March for Life organizers accuse Conservatives of silencing pro-life MPs
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Summary
In this episode, we discuss the 29th annual National March for Life, a pro-life rally that takes place in Toronto, Canada on March 31st, where pro-lifers gathered to demand legal protection for pre-born children in the womb.
Transcript
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tell me about the history of the event absolutely so in 1969 there was a bill
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that was passed called the omnibus bill where they wove abortion into it and
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And since that day, we've had 5 million pre-born humans killed by abortion.
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And in our opinion, it's the greatest human rights violation of our times.
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And that's why we show up here year after year to demand legal protection for pre-born children in the womb.
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This is our 29th annual National March for Life.
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And we're going to continue to show up here until the government listens to Canadians
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and gives us what we want, which is legal protection for human life from the moment of conception.
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Right now, we have this liberal government led by Prime Minister Mark Carney,
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who interestingly holds himself out as a committed Catholic,
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and yet he supports what he calls a woman's right to choose.
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What is that? Let's unpack that. What does he mean by a woman's right to choose?
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Well, first of all, there is no right in Canada to kill another person.
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There is no right for a woman just to go and kill her baby.
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There are no laws in Canada governing abortion at all.
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There was no law that was ever passed in Parliament.
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There's nothing in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
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In fact, the Charter says everyone has the right to life.
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Now, I spoke to one of your colleagues about the representation and engagement with Conservatives again.
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and on the topic, do you believe that years past you had more or less engagement?
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And how would you view that in terms of leadership that can serve the party
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under successive leaders Andrew Scheer, Aaron O'Toole, Pierre Polyev?
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Which among them are perhaps more likely to muzzle or take MPs out of this kind of photo?
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Yeah, unfortunately, it has deteriorated since Stephen Harper's third term.
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So kind of since I've been in the pro-life movement and working at Campaign Life Coalition,
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you know, when pro-life MPs, backbench MPs had the most freedom to say what they wanted
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without fear of being slammed by the leader was actually under Stephen Harper.
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His first two terms, he took a very hands-off approach.
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He respected party democracy, and MPs would bring forward pro-life bills like Rod Bernouge
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in Manitoba brought forward an abortion coercion bill.
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And he just, he respected their freedom to do so,
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to represent their constituents and what was important to them.
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And after Stephen Harper, I think in part because of the fear of the media,
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successive leaders of the Conservative Party clamped down on them
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and told them to keep quiet, not raise these issues.
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So that MP freedom has deteriorated, and that's really sad,
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and we hope it will be restored with a future leader.
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Unfortunately, Pierre Poiliev is much the same.
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He doesn't allow freedom for MPs to speak on these issues.
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Sometimes they do, but sometimes they also get slapped down for speaking up.
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So you accused Pierre Poiliev of censorship then?
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do you expect any counter-protest demonstrations?
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I saw that there were a few counter-demonstrators as well.
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Do you believe that society is moving away or towards your direction?
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In terms of the counter-protesters, I don't think there's many.
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that there was a group of pro-abortion demonstrators.
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trying to form, but the police didn't expect it would be more than 100 people. So it shouldn't
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be a big presence. Yeah, I think things are moving in our direction with the younger people. The
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younger generations are more pro-life than their parents. You know, the boomers are more pro-choice,
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more pro-abortion. The children of the newer generations, they have the advantage of the
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internet. They have the advantage of seeing what children in the womb look like, what babies in
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womb look like it's not a mystery they they know it they can they can see ultrasound photos and
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videos and 4d ultrasounds uh so it's uh to most young people they understand that a baby in the
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womb is a human being and it's wrong to kill him or her um so and we see more young people coming
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into the pro-life movement every year as well so it's growing and it's greening and that is
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absolutely a cause for hope. Lastly, is Canada's growing demographic with immigrants changing
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things at all in your favor? In fact, yes. A lot of the immigrants, I think the liberals
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bring so many such high levels of immigration into Canada, thinking that they're going to be
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automatic liberal voters. But the reality is that most of them come from very socially
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conservative countries that value life they value babies they value family um they don't believe in
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in throwing away their elderly their grandparents and uh and killing them uh so uh you know they're
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they're it's not a big task uh i don't believe in future to bring more and more of new canadians
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and immigrants into the pro-life movement so tell me a little bit about the link of the issues
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There's Christ as king, free Palestine, pro-life.
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If you call yourself pro-life and you're pro-genocide,
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So the people here are focused on one issue, and I agree with them on that issue,
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but I think abortion is almost a symptom of the wider problem,
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that moral people are basically shunned from polite society or lose their jobs.
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And it's not just about abortion for me, and so that's why I have this on my sign.
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Also, the Palestine issue, I think a lot of churches are signing off on that
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because they're so pro-Zionist, and I think it's disgusting.
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Tell me about your views on the leadership of the Conservative Party
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He just wants to slow things down, but he's not real opposition.
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Max Bernier I support him a hundred percent I think the PPC platform is
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wonderful he's a little more libertarian than I am I'm a little more nationalist
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but he's compromised a lot with the nationalist wing of the party and so I
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support him a hundred percent he would probably disavow some of the edgier
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things that I have to say but that's okay so Derek what brings you to the hill
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today uh so the march for life is an important event annually in ottawa that i that i typically
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attend and of course i promote life and i am pro-life and i'm happy to be here to uh to support
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the march you ran for leadership the federal conservative party how do you view the current
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leadership as relation to this issue uh the the current conservative party is socially liberal
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and economically conservative um and so they're not and you know i don't say that as an insult i
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think that's an accurate you know reflection of where they're at but they're they're not really
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big on the pro-life issue there are obviously mps who are pro-life but they don't this is a bad news
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day for them if they get a lot of mps out here so i my guess is behind the scenes they are
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encouraging people not to attend that would be my guess you ran alongside as well one of your
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competitors at the time leslie lewis who is known to be pro-life and socially conservative as well
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Do you view that someone like her has prospects of leadership of the future of the party?
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I mean, when you're an MP in a party, there's pressure that's put on you to kind of toe the party line.
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When it comes to health care issues, be it abortion, MAID, elsewhere, there is a federal and also a provincial component.
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What's happening in Ontario right now that you're pushing for?
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Yeah, well, listen, we're having some major issues in Ontario.
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A lot of them actually relate to immigration and foreign students and things like this.
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In fact, provincial autonomy and provincial authority is such a big issue
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that a lot of Canadians don't understand the control that provinces have.
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Provinces and provincial leaders need to take back authority from the federal government.
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They need to take back their constitutional authority,
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whether it's education, immigration or health care, that's something that provinces can have a huge impact on.
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And that's what we're fighting for with the Ontario Party.
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My last question, I think it was in the lead up to the leadership race where you ran along with Lesley Lewis, Aaron O'Toole and Peter McKay.
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Peter McKay called Andrew Scheer's social conservative views a stinking albatross.
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Do you think there's growth potential or is it still a burden on a conservative leader to hold a caucus with those kinds of views?
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You know what, it certainly would be challenging because you have a very elite sort of liberal media consensus that would give you a hard time.
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But the fact is, is on the ground, the average, I mean, we're talking about normal views.
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Things like, you know, men shouldn't be playing on women's sports teams or competing against women.
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Children should not be told that there's 99 genders.
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They should be allowed to live their lives without being medicated or operated on
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These are things that I believe are winning issues,
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and I believe that that can also be a winning issue here in Canada.