Cyril Winter had been a fixture protesting at abortion clinic
Divisive figure praised by some as a hero, derided by others for controversial tactics
Cyril Winter was probably the most reviled and admired figure on Bank Street, the man with dead babies around his neck.
Winter, 70, the city’s most dogged pro-life demonstrator, died in hospital on March 9, only days before his first court appearance for violating Ontario’s new law providing a bubble zone around abortion clinics.
Friends and family say he did not survive a procedure to insert stents in his failing cardiac system.
Winter and others that joined him in protest outside the Morgentaler Clinic on Bank Street were divisive figures in Ottawa.
In April of last year, Shayna Hodson, the clinic’s director of operations, told this newspaper that the presence of protesters like Winter left clinic patients feeling threatened and afraid, and said protesters routinely harassed patients and staff.
But for others, Winter was an advocate of what they believed in.
“He was a hero, to my mind, especially when you get the truth,” said Debbie Duval, the national capital organizer for Campaign Life Coalition. Winter, striking for his long, white hair, was not formally part of Campaign Life, which had reservations about his use of bloody, graphic imagery on display before thousands of passersby. It might be argued that it was Winter’s persistent presence on upper Bank for four years that would help spark Ontario’s new law providing a safety zone around abortion clinics.
Winter was the first man in Ottawa charged under the new law — he faced up to eight separate counts — and was due in Provincial Offences Court on March 23. Only weeks ago, he told this newspaper he intended to vigorously fight the charges on the grounds they violated his constitutional right to freedom of expression.
“He was really looking forward to fighting the charge,” said Duval. “He knew the law like the back of his hand.”
But who was this Bank Street fixture, the man behind the graphic signs?
He was certainly private. Even his longtime friends said they knew little about his early life.
His brother Christopher, 68, is a retired Nortel engineer. He said Cyril was the eighth of 12 children who grew up in a strongly Catholic family in Old Chelsea before fire forced them out. It was a devout upbringing, he said, as three of the boys were once destined to be seminarians. They later settled in the Britannia area in the early 1960s. Christopher said his brother was a good student — attending Woodroffe High School — an avid cyclist, tennis player and bird watcher who was keen about the outdoors.
It was while doing postgraduate work toward a PhD in psychology that “an experiment” in his thesis preparation caused Cyril to have a mental breakdown, said his brother, an event that set his life on a different course. He said Cyril ended up with a series of somewhat menial jobs, including being a groundskeeper at a tennis club in Britannia, struggling with clinical depression much of his life.
“I remember him as wellintending. He certainly did the best he could. It’s an awful tragedy. He could have been the best educated one in the family but such a brilliant mind ended up being wasted,” said Christopher.
“He was a kind person. Never wished ill of anybody. He was true to his faith. And that’s the way I remember him.”
Cyril is survived by his former wife and a son. His friends in the pro-life movement knew he was scheduled for a hospital visit but were stunned to learn of his sudden demise. “I was shocked, just shocked,” said friend and fellow protester Frank Barrett, 89. “He’d just told me ‘I’ll be back on Monday.’”
Barrett, who protests weekly across the street from the Morgentaler clinic, said he encouraged Winter to join him away from the entrance to the facility.
“Cy wanted to do that side of the street, near the door, and unfortunately that’s why they went after him. I even begged him to come over to the other side,” said Barrett, who refused to use graphic imagery on his signage.
“He’s a rebel, but I’m a rebel. But he was a rebel for a cause. I like to call us pro-life warriors.”
He adamantly denied that Winter ever harassed, shouted at, or spat upon anyone attempting to enter the clinic. On the contrary, he said, it was Winter who was subjected to frequent taunts on the sidewalk, even physical abuse. “A guy died. Give him his due.” Before Ontario’s new bubblezone law came into effect on Feb. 1, Winter said he spoke to police about what was permissible and felt he was following the letter of the law with his tamed-down sign and altered attitude. “Why should I go away? That particular spot is where my rights were taken away. So it’s very important to me that I be there to make a statement about my charter rights.”
So he died, clear-headed, determined, unbowed in battle.
He was a kind person. Never wished ill of anybody. He was true to his faith.