Campaign Life Coalition held a very important Ontario strategy meeting February 19-21 in Toronto that, among other issues closely examined all 105 Ontario ridings and the potential pro-life candidates at both the party nomination and general election levels. We were extremely pleased to discover the names of more pro-life candidates at this meeting and are currently developing strategies to work with pro-life candidates in all parties. A top-notch CLC election team has been put together. Some of the team members have many years of political experience - both on the campaign trail and in the corridors of power.

Questionnaires have been sent to nominated candidates for several months and responses are already returning to to the CLC office. We are busy at nomination meetings helping to sign up pro-life supporters for pro-life candidates who have signed our questionnaire and demonstrated a commitment to the pro-life cause. With the shortened election schedule (six weeks), it is incredibly difficult to implement any strategy or inform you, our grassroots supporters, about where candidates stand on the important life issues. Once the election is called please check out www.lifesite.net on a regular basis for up-to-the-minute information. If you do not have Internet access, ask a family member or family friend to check it out for you. Please pray for our efforts to help elect pro-life MPs.

Since its inception, CLC has encouraged pro-life Canadians to get involved in politics at the local (riding) level. Buy a membership in the party of your choice and work to get pro-lifers elected as candidates and ensure that the issue is kept on the table. In recent months, this strategy has paid off as you, our grassroots supporters, have bought memberships in all parties and worked to get good, pro-life people chosen as their party's nominee. There have been numerous victories, several disappointments and an important lesson to all candidates in recent months. Let us share but a few of them.

The biggest victory was the re-election of Liberal MP Paul Szabo as the candidate for Mississauga South. Szabo is a three-term veteran who, unfortunately, was challenged by a candidate (put up to it by Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan?) who did not seem to hold to the strong pro-life, pro-family, pro-traditional values views that Szabo has so eloquently represented in Parliament. We, along with numerous other concerned citizens, immediately sprang to action to help Szabo secure his nomination. On March 11, we are pleased to report, he won the nomination by 130 votes (out of approximately 1800 cast). The support of pro-life, pro-family and religious constituents who did not want to see their good MP go down helped secure his nomination. Afterwards, he graciously thanked us for the role we played in helping him win that night. We were honoured to be part of that process.

In numerous other ridings, we helped pro-life candidates win their nominations. In some of those nomination meetings, the vote was extremely close and our involvement certainly put the pro-life candidate over the top. Unfortunately, there was also a sad lesson to be learned. In Newmarket-Aurora, Lois Brown sought the local Conservative Party nomination against party leadership candidate Belinda Stronach. Stronach supports abortion and same-sex "marriage." Brown told us she was pro-life but refused to sign the questionnaire. Without a candidate's willingness to put their views down on paper, we are unable to help them. Brown lost by exactly 100 votes. Our data base for the riding has well over that number of households and our analysis from previous elections found that on average, each household has 3.1 voters in it. We are confident we could have delivered the support that would have helped Brown defeat Stronach. But our hands were tied.

We want candidates to know that we can help and often there is price to be paid for not seeking our help. We also want you to know that when you get involved, you can make a difference. It is never too late, so even if the candidate in the party of your choice has been selected, get involved. Work to help pro-life candidates and try to get the issue before local riding boards. Together we are working to get a pro-life, non-partisan majority elected to the House of Commons so that someday we will be able to get pro-life legislation passed in this country. But it will not happen until each and every pro-life person realizes the potential we have when we work together and get involved.

Bill C-6, the government's reproductive and experimental technologies legislation formerly known as C-13, passed the Senate social affairs committee unanimously on March 3. In the "news" reporting of this event, the media unanimously and dutifully echoed the government's claim that C-6 banned human cloning and regulated the use of embryonic stem cells. We were told by our sources on Parliament Hill that the Prime Minister's Office told the Liberal leader in the Senate to get C-6 (along with C-250 the so-called hate crimes amendment) passed by the end of March before Parliament shuts down in anticipation of an early spring election call.

