Honourable mentions:
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith vows to protect female spaces, Statistics Canada reports that Canada’s fertility rate hits all-time low of 1.26 children per woman of child-bearing age (among the lowest in the world), Trudeau implements national pharmacare program that provides free contraception to all Canadians whose birth control is not covered by their private insurance programs or provincial health care plans, and Canadian horror stories serve as a warning against legalizing euthanasia.
10. Record-setting Life Chain
The 2024 Life Chain was held in 350 locations throughout Canada, from coast to coast to coast, up more than 100 locations compared to 2020. This was the 35th annual Life Chain in Canada and attendance exceeded 15,000 despite some locations experiencing rain. Campaign Life Coalition stated that “because we were out on the streets, people who needed to see our message did,” as “Hundreds of thousands of Canadians encountered the pro-life message.”
9. Canadian Anti-Hate Network targets Campaign Life Coalition
The Anti-Hate Network, which receives federal funding, attacked Campaign Life Coalition in its publication “40 Ways to Fight the Far Right,” which was released in July. The AHN responded to CLC’s concerns about inclusion by stating the pro-life group “oppose(s) pluralism, equality and individual rights,” stating that its positions on marriage and sexuality are “consistent” with “Hallmarks of Hate.” CLC’s legal counsel sent a letter on August 21 demanding that the defamatory inclusion in the “40 Ways” document be removed, that the Network issue a retraction including stating clearly that CLC is not a fascist or hate-promoting organization, and issue an apology for the false statements. The Anti-Hate Network has a history of targeting CLC. Earlier in the year, the Network retracted a statement falsely claiming CLC was behind a poll that showed most Albertans support parental consent for minors who want to obtain an abortion – after CLC denied it had any connection to the poll. In 2022, it misrepresented a statement by CLC director of education and advocacy Josie Luetke in a story about school board trustee candidates.
8. Blaine Higgs loses New Brunswick election
On Oct. 21, New Brunswick Progressive Conservative Premier Blaine Higgs was defeated by the Liberals and immediately the new government sought to reverse some of Higgs’ socially conservative policies. Within two weeks of forming government, Premier Susan Holt rescinded Regulation 84-20, a policy that prohibited the funding of surgical abortions committed at private medical facilities, a policy which had been supported by every government—Liberal or Progressive Conservative—since the 1980s. Holt said that the move was intended to “create more access to abortion” throughout the province. Holt also rescinded Policy 713, Higgs’ signature education policy that required parents of children who sought social transitioning at school – using pronouns or names at odds with their biological sex – to give their consent to those changes.
7. Report finds more than 100 Canadian women harmed by abortion pill
A Campaign Life Coalition report found that more than 100 Canadian women suffered serious health effects after taking the abortion pill, including one death. Abortion advocates call the abortion pill – sold in Canada as Mifegymiso as a two-pill regiment of Mifepristone and Misoprostol – the gold standard method because of its supposed safety. An investigation of information from Health Canada indicated that as of July 2024, there were 118 “adverse reports” for either Mifegymiso (51) or Mifepristone and Misoprostol (67) that were listed on the “Vigilance Program.” According to the program, women using the abortion pill suffered hemorrhaging, loss of consciousness, sepsis, blood clots, and septic shock, one of which resulted in death. Campaign Life Coalition said that while abortion advocates call the abortion pill “medicine” this is inaccurate because medicine is meant to cure illness or disease, and pregnancy is not an illness or disease. The abortion pill kills preborn children and harms the health of pregnant women. It was also reported that at least three women in the United States died after taking the abortion pill since the 2022 Dobbs decision. CLC called on Health Canada to recall the abortion drug protocol. “The evidence is clear: Canadian women are being harmed by the chemical abortion protocol,” wrote CLC’s Pete Baklinski in the report.
6. Spread of anti-free speech zones to Manitoba
On June 4, the Manitoba legislature passed The Access to Safe Abortions Act (Bill 8), which created an anti-free speech bubble zone around facilities that do abortions by banning pro-life speech in their vicinity. Facilities protected by these bubble zones include abortion mills, hospitals that commit abortion, and physicians’ offices where abortions are procured. The bubble zones, which can span between 50 and 150 metres from an abortion facility, make it illegal to show any act of disapproval of abortion to anyone near where abortions are committed. Acts of disapproval include informing others about the abortion procedure or offering assistance to abortion-minded women. Violators of the law are subject to a fine of $5,000 and six months in jail on first offense, and a $10,000 fine and one year in jail on subsequent offenses. This was the third attempt by St. John’s NDP MLA and Minister of Families, Nahanni Fontaine, to get bubble zones imposed in Manitoba; previous attempts were defeated by the Progressive Conservative government but this one passed now that the NDP governs the province. Manitoba became the fifth province with a bubble zone law, joining British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, and Quebec.
5. Cass Review calls transgender ideology into question
In April, the Independent Review of Gender Identity Services for Children and Young People, colloquially referred to as the Cass Review that was commissioned in 2020 by the National Health Service, found that there was little evidence to support puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and psychosocial interventions in children and teenagers with gender dysphoria (gender confusion). The findings of Hillary Cass, a former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, led the United Kingdom to ban prescribing puberty blockers to adolescents and children under the age of 18 who are gender confused. Cass conducted a massive review of studies in regard to each medical intervention and found that there was no evidence to support any of the medical pathways offered to gender confused youth. Furthermore, Cass found that the rationale for puberty blockers – that they be used to give gender confused youth time to think about their decision – proved false considering that the vast majority of children who took them went on to proceed with hormone therapy. She said there was poor follow-up data to understand long-term risks or regret of transitioning. Numerous health bodies around the world, including the Canadian Pediatric Society, have affirmed support of so-called gender medicine for children and adolescents.
