Alberta NDP is setting a trap, hoping Jason Kenney falls in
It’s perhaps a tad too cynical to say the Alberta government’s new Bill 9 is merely a political trap set up to ensnare United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney.
But for the government, that is part of the appeal.
The bill — called the Protecting Choice for Women Accessing Health Care Act — is designed to keep anti-abortion activists at least 50 metres away from abortion clinics.
It’s sure to raise the hackles of anti-abortion groups as well as anti-abortion politicians, some of whom happen to be members of the UCP.
But let’s look first at the legislation.
Caregivers inside the clinics say the law is needed because even though there is already a court injunction in place to keep activists across the street from the clinics, it’s not working.
They say demonstrators routinely harass and take pictures of people entering and leaving the clinics in Edmonton and Calgary. The clinic workers wanted the government to enact a law with teeth.
The new bill, besides ordering anti-abortion protesters to stay clear, makes it illegal for anyone to take pictures, video or even audio of people doing business with the clinics. Those found guilty face a $10,000 fine and one year in jail.
I am not saying for a moment the law is unnecessary.
Women facing such a difficult time in their lives deserve respect and privacy. Even though anti-abortion groups insist they don’t harass people, workers in the clinics say patients have been subjected to intimidation by protesters.
Certainly, life outside the clinics is relatively peaceful compared to what it was like 30 years ago when Edmonton’s first abortion clinic opened its doors.
In 1991, vandals struck the centre four times in one month alone. In one incident, perpetrators used gasoline to set a fire along the back wall of the clinic. The flames were spotted early and extinguished by the fire department.
Things might be quieter now, but enough patients are reportedly facing enough bullying that the government decided to step in.
In doing so, the Alberta government is not alone. British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador already have set up safe “bubble zones” around abortion clinics.
But there is something else at play here in Alberta: politics.
The NDP government is acutely aware that not only are some UCP politicians pro-life, they are led by a man who in his younger years was known as an anti-abortion activist. As a federal politician, Kenney supported a private member’s motion in 2012 to set up a parliamentary committee to study the issue of when human life begins. The motion was arguably a back-door way to resurrect the abortion debate in Canada.
When Kenney was running for the Progressive Conservative leadership in 2016, an Ontario pro-life group called Right Now encouraged anti-abortionists in Alberta to join the party specifically to vote for Kenney.
“Our organization was formed to nominate and elect pro-life politicians. That is the sole purpose for our existence. Jason Kenney is a pro-life politician,” said Alissa Golob with Right Now.
Kenney, sensitive to how this issue could play out, made a point of telling journalists in 2016 that he wouldn’t let his personal views influence public policy. “My position is consistent since I first ran for Parliament in 1997. I believe in the value of human life and I apply it to capital punishment and all bioethical questions, but in my 20 years in Parliament I haven’t given a speech about this, let alone proposed a motion or a bill.”
But Alberta’s NDP MLAs are not letting the matter rest there.
They are no doubt earnestly interested in protecting women entering an abortion clinic, but they are just as interested in creating problems for Kenney and anti-abortion politicians in the UCP. They’re hoping to spark some socially conservative bozo eruptions from UCP members.
The NDP is obviously not calling Bill 9 a trap. But they might as well have dug a hole outside the UCP office and covered it with leaves. So far, the UCP has refused to fall in.
The party realizes there’s a potential pitfall here and has so far refused to comment on a bill that is sure to provoke debate, if not an actual split, within the UCP caucus.
Those UCP members opposed to the bill will no doubt frame their argument as a defence of free speech and the right to assembly, not in terms of their personal views on abortion.
The UCP MLAs will take the weekend to review the bill and meet as a caucus on Monday to decide how best to tiptoe around the NDP’s not-so-subtle trap.