Shortly after the committee approved C-6, the full Senate followed suit. We could justly say that the Senate process was a corrupt, deadly farce. Everything about the committe hearings was stacked against the efforts to protect life, to give a voice to the voiceless. The Senate committee refused to hear presentations from pro-life groups. Both CLC, the political arm of the pro-life movement, and Life Canada, the educational arm, were denied an opportunity to present before the senate committee. The committee offered the lame excuse that they heard a presentation from the Canadian Catholic Bishops Conference. (Yet they heard from endless scientists eager to commit research using stem cell harvested from embryonic humans.) Unfortunately, the CCCB had a different view than the national pro-life movement and did not urge the Senate to defeat the legislation. Instead, the CCCB took no position on it.

The result is that countless numbers of humans will be destroyed when they are mere days and weeks old in an attempt to satisfy an insatiable desire for research material. Because it shut out scientists that the pro-life organizations attempted to bring before the committee, the Senate never considered the enormous cost in human life that passing C-6 will entail.

So this is the reality: the Senate hurriedly passed a piece of legislation that few Senators fully understand, the consequences of which they willingly refuse to consider, for the sake of political expediency. We ask, why the haste? Karen Murawsky, Public Affairs Director for CLC in Ottawa, said "There seems to be a political desire to complete the passage of this bill before an election call. We find this to be a frivolous and unreasonable cause when the lives of human beings rest upon the timing - not of war, nor natural disaster, nor plague - but of a pending election."

We have enumerated the problems with this legislation many times in this newsletter, before the House of Commons standing committee on health, in the media and elsewhere. For complex, technical reasons, the bill does not do what its proponents claim (many definitions are flawed or ambiguous, creating loopholes that will permit cloning; the regulation of embryonic stem cell research does not admit the humanity of the embryo destroyed so that his or her stem cells can be harvested, etc...).

We are saddened that the Senate seemingly caved to pressure from the Prime Minister's Office to pass this quickly so that they could shut down Parliament and call a hasty election. That politics would trump a serious discussion of an issue that literally affects life and death issues, should offend every Canadian of conscience. But as our National Organizer Mary Ellen Douglas reminds us, the passing of C-6 in the Senate does not mean the battle is over. Just as the passing of the Omnibus Bill in 1969 meant the fight was just beginning to protect the sanctity of human life from conception (fertilization) to natural death, so the fight over embryonic stem cell research and human cloning has just begun. CLC will be formulating strategies to take this fight to the next battle and we will let you know as they develop.

Prime Minister Paul Martin said that future judges nominated to the Supreme Court of Canada will face Parliamentary scrutiny although not before new Parliamentary committees have their say about new democratic reforms. When Martin had said that such scrutiny was likely when he listed principles to address the democratic deficit, it led to an extremely defensive criticism from pro abortion Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin who complained that such a procedure would politicize the courts.

Up til now, Justices have been appointed by the governing party with absolutely no scrutiny. But what Martin is proposing is hardly radical: scrutiny of a nominee's views and philosophy, not Parliamentary approval. The thinking is that the country has a right to know a little about the judicial philosophy. The Parliamentary secretary for democratic reform, Liberal MP Roger Gallaway, warned Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin and the other judges who are against the idea: "remember their proper roles, one of which is to avoid comment on political or parliamentary affairs. What is obvious is the courts, but particularly the Supreme Court, have assumed a position of power which challenges the doctrine of the supremacy of Parliament." Gallaway added that the courts are the "creation of Parliament and subject to it."

It is unfortunate that Justice Minister Irwin Cotler said that this is merely a proposal and not a plan of action. The effect of scrutinizing nominees to the courts, says Gallaway is that it could lead to the courts resuming their role as adjudicators of the law not creators of it. We welcome the increased scrutiny of individuals who are appointed for life to the Supreme Court, a body which has usurped responsibility for the creation of laws, especially laws that touch on moral issues such as abortion, religious rights and homosexuality. It must be seen whether this reform will be effective at restoring the courts to their proper role. We hope that the Martin government takes this baby step to a more democratic, more responsible and more responsive government.

