1983

  • The Interim is founded by Campaign Life after mainstream media refuse to cover abortionist-turned-pro-life advocate Dr. Bernard Nathanson’s challenge to the media to let the public know about the truth of the child in the womb.
  • The Inerim provides in-depth and ongoing coverage of the Morgentaler and Smoling trials. Both operate private abortuaries despite federal law requiring abortions be committed only in hospitals after approval by a (albeit rubber-stamping) “therapeutic abortion committee.” After a series of trials, one Morgentaler case makes it to the Supreme Court of Canada and is decided in 1988.
  • Based on an appointment and cost list taken from Morgentaler’s Toronto abortuary by police, The Interim’s Anthony Hawkins estimates that the abortionist netted $175,000 a year in “consultation” fees and split $612,500 a year (before expenses) with his brother as co-owners of the holding company that operates the abortuary.

1984

  • The first election issue of The Interim appears. Interim columnist Winifride Prestwich writes: “The lives of at least a quarter of a million babies are at issue in this election. Their fates depend on our vote.” Campaign Life urges supporters to “consider your candidate’s view on abortion as the paramount factor in making your voting decision.”
  • In England, the Warnock committee wades into controversies now being dealt with in Canada through Bill C-13. Dame May Warnock advises on surrogate motherhood, supports a 14-day limitation on embryo research and in-vitro fertilization and calls for the establishment of a regulatory body to enforce laws limitting embryo freezing to 10 years.
  • The Interim reports that a common vaccine for Rubella (German measles) is derived from the lung tissue of aborted babies.
1985

  • The federal government ratifies the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women. The International Planned Parenthood Federation supports CEDAW as a measure to effectively lobby governments to legalize abortion. Interim editor Sabina McLuhan notes that the protocol “stands to change the family in both its legal rights and in its social patterns.” This is the first comprehensive review of the UN’s anti-life, anti-family agenda to appear in the pages of The Interim.
  • Saskatchewan Bill 53, the Freedom of Informed Choice Act, proposing that women be provided information about fetal development, abortion risks and alternatives to abortion, dies “a natural death” when justice minister Gary Lane moves that the bill be referred to the Court of Appeal to determine its constitutionality.
  • An Ontario jury acquits Morgentaler, Scott and Smoling, but the Ontario Court of Appeal reverses the decision, saying the jury had no grounds to accept Morgentaler’s defence of necessity. Morgentaler appeals the decision to the Supreme Court.

1986

  • The Quebec Coalition for Life submits a petition with 250,000 signatures to the Quebec Assembly.
  • Prince County hospital in Summerside, P.E.I. formally abolishes its therapeutic abortion committee and Prince Edward Island pro-lifers declare the island “Canada’s first abortion-free zone.”
  • The Interim highlights pro-life activism against Ontario premier David Peterson and attorney-general Ian Scott, as police harass pro-life demonstrators while ignoring Henry Morgentaler and Robert Scott’s illegal Toronto abortuaries.
  • Statistics Canada announces it will no longer compile abortion statistics, but retreats after Alliance for Life, Campaign Life and the Coalition for the Protection of Human Life condemn the move, saying that it “serves no purpose other than to further deliberately ignore the continuing problem of abortion.”

1987

  • The federal government refuses a grant to REAL Women, despite giving $11 million to radical feminists groups the year before.
  • The Family Coalition Party of Ontario is formed, as is the Christian Heritage Party federally.
  • The federal government defeats M-17, the private member’s motion of Liberal MP Gus Mitges, which would have granted protection to the unborn through the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
  • The Powell Report advises the Ontario government to expand abortion services by erecting abortuaries “in all large cities,” providing travel grants for Northern Ontario women seeking abortions and covering abortion under OHIP.
  • Two political pro-life organizations, Campaign Life and the Coalition for the Protection of Human Life, amalgamate to form Campaign Life Coalition.
1988

  • In its Morgentaler decision, the Supreme Court of Canada rules the law on abortion is unconstitutional. Despite widespread misunderstanding, the decision does not enshrine a right to abortion. Indeed, as The Interim reports, “the justices write clearly that the state has an interest in prenatal life and that Parliament has a right to protect the lives of preborn children.”
  • The Borowski case, launched in 1975 by former Manitoba NDP cabinet minister Joe Borowski, is dropped because the abortion law no longer exists. Borowski had asked the court to declare the 1969 amendments to the Criminal Code invalid. It had proceeded parallel with the Morgentaler case.
  • Toronto police officer David Packer is given an ultimatum to resign or be fired. He had been charged under the Police Act for insubordination after refusing to protect Henry Morgentaler’s abortuary in 1987.

