This election cycle has boiled down to one key phrase that Bernie Sanders began using to help people navigate Trump-land: “Listen not to what they say – Watch what they DO.”
I remember a time when everyone was suspicious of the promises politicians made. But in our surreal post-truth era where identities seem to be fusing with political alliances in response to us VS them divide and conquer propaganda, political statements seem to be taken at face-value.
There is one issue in particular that came up at last night’s Leaders French Language Debate that needs to be meticulously unpacked and analyzed in detail: Abortion.
I’ve seen it all over my social media feeds: “Poilievre said he won’t ban Abortion, so stop talking about it!! “
Ya, well I’m old enough to remember when Stephen Harper said the same thing and as we shall see, the reality was much different than his words on the campaign trail. So, let’s take the advice of my acquaintance on Facebook and take a look at past votes and actions. Great idea! And if you’re looking for a break down of Pierre Poilievre’s 20 year voting record on all issues, you can find that here.
Pierre Poilievre and the Conservative Party’s History with Abortion in Canada
As we have known for a while now, it turns out that repeatedly talking about women’s biological clocks and using misogynistic hashtags in your campaign ads isn’t a great way to make your party attractive to women. And when you add the Conservative Party’s history with Anti-Abortion Rights into the mix – well, it would be a hard swipe left for many who want to see their rights and healthcare prioritized. Let’s get into it!
First the wording: He has said it before and he said it again during the French leadership debate: Poilievre has promised not to legislate on abortion. But that only means he doesn’t have the intention to introduce a government bill making abortion restricted or illegal. It doesn’t mean that a sitting conservative MP couldn’t bring forward a bill for a free vote.
And in fact, Pierre has clearly stated he would not stop any of his MPs from introducing anti-abortion legislation (and indeed his MPs have several times over the last few years tabled anti-abortion legislation and run several anti-abortion petitions). When Andrew Scheer was leader of the Conservative Party, he similarly said he wouldn’t touch abortion but then stated his MPs would be free to do it. As a counter example to what Pierre keeps repeating, leader of the Bloc Québécois Yves-François Blanchet answered the question with this: none of his members would be able to table anti-abortion legislation. That is the correct response.
Allowing MPs to table anti-abortion legislation with a free vote would make it theoretically possible for a Conservative government to pass a law restricting access to abortion. And indeed, measures have been taken over the last decade to increase the number of anti-abortion MPs within the Conservative caucus making such an outcome all the more likely.
When Andrew Scheer – who is staunchly anti-abortion – was elected party leader in 2017, his campaign was fuelled by THREE anti-abortion groups who sold thousands of Conservative Party memberships on his behalf and pressured the party for strategic selection of anti-choice candidates to run in the next election.
So this is where the current moment gets dicey: Scheer’s time as leader and the work he did with those three anti-abortion groups means that there are more anti-abortion MPs sitting in the party currently than there were in years prior. So when Pierre says HE wouldn’t bring forward legislation that would make abortion illegal but that he wouldn’t stop his MPs from doing so and having a free vote – now we’re looking at a situation where the vote FOR restricting abortion may outweigh the votes AGAINST.
In 2023 the ENTIRE conservative caucus, including Pierre Poilievre, voted YES to a bill that would have encoded fetal rights into law in Canada – a first step towards abortion bans (as noted below, the exact same strategy was tried when Harper was Prime Minister in 2007 and Pierre was an MP under him so it’s difficult to imagine that he was not aware of what it was). All other parties voted unanimously against this bill (but not until its second reading after pro-choice groups had made everyone aware that the bill was a covert attempt at sneaking in anti-abortion legislation).
In response to the overturning of Roe V. Wade in the United States when Canadians began expressing anxiety around abortion rights, Bloc Quebecois MP Monique Pauzé responded by asking for“the House of Commons to reiterate that a woman’s body belongs to her and her alone, and recognize her right to choose an abortion regardless of the reason.” When adopted, all MPs in the house rose to give a standing ovation EXCEPT for conservative MPs: every single one of them remained in their seats and did not even applaud. Rachael Harder, the Conservative Status of Women critic who has attended many anti-abortion rallies, did not even look up from her desk while this was taking place.
On the same day Pierre Poilievre voted no to providing women with free contraceptives, his MP Arnold Viersen – who refers to fertilized eggs as pre-borns – raised a petition in the House of Commons to limit access to abortion in Canada. He has also verbally confirmed on various podcasts that given the chance to vote to strike down abortion laws and the right to gay marriage in Canada, he would do it (yes, he’s still a sitting MP).
