On Monday, August 4, The Toronto Star told us through Walter Stefaniuk, that peace, tranquility, and, let’s not forget, prosperity have returned to Harbord Street. The smiling faces of three local business people assured us of this return.
It should be noted that The Star was careful to rehearse the lies and distortions of a notice which some businesses had chosen to place in their windows for a few weeks last summer and fall. You may remember that notice. It spoke in part of “fanaticism, blackmail….bomb threats, urban terrorism and destruction of our streets.” None of these wild accusations were ever proven (at least, not against Pro-Lifers), but such rehearsal makes good abortionist propaganda. It also exposes further The Star’s support for Morgentaler’s illegal abortuary at 85 Harbord Street.
Realtor Neil Wright, president of the Harbord Street Association, wanted every reader of the article to know that “we (the residents and merchants of Harbord Street between Spadina and Bathurst) have maintained our dignity.”
Jeraldene Ballon, who recently opened “Dr. Cheese and The Cake Lady,” wanted everyone to know that the street is “coming alive.” Miss Ballon wished everyone to know further that all sorts of people in business on Harbord Street had dropped in at this opening with gifts and best wishes, (all, that is, except one notorious neighbour whose business can hardly be said to be bringing the street alive).
Mr. Wright again: “We want to retain the personality and character of Harbord Street.”
The four or five of Morgentaler’s neighbours who were quoted in The Star article agreed that Harbord was becoming their kind of Toronto 1986 street. Strollers on Harbord Street can now find a bookstore, a Japanese garden, the Witchy Shoppe (owned by “Midnight-haired Raven, selling candles, incense, Tarot cards and ‘unusual bath salts’”), ethnic restaurants, a word processing shop. And in the midst of all these, strollers can find a friendly, local abortionist – Henry or Nikki – just two of the gang of peace-loving folks whom Walter Stafaniuk told us about.
But Morgentaler’s four or five quoted neighbours, peace-lovers though they all be, would be the first to let everyone know that they realize that war has pretty well become the metaphor for our time, and that to defend peace they would be the first to make war on poverty, on inflation, on racism, on pollution – all the injustices these right-thinking individuals would in their highly-selective indignation wish to see destroyed.
Curiously enough, however, when Henry and Nikki abandon the metaphor and make actual, merciless, bloody war on the most innocent and most defenceless human being, the unborn child, and slaughter him in the womb, these peace-loving folkies over on Harbord Street are conveniently silent as they bask in their tranquil prosperity and endorse the butchers’ slaughter of the innocents.
What is truly peaceful on Harbord Street is the legal picketing of the abortuary which Morgentaler, Colodny, their neighbours, the police, and The Toronto Star find impossible to ignore.
Hugh Loughran is editor of The Mississauga Area Right to Life newsletter.
