The ideological demands of pro-abortion Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are so radical that even an organization that supports abortion is fighting against them.
Last year, Trudeau’s administration began requiring Canadian Summer Jobs grant applicants to sign a statement that they support abortion on demand. The requirement has prompted massive protests from Christians, Muslims, Hindus and other religious groups, but the Trudeau administration has refused to make any exceptions.
This week, pro-life groups that are challenging the policy found an unlikely ally in the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, which supports legalized abortion. The association joined a lawsuit challenging the new pro-abortion policy as a violation of Canadians’ free speech, according to the Daily Caller.
Josh Paterson, executive director of the liberty group, said their problem is with the government forcing Canadians to sign the attestation, not the beliefs stated in it.
“We are coming from a different perspective because we’re a resolutely pro-choice organization and have been speaking up for reproductive rights for decades,” he told the National Post.
“To say, look, we’re just not going to fund any anti-choice activities, I don’t think that would contravene the constitution,” he continued. “To say we’re going to force you to mouth these words, or to sign this attestation, whether or not you believe in the words written: that is what is problematic.”
Paterson said his group did sign the attestation when applying for a grant this year.
However, a record number of groups did not.
The Trudeau administration rejected 1,500 summer job grant applications because they “either didn’t check off the [pro-abortion] attestation or included a clarification or modification of it,” the National Post reported earlier this spring. In comparison, it rejected only 126 of more than 40,000 applications in 2017, according to the report.
Canadian taxpayers pay about $200 million a year to support the youth-based program, which provides funding for businesses and non-profits to offer temporary summer jobs to youth ages 15 to 30. It is a way the government encourages young people to get hands-on training before entering the workforce full-time.
In the past, both pro-life and pro-abortion organizations have received grants to offer jobs to young adults. However, pro-abortion political leaders cut off grants to groups that will not bow to the altar of abortion on demand.
Polling indicates a strong majority of Canadians oppose the radical pro-abortion policy. Liberal mainstream news outlets spun a new poll to claim “Canadians are evenly divided” on the policy. However, the most telling question in the Angus Reid Institute survey indicates very strong opposition to the government’s demands.
As the CBC reports:
Presented with a hypothetical scenario involving an anti-abortion organization applying for a grant to fund activities unrelated to abortion advocacy, nearly three-quarters (73 per cent) of Canadians said they believe the organization should be eligible. Support for funding falls below 37 per cent in a scenario which sees the anti-abortion group spend its grant money on anti-abortion advocacy.
In most cases, the 1,500-plus groups that did not receive grants this year were groups that fund activities unrelated to pro-life advocacy. Many of those programs served refugees, low-income children and other minority groups. But because of the Trudeau administration, they have been forced to close or drastically reduce their programs.
Shachi Kurl, executive director of the Angus Reid Institute, said the poll numbers may worry Trudeau and his party because even some Liberal supporters find the policy troubling.
“You might have a situation where someone is in favour of not having abortion laws, in favour of access to abortion, but perhaps does not have the stomach to see government dictating what organizations that want to apply for federal grant money can and can not believe,” she said. “I think that’s the tension point.”
It is concerning, however, that more than half of Canadians polled (56 percent) said they had not even heard about the pro-abortion policy, the Vancouver Sun reports.
Canada has some of the most radical pro-abortion laws in the world that allow abortions for any reason up to birth. It does not have parental consent/notification requirements or informed consent requirements, and many abortions are paid for by taxpayer dollars.