1989

  • A pair of court challenges, the Dodd and Daigle cases, are launched and make their ways to the Supreme Court of Canada, where it is established that a father cannot prevent the abortion of his child.
  • Fr. Tony Van Hee begins his pro-life witness on Parliament Hill.
  • Planned Parenthood calls on Ottawa to make abortifacient pills more easily available.
1990

  • Bill C-43, a Mulroney abortion bill that would have re-legalized abortion without any effective restriction, is passed in the House of Commons. It is then defeated in a tie vote in the Senate in 1991. MP Gus Mitges proposes an amendment that would make abortion illegal and although it garners more votes than any other amendment, it is defeated.
  • The Interim first reports on the assault on the traditional family through Canadian human rights commissions by their advocacy of including sexual orientation as a form of prohibited discrimination.
  • The NDP wins in Ontario. New premier Bob Rae says, “Access to abortion is critical to government.”

1991

  • In Sullivan and Lemay, the Supreme Court of Canada establishes that a child in the process of being born is not “a person” in law. The case stems from a B.C. situation in which the actions of a pair of grossly negligent midwives result in the death of a baby during delivery.
  • The first LifeChains begin in Canada.
  • A plebiscite in Saskatchewan finds that 62 per cent of electors oppose taxpayer funding of abortion.

1992

  • Fetal tissue transplants come to Canada for the first time, as Victoria General Hospital in Halifax offers it as treatment for patients with Parkinson’s Disease.
  • Sue Rodriguez, afflicted with ALS, petitions the courts for the right to assisted suicide. In 1993, the Supreme Court of Canada will uphold Section 241, making it an offence to counsel, aid or abet a suicide. Rodriguez commits suicide in 1994, apparently with the assistance of MP Svend Robinson (NDP, Burnaby-Douglas).
  • Canadian pro-lifers debate whether quadriplegic Nancy B’s request to unplug her respirator is euthanasia. The debate centres on whether a respirator is ordinary or extraordinary treatment. In an editorial, The Interim concludes Nancy B made the wrong decision.
1993

  • Ontario’s NDP government attempts to end peaceful pro-life demonstrations by obtaining a temporary judicial injunction to prevent pro-life activism within 60 feet of private abortuaries. The injunction is still in force today.
  • In a Toronto press conference, French geneticist Dr. Jerome Lejeune warns of “chemical warfare” against the unborn if the abortion drug RU-486 is permitted in Canada.
  • In a series of articles, Interim columnist Winifride Prestwich exposes UNICEF’s changing mandate, which now includes the promotion of abortion, contraception and sterilization.
1994

  • The UN International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo promotes a radical anti-life agenda that equates the human population with pollution. Karen Murawsky reports in The Interim that 77 pages of the 84-page Draft Program of Action are dedicated to population control, and just seven are devoted to development.
  • Robert Latimer is convicted of the second-degree murder of his disabled daughter Tracy.
  • Vancouver abortionist Garson Romalis is non-fatally shot. Pro-lifers condemn all violence, both against abortionists and the unborn.
1995

  • The Canadian delegation is a leading advocate of the international push to decriminalize abortion at the UN’s Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. Pro-abortion feminists dominate the conference, but Campaign Life Coalition’s Louis Di Rocco and REAL Women’s Gwen Landolt are among the pro-life non-governmental organizations fighting efforts to have new abortion and sexual rights language adopted in the final document. In The Interim, Di Rocco wonders, “Is this a conference on women, or is it about population and sex?”
  • Liberal senator Stanley Haidasz is thwarted by federal health minister Allan Rock in pursuing conscience protection for healthcare workers.
  • Hamilton-area abortionist Hugh Short is shot. The pro-life community reiterates its opposition to violence.

