How Ontario Liberals have helped to undermine the family since 1985

Election Campaign.

April 3, 1985

Peterson tells student he favours existing law (outlawing clinics.) but “is concerned that there is not enough access.” Liberals support OHIP payments for abortions and, if elected, would pay for travel costs, if there is no hospital  within 300 KM (186 miles) of women’s homes.

April 15, 1985

Peterson promises that as premier he would immediately seek  a civil injunction “to close the clinic.”

Ian Scott, no 2  man of the liberals , signs statement in favour of closing Morgentaler’s abortuary, but only “if  every hospital in Ontario is required to provide abortions at the request of the woman’s physician, at OHIP rates.”

(NDP’s Bob Rae calls for more Morgentaler clinics and for abortion-on-demand)

May 2, 1985

Election day

Campaign life questionnaire

Total number of PC and Liberal candidates                                     250

No responses due to lack of canvassers in remote ridings                  33

Total candidates who responded                                217    100%

Candidates who publicly declared themselves opposed to

Abortion on demand and abortion clinics.                                       179      82.5%

Percentage of PC  and Liberal candidates  elected who favour                   76.5%

closing  the Morgentaler clinic.

Liberal and NDP form alliance

July 9, 1985

Premier Peterson confirms Liberal/NDP government will seek “methods of having  and even access across the province for regularly constituted abortion through therapeutic abortion clinics”. (Ontario Legislature)

July, 1985

Verbal violence of media (Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, T.V. and radio) against pro-life picketers continues to accelerate (“anti-choice fanatics…..”,  “anti-choice extremists …..”,  “dangerous lunatic fringe…..”,  “pro-life terrorists…..,” “ deranged  minority…..”,  “embryo fetishists…….”, “semi fascists fanatics….”)

August 22, 1985

In a press conference, Attorney-General Ian Scott dramatically reinforces accusations against pro-life picketers. He produces letters from Norma Scarborough, president of Canadian Abortion Rights Action League (CARAL) and Roman Catholic Cardinal Carter, calling for limits on picketers to five-at-a-time.

September 21, 1985

Ontario pro-life rally in Toronto. Estimated attendance (conservative) 20.000 (from Toronto and 79 towns outside , coming in over 300 buses.

September 23, 1985

Judge A.K.Meen , in trial of 14 pro-life defendants, describes abortion as “murder” He agrees with defence witnesses that life begins at conception. He notes  the anomaly of police protection enabling a clinic to perform “abortions openly , blatantly and outside the law”:

October 1, 1985

The Ontario Supreme Court of Appeal, in a unanimous decision, sets aside Morgentaler’s acquittal by jury (November, 1984). Says the Court, “….the errors at trial were so fundamental that there has been no trial according to law…”

The attorney General announces he will not close the Morgentaler clinic. According to him it cannot be closed because in July, 1983, a judge was supposed to have refused a request for bail conditions.

In reality, the 1983 judge had stated that (at the time) it could not be automatically assumed that Morgentaler intended to break the law. (Morgentaler in fact, closed his then recently-opened abortuary). The same judge explicitly added that if Morgentaler and associates did continue to break the law, “I would detain them by a simple straight forward detention order.”

October 2, 1985

Premier Peterson silences the one Ontario cabinet minister and only member of the 52-member Liberal caucus to speak out. MPP John Sweeney (Kitchener-Waterloo) had said that he and “most law abiding citizens were offended” by Morgentaler being allowed to “break the law” with impunity.

Meanwhile, Elinor Caplan (Toronto-Oriole), Liberal caucus chairman, demands greater availability for abortion. Peterson tells cabinet, “I want everyone on side of this – the position is that we abhor the clinic but there is nothing we can do to shut it.”  (Toronto sun)

October, 1985

Ian Scott gives one million dollars to LEAF (Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund) to fund court challenges to the equality sections of the Charter of Rights. LEAF favours the right to abortion and “choice of lifestyle.”

October 25-29, 1985

Two Catholic priests and a Baptist pastor are arrested and charged with “public mischief” (later changed to “mischief against private property”) for padlocking 85 Harbord Street. They justify their action, as other picketers had don before them, namely that when authorities refuse to uphold the law, citizens have an obligation to act.

November 26, 1985

Social Service Minister John Sweeney, in a Toronto Star interview, declares, “I have no political objection to the present federal law, in which abortion is permitted…I don’t know why I am labeled the great anti-abortionist.”

November 27, 1985

Labour Minister Bill Wrye (Windsor-Sandwich) announced that the Liberal government is considering outlawing “discrimination” against “sexual orientation.”  He acknowledges the measure may be “controversial.”

An administrative order has already been issued to Children’s Aid societies that they may not “discriminate” against homosexuals for the purpose of adoption.

