislation introduced this afternoon. Patients, healthcare providers, clinics and hospitals will now be protected from anti-choice protesters and harassment. This will be the last year of #40DaysofLies!”
https://www.facebook.com/shorecentre/
We will see how this unfolds but it does not look good when the left aggressively discount the Charter Rights and Freedoms of those who disagree with them. Patrick Brown could only strut his stuff about abortion being a divisive issue. I would say pretending to be pro-life to garner support, in order to achieve a party position, might be a bit more of a divisive issue myself. Anyway back to the point, there is no evidence to support such draconian legislation, it is undemocratic, unconstitutional, tyrannical and minus a shred of evidence to support such a measure. I would hope that those who understand how our democracy works might reject this ideological based legislation and look with clearer heads at the result of ignoring our freedoms.
A word of warning for others. The government is attacking pro-life thought, opinion, speech and expression currently, but if you do not see what this actually is it could be your ideas and your opinions which the government does not agree with next but the scene will be set and very soon we will all be targeted until we are all part of the Ontario Borg and become assimilated.