For at least two years before becoming Prime Minister, Paul Martin espoused a strong democratization of the House agenda. Indeed, many Liberal MPs backed Martin because of his promise to allow more free votes and allow MPs to vote their consciences and to represent the concerns of their constituents and not merely be sheep that follow the orders of the government. Campaign Life Coalition and other pro-life, pro-family and religious groups have eagerly anticipated the specifics of his plan, hoping that reform of the way the House of Commons does its business might present new opportunities to introduce and pass pro-life and pro-family bills and motions.

On February 4, Martin's Government House Leader Jacques Saada announced his solutions to what is commonly called the democracy deficit in a document called "Ethics, Responsibility, Accountability: An action plan for Democratic Reform." The 15-page document is wide-ranging but of most interest is allowing MPs a freer voice and vote in Parliament. They will now have a freer hand in voting although the proposal comes up short with the rhetoric Martin has used the past 24 months.

There will be a three-level system of voting in which MPs must toe the party line on budget and Throne Speech item votes, on other votes cabinet ministers and parliamentary secretaries will be forced to follow the party line and on some votes, there will be complete freedom to vote one's conscience. While in theory this is great, the government could pull a fast one and put moral issues in the Throne Speech in order to demand party unity. Also, a special cabinet operations committee will determine which votes fall under which rule.

We are concerned that the head of that committee is the pro-abortion, pro same-sex marriage Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan - she who broke her promise that a pro-traditional marriage vote in 1999 would ensure that marriage would never be redefined to include homosexual couples and she who ushered through Parliament (as the Health Minister) the government's cloning and embryonic stem cell research legislation, C-13. While the democratization of the House may become a technical possibility, we eagerly await to see democracy it actually happen in the House of Commons.

Also on February 4, the Liberal government announced that it would conduct a review of its foreign policy, the first such review in a decade. We hope to be able to present to the committee that examines Canadian foreign policy the case that Canada must abandon its promotion of radical social engineering at the United Nations and regain its international stature by promoting moral positions. Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham told CTV that Canada must once again become a leader in the world, to once again punch above our weight as we had for so many years when we were respected around the world for our clear-sighted diplomacy. In recent years, many developing countries no longer look as fondly on Canadian representatives at international conferences and one reason, no doubt, is that our delegations have played a world-leading role in pushing an agenda of abortion and homosexual rights, pornography and promiscuity-promoting sexual education at the United Nations. Developing countries, many of them majority Islamic or traditional Catholic nations, rightly resent socially liberal programs being foisted upon them. We could regain our international credibility and the moral high-ground by eschewing the recent promotion of immorality by NGOs at the UN and elsewhere.

In case you don't receive The Interim, we reprint portions of a reflection by CLC National President Jim Hughes that appeared in the March issue about his participation in the March for Life in Washington DC in January. We are also pleased to share a number of photos from this incredible event.

This year's March for Life in Washington D.C. was the 31st for the pro-life movement. Even a begrudging media admitted that at least 100,000 people attended the event. (Organizer Nellie Gray said it was 125,000.) Pro-lifers from across the United States, and indeed a number from around the world (including a contingent of Canadians), marched to mark the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Jan. 22, 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that made abortion on demand legal across America.

I was moved by the incredible youth presence, easily more than half the crowd. Their enthusiasm, energy and vigour are not the future of the pro-life movement - they're the present. (That is one reason CLC Toronto is hosting a conference in June where all the speakers will be in their 20s and 30s and who have achieved leadership positions.) We have an eager, dedicated and intelligent core of young people to go out and proclaim the truth about abortion, to engage the culture at the universities, to enter the professions (medical, legal, teaching, media) and help change the minds and hearts of millions of people.

