CLC has a wish list for the government

Paul Tuns:

Ontario Premier Doug Ford called an election 18 months early with polls indicating that he could grow his majority. On Feb. 27, he was re-elected with virtually the same caucus in which Liberal leader and former Mississauga mayor Bonnie Crombie failed to even win her own seat.

Ford’s Progressive Conservatives won 2.15 million votes and 80 seats. The Liberals received 1.5 million votes and the NDP more than 930,000 votes, but the NDP won more seats, 27 compared to 14 for the Liberals. The Green Party won two seats and a right-leaning independent won in Haldimand-Norfolk. Compared to the last election, in 2022, the PCs won three fewer seats and the NDP four fewer. The Liberals won six more and the Greens kept a seat they won in a by-election since the last provincial election.

Doug Ford called the election to renew his “mandate” in dealing with the tariffs U.S. President Donald Trump is threatening against Canada. There were no other major issues that gained any traction, and social issues such abortion, euthanasia, and parental rights in education were not highlighted during the campaign.

Campaign Life Coalition issued a statement congratulating Ford on his victory and called for the Premier to “make this new term one in which he ends the unconstitutional lawfare, censorship, and persecution that the Ontario Attorney General’s office has been waging against peaceful pro-life citizens and a Christian activist.”

Jeff Gunnarson, CLC’s national president, said, “This victory is an opportunity for Ford to move the province forward by overturning an unjust censorship law targeting pro-life citizens and intervening on behalf of a Christian activist who is being treated unjustly by the legal system.”

Gunnarson is referring to the prosecutions of Catholic priest Fr. Tony Van Hee and Christian grandmother Linda Gibbons, both who have been charged under Ontario’s anti-free speech bubble zone law which bans all pro-life speech within 50 metres of abortion facilities. The so-called Safe Access to Abortion Services Act was passed by the Liberal government of Kathleen Wynne in 2017. Gunnarson said that while Ford says he espouses free speech, he has allowed this anti-free speech law to stay on the books and the Crown attorney’s office to prosecute pro-life activists who have done nothing to threaten women seeking abortions or those who work in the abortion industry.

Gunnarson said, “As Ontario moves forward under Premier Ford’s leadership, we urge him to repeal the Safe Access to Abortion Services Act, 2017, commonly known as the ‘bubble zone’ law.” Gunnarson said, “This legislation unjustly criminalizes peaceful pro-life witness and silent prayer outside abortion mills, suppressing the freedoms of speech and assembly guaranteed to all Canadians,” and “It’s time for Ontario to reaffirm its commitment to the fundamental freedoms enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms by overturning this unjust law.”

Furthermore, Gunnarson called on Premier Ford to intervene to end the legal persecution of Christian activist Bill Whatcott who, is being tried a second time in an Ontario Court for the same alleged “hate speech” crime after being acquitted the first time.  “Bill Whatcott is on trial again for passing out Christian flyers at the 2016 homosexual ‘Pride’ parade in Toronto,” said Gunnarson. “He was acquitted of the charges in 2021, only to face them again after the LGBT lobby complained. This makes a mockery of our legal system. Ford needs to personally step in and end the injustice of this double-jeopardy trial.”

CLC director of political operations, Jack Fonseca, said Doug Ford should deliver on a promise made to the pro-life-and-family movement when he ran for leader in 2018. “Ford kept the radical Wynne-Levin sex-ed curriculum that he vowed to repeal,” said Fonseca. “Now’s the time for him to keep his promise and scrap it.”

The New Blue Party led by Jim Karahalios (left) and Ontario Party led by Derek Sloan (right) together earned more than 106,000 votes in the general election. CLC commended them for their pro-life and pro-family policies.

The New Blue Party, led by Jim Karahalios, ran candidates in 108 of the 124 ridings. They finished in fifth place across Ontario with 80,245 votes (1.6 per cent of the vote), down by about 47,000 votes in 2022 when the New Blue Party won 2.7 per cent of the vote, when they ran 123 candidates.

The Ontario Party, led by Derek Sloan, ran candidates in 40 ridings and won 26,262 votes (0.5 per cent), good for sixth province-wide. The Ontario Party won about 57,000 more votes with 105 candidates in 2020, good for 1.8 per cent of the vote.

Both parties had pro-life and pro-family policies in their platforms, including protecting the rights of parents as first educators.

CLC commended the New Blue Party and Ontario Party candidates for their commitment to “defending life, parental rights, and family values.”