1996

  • In January, a B.C. provincial court strikes down the Access to Abortion Services Act, which unconstitutionally banned demonstrations near B.C.’s abortuaries, only to have the B.C. Supreme Court re-instate it in October.
  • American euthanasia crusader Jack Kevorkian claims his first Canadian victim when Austin Bastable of Windsor crosses the border to use Kevorkian’s carbon monoxide cylinder to end his life.
  • Pro-lifers fear a hidden anti-life, anti-family agenda at the UN Habitat II conference in Istanbul. The underlying view of conference is that the growth of cities must be controlled if housing problems are to be addressed.
  • Pro-life political hero Joseph Borowski dies after a year-long battle with cancer.

1997

  • Robert Latimer is granted a new trial. Former Latimer prosecutor Randy Kirkham is suspended by the Saskatchewan NDP government.
  • Campaign Life Coalition posts federal election information for the first time on-line through lifesite.net. The Interim continues its tradition of providing a Voter’s Guide Supplement. Nonetheless, the Liberal party, led by pro-abortion Prime Minister Jean Chretien, wins re-election.
  • B.C. begins efforts to exclude right to life supporters from regional health boards.
  • Pro-life heroine Mother Teresa dies.

1998

  • Supreme Court Justice John Sopinka dies. The Interim editorializes, “While not a pro-life advocate, (he) wrote some judgements that were clearly sympathetic to the pro-life and pro-family movement.” His sudden death “is a blow to the pro-life cause.”
  • The UNFPA and assorted feminist groups urge the UN to recognize the 50th anniversary of the UN Declaration of Human Rights by adding another one to be guaranteed: “sexual and reproductive health rights” – UN-speak for abortion.
  • After a series of trials and retrials, the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal sentences Robert Latimer to life in prison for the murder of his daughter Tracy. The Supreme Court of Canada upholds the decision in 2001.
1999

  • Human Life International is stripped of its charitable tax status.
  • Health Canada writes to Exelgyn, the French company that owns the rights to RU-486, encouraging it to apply for a Canadian licence.
  • The Nova Scotia College of Physicians and Surgeons merely reprimands Halifax respirologist Nancy Morrison for hastening the death of a patient in 1996 with a legal injection of potassium chloride. It also applauds her motives as being “in his best interests.”
  • Toronto police impose a blackout on coverage of within court-ordered bubble zones by arresting and charging three pro-life journalists. The charges are dropped nine months later.
2000

  • The Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace and the Catholic Women’s League support the World March for Women in the Year 2000. The march includes calls for abortion and lesbian “rights.”
  • Abortion is a major issue in the leadership race for the Canadian Alliance. Pro-life Stockwell Day emerges victorious. In November, Prime Minister Chretien exploits Day’s pro-life views in a successful but cynical re-election ploy.
  • Alliance for Life launches TV commercials speaking directly to abortion-minded women. The ads are based on those run in the U.S. by the Caring Foundation.
2001

  • Health Minister Allan Rock asks the House of Commons Health Committee to consider a bill on new reproductive technologies. In December, the committee reports, and offers but limited protection for embryonic life.
  • A Canadian delegate at the UN admits “reproductive health” means abortion. This is the first time such an admission is made.
  • Lisa Klassen, a St. Thomas, Ont. teen, is suspended from her high school for wearing a T-shirt that said, “Abortion is mean.”
  • A Vancouver woman dies during Canadian clinical trials of abortion pill RU-486. It is discovered that she was never informed of the risks.

2002

  • Henry Morgentaler steps up a campaign to have New Brunswick and Nova Scotia fully pay for abortions committed at his Fredericton and Halifax abortuaries.
  • Feminist activists push condoms and pro-abortion, pro-contraception views on youth attending World Youth Day in Toronto.
  • The Ontario Divisional Court orders the federal government to redefine marriage to include homosexuals.
  • The Raelian cult claims to have facilitated the birth of the first human clone.

2003

  • The House of Commons debates a bill introduced by Health Minister Anne McLellan on reproductive technologies. The bill would permit embryonic stem cell research and fails to effectively ban human cloning. The House has yet to vote on it as this issue of The Interim went to press.