In 1999, we reported that taxpayers had already coughed up $2,611,828 in rent for the operation of the Toronto-based abortuary of Henry Morgentaler, according to Ontario Freedom of Information and Privacy documents obtained by the Toronto Free Press newspaper.

Morgentaler is still on the multi-million dollar gravy train. According to information obtained in a new Ontario Freedom of Information and Privacy search combined with the information we gathered six years ago, we find that Morgentaler has been able to garner more than $7,121,172 in taxpayers’ dollars to pay for his rent, including $450,000 annually for security. During the second five years, Morgentaler got $2,259,344. And this is just one of five abortion sites in the Toronto area getting free rent from the taxpayers.

This is over and above what abortionists charge for abortions. In 1992-93 (the last year for which figures are available), the OHIP fee schedule listed abortions as $103.40 for a D&C and $174.70 for a saline solution abortion. The total cost of abortions in Ontario in both hospitals and private facilities for the fiscal year 1992-93 was $25,450,680.

The Choices in Health abortuary got taxpayers dollars for rent in the amount of $1,476,995 for a five-year period up until 2003. The Scott Clinic got taxpayers’ dollars for rent in the amount of $1,123,393. The Cabbagetown Clinic got taxpayers’ dollars in the amount of $737,578. The only other abortion operation listed on the Canadian Abortion Rights League (CARAL) website was the Bay Centre for Birth Control, which received 632,194 taxpayer dollars for rent. All of these statistics were supplied by the information and privacy commissioner of Ontario.

In an astonishing about-face on the killing babies in the third trimester, the 81-year old Morgentaler said he has concerns about late-term abortions.  “We don’t abort babies. We want to abort fetuses before they become babies,” he told one news outlet last year. “Around 24 weeks, I have ethical problems doing that.” He went on to claim that his facilities counsel women to continue their pregnancies and put their babies up for adoption if they can’t be cared for.

Great difficulty was encountered obtaining this information (which was almost identical with that which I had obtained five years ago), because of the stalling and obfuscation by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. I had to go through a series of legal hoops, denials, appeals and six months of waiting. There were dozens of phone calls and a long, ridiculous brief about the safety of abortionists and the privacy of patients, which had to be refuted.

Those concerns came not from the Office of the Information and Privacy Commission – they did their best to be fair and equitable – but from senior brass in the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. They made accusations that disclosure of financial information about abortuaries would lead to violence, although they could produce no evidence of their claim. Their locations are publicly available in the yellow pages and on the web.

What’s truly galling, however, is the endless amount of money being shelled out for abortions. An Ottawa abortuary that opened in 1995 received an estimated annual block grant of $600,000. The Ontario government has provided an additional $50,000 a year for an abortion training program conducted by the Bay Centre for Birth Control and the Morgentaler Clinic. Furthermore, the Ontario government now allows – and reimburses – ob-gyns who do abortions in their private practice.

Last year, the CBC, Sun Media and The Interim all reported that Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec send pregnant women to the U.S. for late-term abortions at a cost to taxpayers of around $5,000 (US) each. Canadian women have travelled to abortion mills in Colorado, Kansas and Washington because no Canadian abortionist, including Henry Morgentaler, will commit them. About 30 mothers from Quebec, 15 from Ontario and “a handful every week” from British Columbia, each of whom were more than five-and-half months pregnant, travelled to the U.S. for an abortion last year. Quebec hoped that a newly trained person would “set up practice” and offer the “service” in that province this year.

When are taxpayers going to start screaming about their hard-earned dollars being used to provide millions of dollars for rent and unnecessary security for a few multi-millionaire abortionists? As a recent Environics poll makes clear, the vast majority Canadians disagree with taxpayer funding of abortion.