December 9, 1985

Judge Lorenzo di Cecco, hearing the case of three clergymen , states that the abortion clinic is being kept open “for only one purpose…to flout the law.”

December 10, 1985

This day completes one year of picketing during the day: 30 “sit-in” at Premier’s office.

December 12, 1985

Murray Elson (Huron-Bruce), Minister of Health, acknowledges in the legislature that he granted Morgentaler an OHIP billing number in July for “medical procedures carried out in accordance with the provincial insurance plan,” including “gynaecological testing and abortion counseling.”

January, 1986

Ian Scott appoints feminist and right-to-abortion promoter Doris Anderson to the Ontario Judicial Council.

Those seeking abortions in Northern Ontario may now charge travel costs to OHIP.

February 12, 1986

The three clergymen are acquitted of the “mischief” charge. Stated Justice di Cecco, “… a citizen has still the right to take reasonable steps to prevent the commission of an indictable offence… The Court has no hesitation to state that the actions of the occupants of 85 Harbord Street constitute a prima facie case of a violation of Section 251 of the Criminal Code.

Attorney General Scott repeats his “no bail conditions can be set – there is nothing we can do” argument.

February, 1986

Health Minister Murray Elson accuses striking doctors in Sarnia of endangering the health of women seeking abortions. (This charge would seem to imply that pregnancy is a disease.)  The minister’s “outrage” echoes that of the NDP’s Bob Rae and the Toronto media feminists.

March 1, 1986

The Ontario Family Law Act is proclaimed law. It is one of the most radical pieces of social legislation. It calls for the automatic division of business as well as family property in a divorce, without any burden on the spouse who violates the marriage contract for frivolous or selfish reasons.

March, 1986

Dr. Nikki Colodny starts work in the Morgentaler “clinic.”  Provincial authorities take no action against this new abortionist.

May 6, 1986

Ontario’s Liberal government allows NDP member Evelyn Gigantes to slip in resolution at Justice Committee hearings prohibiting so-called discrimination against “sexual orientation.”

May 14, 1986

Throughout Canada pickets appear in front of hospitals to commemorate the 17^th anniversary of the “legalization” of abortions by the Liberal government of P. E. Trudeau (In Toronto alone, they picket 19 hospitals). Architect of the 1969 legislation is the current leader of the federal Liberal Party, John Turner, who now seeks “better access” to abortion.

May, 1986

Ontario’s Minister of Health thinks it unconscionable that the doctors’ strike may disband so-called therapeutic abortion committees.

May 25, 1986

Abortionist Robert Scott opens Toronto’s second (illegal) abortuary. He confidently counts on receiving the Morgentaler privilege, that is, the freedom to commit indictable offences in an illegal establishment, without being charged. The Attorney General promises he will lay charges “if there is enough evidence.”

June 15, 1986

Murray Elson appoints Dr. Marion Powell to “investigate” the geographic and financial “barriers” to more abortions. Powell is a longstanding, committed, “right-to-abortion” supporter and admirer of Henry Morgentaler.

A few weeks later the Minister of Health, indicates that abortions are too difficult to get, that the OHIP fee for abortions should be raised from $95 to $200, and that general practitioners, instead of just obstetricians, should also be encouraged to do abortions.

September 23, 1986

Toronto city Police inform Ontario’s Attorney General that they are laying charges against the second abortuary opened in May.

September 24, 1986

Abortionists Morgentaler, Colodny and (Robert) Scott are arrested by City police, but released immediately. Attorney General Scott refuses to act on the new evidence which he himself encouraged the police to collect. Once more he resorts to the argument the “the” case is before the Courts and there is nothing anyone can do.

December 2, 1986

Joan smith (London south), Liberal party whip, invokes party discipline for the vote on “sexual orientation”, thus denying members the right to vote according to conscience. The measure passes with the support of the Liberal-NDP alliance and Tory leader Larry Grossman.

Those in society who oppose this latest attack on the family are denounced in the media and by some politicians as “hate peddlers” or accused with “defamation.”

December 10, 1986

This day marks two years of picketing 85 Harbord Street.

January 27, 1987

Sean Conway (Renfrew North), Ontario Minister of Education, decrees mandatory AIDS education in Ontario schools. The decision is based on unexamined premises that a) parents are ignorant; b) unwilling to tell their children anything; and c) condoms are effective in halting the spread of the AIDS virus.

January 29, 1087

Marion Powell, head of Toronto’s Bay Street Centre for Birth Control, hands in her Government-commissioned “study.”  She recommends what the Ontario Liberals wanted her to recommend: abortion clinics in all “larger cities”; full fees for abortionists; an increase in abortionists by allowing family doctors the right to kill unborn babies; and full travel grants and OHIP coverage for every woman seeking the same.