Particularly moving was a witness by Silent No More, a group of women who are now speaking out about the physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual damage they have experienced because of their abortions. These testimonials are a powerful weapon against the abortion culture, demonstrating that abortion, far from being a woman's right, is dreadfully harmful to women.

Another inspiring moment a telephone call from President George W. Bush, who said he appreciated the "devotion to such a noble cause" that those who attended have. He said, "You believe, as I do, that every person, however frail or vulnerable, is a blessing." How wonderful to have political leadership unafraid to pledge support to the cause of protecting unborn babies from abortion.

Not only was there political leadership, but religious leadership as well. We are mindful that the fight to protect the sanctity of human life is not our fight, but God's battle, in which we are his foot-soldiers. More than 8,000 people participated in the Catholic Mass at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, including 300 priests, 40 bishops and four cardinals. Baltimore Cardinal William Keeler, the current chair of the U.S. Conference of Bishops Pro-Life Committee, urged the youth (who made up a majority of the crowd) to "be not afraid" and to take up the "five smooth stones" of conviction, courage, compassion, charity and constancy in the fight for life. Everyone agreed that the experience of the Mass was very uplifting. Another World Youth Day type of Mass the next morning at MCI Arena was attended by over 15,000 mostly youth and 700 seminarians and hundreds of religious sisters.

People around the world noticed CLC's presence in Washington, as we had a table at the pro-life conference organized by Nellie Gray. We met with pro-life leaders from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, Germany, India, Northern Ireland and the United States. It is sad to report that many of the challenges we face in Canada in trying to restore the rights of the unborn are faced by our pro-life brothers and sisters around the world. Then again, at least, we are not alone in the challenges we face.

It must be remembered that 30 years ago, the March for Life did not attract hundreds of thousands of supporters, but that it began small and grew. Building on the successes and energy of each new year, the march is now a huge, incredible and important event where pro-lifers are united in standing up for the unborn. We were privileged and excited to be involved in this wonderful day's events, even if it marks a terrible day in history.

Joining us for that March is the most important reason to be in Ottawa May 13. But there are two other events we want to draw to your attention. On the evening of May 13, there will be the Pro-Life Banquet at the Conference Centre across from the Chateau Laurier (note: this is a new venue). On top of a happy hour and a splendid dinner, guests will enjoy our feature speaker, Sandy Rios of Concerned Women for America. Sandy will share unique insights into the cultural battles south of the border. Concerned Women for America has been among the leaders in the fight against abortion, same-sex "marriage," sex-ed programs that encourage promiscuity and irresponsibility and other assaults on the dignity of human life and the traditional family. We are sure that you will enjoy and learn a lot from Sandy's talk.

The second event is the youth conference on May 14 from 9:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Topics to be addressed include the health risks of abortion for women, pro-life politics, chastity and reproductive technologies. Importantly, this youth conference is an excellent opportunity for students to meet other young pro-lifers and to find out what pro-life groups are doing at other schools all across Canada. Registration is required and affordable accommodations are available at the University of Ottawa through CLC. Call Gillian at (416) 204-9749 or 1-800-730-5358 for more details or to register.

We hope that if you are unable to join us in Ottawa that you will symbolically join us by pledging candles for the Candlelight Vigil which takes place May 12 at 8:30 p.m. at the Human Rights Monument (Lisgar and Elgin streets). For a minimum donation of $2 per candle, you will be there symbolically for a witness that proclaims abortion is the human rights issue. We would ask that at that time, you also pray for the success of the March and for an end to abortion in Canada.

We also want to draw to your attention the first Canadian event of the Silent No More awareness campaign, to take place immediately following the March for Life at 3 p.m. All men and women ready to break the silence about their abortion experience are invited to participate.

Yours for life
Jim Hughes
National President

P.S. Please send in your nominations for the politician who best represents the determination and zeal of the late Joseph P. Borowski in defending the rights of the unborn. The 2003 winner was Paul Szabo (Liberal, Mississauga South).

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