This is the type of behaviour that caused MP Alain Rayes to cross the aisle and sit as an independent: because he could no longer morally participate in the growing extremism he was witnessing internally within the Conservative Party. One of these shifts to the far right concerns the inward VS outward stance members take on abortion:
“If you ask the leader, they’ll tell you they’re pro-choice. They’ll affirm it, in an attempt to placate people who feel strongly, people trying to attack the Conservative Party. But that’s not where the problem is. The problem is that you have, inside the organization, extremely powerful groups, members who are at the conventions and who influence the policies. In the Conservative Party, the anti-choice crowd is often calling the shots. They have a massive say in the party. There is a real threat from the Conservatives.” (source)
According to Rayes, those members are pressuring the party to prioritize making abortion illegal.
Conservative MPs have also attended multiple anti-abortion rallies, including Leslyn Lewis, Kyle Seeback, Harold Albrecht, Brad Trost, Arnold Viersen, Blaine Calkins, Christopher Warkentin, Damien Kurek, Dane Lloyd, Garnett Genuis, Glen Motz, Michael Cooper, Michael Lake, Shannon Stubbs, Tom Kmiec and Rachael Harder.
Bill C-311 and Expanding Fetal Rights
Bill C-311 was introduced by anti-choice MP Cathay Wagantall in 2023, her third, more disguised attempt at introducing a private member’s bill to restrict abortion
access. Her previous two had been more obvious, but this one was obfuscated by the title: Ending Violence Against Pregnant Women. No one can disagree with that, right?
While promoting the bill, Wagantall harped on the lack of abortion laws in Canada (odd if it’s meant to be an anti-violence against women bill) and the need to protect fetuses. She promoted it with TWO separate petitions: one that had pro-life language in it and one that had pro-choice language in it so that she could market it to both sides (and this strategy nearly worked).
The bill was designed as a trojan horse to get the first step towards restricting abortion through the door: it gave fetuses legal rights. As she said at the time: “Canada has no abortion law. This legal void is so extreme that we don’t even recognize preborn children as victims of violent crimes.” (Cathay Wagantall)
But as legal experts pointed out at the time, it was unnecessary to codify fetal rights into law because any violence done to a pregnant person is already included in such cases and brought as factors in any trial, and that codifying legal rights for fetuses into law would leave the door open to abortion bans. Notably, no advocacy groups working to end violence against women endorsed the bill – because they all know that encoding fetal rights into law doesn’t equate to increased protection.
This bill echoes the Harper-era Bill C-484 from 2007 (mentioned above) that, had it passed, would have treated fetuses as legal persons by making them separate victims when a pregnant woman was killed or attacked. This bill made it to second reading and Harper himself voted in favour of C-484, as well as against Dr. Henry Morgentaler’s Order of Canada in 2008.
Harper also promised during his election campaign not to defund abortion, but once he got in he acted against that promise and put in measures that restricted funding causing abortion clinics to close (turns out, there’s more than one way to limit abortion rights in Canada!). In 2010 he pledged money for women’s health, but left abortion funding and funding for contraceptives out of it (Pierre Poilievre also voted against funding for contraceptives TWICE in the last two years and failed to answer the question in the French Leadership Debate about the the same subject).
Pierre Poilievre was publicly and loudly anti-abortion prior to becoming leader of the Conservative Party. Once he was put in place as leader in 2020, he changed his tune and said he was pro-choice. This echoes previous Conservative leaders like Harper, who say they are not anti-abortion but once they get elected, they begin pushing to dismantle abortion laws and defund clinics.
And here’s the real punch to the gut: Pierre has also said on numerous occasions that he will use section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to allow the federal Parliament to pass legislation that overrides citizens’ Charter-established rights. YES, such a notwithstanding clause could technically be used to erode or shred abortion rights in Canada.
And – given that Pierre Poilievre has had a long history with being anti-choice over his 20 year career – that’s an unsettling and uncomfortable thought.
For a more complete list of threats to abortion rights and Reproductive Justice under a federal Conservative government, please check out this comprehensive piece from Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada.
South of the border Roe V. Wade has already been demolished, and women’s rights in general seem to be one of the victims in the “war on WOKE” – “women” and “female” are among the list of over 100 words that have been banned from research Grant applications and legislation has been passed that will make it more difficult for married women to vote.
Poilievre himself echoes Donald Trump many times over when he claims that Canada, broken by “radical left woke Liberal ideology,” will be saved when he cancels DEI and gets the WOKE out of University Research grants.
I dunno about you but given the long history of the Conservative Party’s anti-abortion stance and Pierre Poilievre’s previous actions, I’m not sure I want a far right government anywhere near my biological clock or my uterus.
Choose wisely, Canada.
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