Paul Tuns:
A month short of her 85th birthday, Kathleen Toth passed away on May 23 following hip surgery at Surrey Memorial Hospital in B.C.
At the time hailing from Edmonton, Toth was one of 18 pro-lifers who took part in the initial conference in Winnipeg in May 1978 at which Campaign Life was founded, becoming the organization’s first president. Campaign Life was founded by pro-lifers upset with the compromise mentality of Coalition for the Protection of Human Life, after the Coalition presented a paper to the Ontario legislature calling for an end to taxpayer funding of abortion except in cases of genetic defects.
Campaign Life Coalition said following Toth’s death, “Kathy was a pioneering figure in our nation’s pro-life movement” in which she “played a crucial role in uniting pro-life advocates from across Canada.” CLC noted, “Kathy gave numerous pro-life presentations, presented before Parliament, and was steadfast in her determination to elect pro-life politicians to Parliament and to provincial legislatures.”
The Interim reported in 2013, on the 30th anniversary of the founding of Campaign Life Coalition – the organization that came about following the merger of the Coalition for Life and Campaign Life – that Toth played an integral role in lobbying for the inclusion of the preborn in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1981 and 1982.
Toth lobbied both bishops and politicians to press for an explicit protection for the preborn. Toth recalled that the French bishops opposed the idea of “including the unborn in the Charter, unless the English bishops agree(d) that French would be in the Charter.” She also noted that the bishops, including Cardinal Emmett Carter of Toronto, received bad advice from Ottawa lawyer Joseph Magnet, who was “also acting advisor for (Prime Minister Pierre) Trudeau,” during the Charter negotiations.
Campaign Life was not approved as a presenter to the parliamentary committee examining the Charter, but Toth and Campaign Life counsel Gwen Landolt barged into the proceedings and made their presentation anyway. “We made our presentation and were very well received,” she would later recall.
She called the Charter fight the “hardest part” of her pro-life activism over the years. Toth said “we worked like crazy to get the protection for the unborn into the Charter, but it just didn’t happen.”
In 1984, two years after that bruising Charter fight, Toth resigned as president of Campaign Life but remained on its board for many years. She was succeeded by Jim Hughes, current president emeritus of CLC.
In 2017, Hughes said of Toth, “she pulled together Canadian pro-lifers from every province and territory to form the nucleus of the organization that represented pro-life groups in the political arena” and “was steadfast in her determination to elect pro-lifers to Parliament and the provincial legislatures.” Hughes said he appreciated her no-compromises leadership in the early days of Campaign Life.
Toth got her start in the pro-life movement volunteering with Birthright soon after abortion was decriminalized in 1969.
Toth was predeceased by her husband of 66 years, Mark. She is survived by five children – Paula, Kathleen, Chris, Pat and Gavin – and 17 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren.