4. First ever March for Life in Quebec
On June 1, Campagne Québec-Vie (CQV) organized the province’s first March for Life, an event that was met with an estimated 1000 counter-protesters. The pro-abortion crowd led police to advise Georges Buscemi, president CQV, an organizer of the event, to stay on the grounds of the National Assembly and not to march in the streets. However, the pro-life crowd braved the anti-life demonstrators and marched through the streets to bring their pro-life message to the public. When the pro-life marchers returned to the National Assembly, the provincial legislature, it had been taken over by the counter-protesters who set off green smoke flairs. Police escorted them off the premises and the Quebec pro-lifers heard testimonies and speeches from numerous speakers, which was followed by a dinner. 2024 was a big year for Campagne Quebe Vie; in February, the organization celebrated its 30th anniversary. CQV is also challenging the province’s bubble zone law in court.
3. Continued persecution of defenders of life and family
Mike Del Grande, Josh Alexander and Linda Gibbons are three of the most visible Canadians who have paid a price for their witness. Del Grande is the Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) trustee who challenged the board’s finding of professional misconduct following his opposition to adding “gender identity” and ‘gender expression” to TCDSB’s code of conduct. He lost in the courts and is seeking appealing to the Supreme Court of Canada, but the TCDSB is trying to force him to pay $187,500 in costs (plus interest) granted them by lower courts. As LifeSiteNews’s John-Henry Westen said, the board is seeking to punish Del Grande by making him homeless for not going along with the LGBTQ+ agenda in the Catholic school system. In 2022, a Christian student, Josh Alexander, publicly opposed his Catholic school’s policy to permit biological males who identify as girls to use female restrooms and changerooms, which led the school to suspend him and eventually for the Renfrew County Catholic District School Board (RCCDSB) in Ontario to expel the student. After the Ontario Divisional Court dismissed the appeal of Alexander to overturn his expulsion, the RCCDSB sought nearly $47,000 in legal costs from the teenager. On Nov. 18, Alexander tweeted “Arresting, suspending, excluding, defaming, failing, and permanently removing Josh was not enough. This will leave Josh bankrupt at 18 years old.” In June and July, Linda Gibbons was arrested four times for allegedly violating the province’s “Safe Access to Abortion Services Act” which outlaws pro-life speech around abortion facilities. She also faced two criminal charges of “failing to comply” and “mischief” related to her four arrests. Gibbons chooses to be silent in court in solidarity with preborn children killed by abortion, a tactic that led to the judge to seek a psychiatric assessment of Gibbons. In December, Ontario Court Justice Maria Speyer ruled that Gibbons, 76, was not guilty of mischief for holding pro-life signs outside the Morgentaler abortuary in Toronto. In the United States, Joe Biden’s Department of Justice has successfully prosecuted and sent to jail more than a dozen pro-lifers for violating the 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances for their witness to the injustice of abortion.
2. Justin Trudeau attacks pregnancy care centres
In October, the Trudeau government announced that it would introduce legislation that would require pregnancy care centres to disclose whether or not they committed or referred for abortions; those that did not make such public disclosures would lose their charitable tax status. In 2021, the Trudeau Liberals ran on a platform that targeted all pregnancy care centres for loss of charitable tax status claiming they trucked in misinformation by misleading pregnant women that they offered abortion services or information. Campaign Life Coalition said the change to Revenue Canada regulations regarding charities is “not only unnecessary but misleading” because the vast majority of pregnancy care centres are transparent about the services they do and do not provide. Furthermore, the rule singles out pregnancy care centres because no other charity is required to disclose what services they do not offer. The NDP said the proposal did not go far enough saying pregnancy care centres – which provide material and other supports to pregnant women and their children – should all be stripped of their charitable tax status. Previously, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre criticized Trudeau’s attack on pregnancy care centres but when then finance minister Chrystia Freeland and Women’s Minister Marci Ien announced they would table the legislation, no Conservative responded to the proposal. CLC national president Jeff Gunnarson said, “The ‘pro-choice’ Prime Minister would rather women only have one choice – abortion.”
1. Donald Trump wins U.S. election
Former president Donald Trump defeated the pro-abortion Democratic presidential candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, winning 312 Electoral Votes to 226, after winning all six heavily contested states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin). Trump ran against Harris’s abortion radicalism which included a national pro-abortion law that would legalize abortion through all nine months and would override state-level pro-life laws. Trump himself said he opposed a national pro-life law, saying that states should decide the issue. In 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States voted to overturn the 1973 pro-abortion decision Roe v. Wade when three of Trump’s Supreme Court appointments voted with the majority in the Dobbs decision. He counted on pro-life voters to reward him for those judicial appointments even as he criticized state-level pro-life laws that outlawed the procedure before 12 weeks. During the presidential debate, Trump called the Democratic position as extreme as he described the barbaric practice of abortion until birth. Although Trump said he would not sign a federal abortion ban, pro-life Americans are hopeful that the second Trump presidency will include freeing pro-life prisoners of conscience, defunding abortion domestically and abroad, and appointing lower court judges to uphold pro-life laws passed in the states.
