Taking a firm stand
In the face of upheaval, New Brunswick’s social conservatives hold fast to their values
Elizabeth Crouchman was born and bred in New Brunswick, and is proud of her province of 800,000 souls: Strong family values. Small-town attitude. Traditional.
Ms. Crouchman, president of New Brunswick Right to Life, says this is not a province like the others. Social-issues discussions largely over in other parts of the country, at least in terms of official discourse, are still very much under debate here.
Increasingly, New Brunswick is under pressure to widen access to abortion and recognize gay rights. But social conservatives remain powerful, and New Brunswick is not ceding easily.
“It would be lovely to think that we are traditional thinkers here,” says Ms. Crouchman. “But unfortunately we often feel like we’re outcast and that we are out of touch, and it’s not necessarily true.”
The Morgentaler Clinic in Fredericton, the province’s only private abortion clinic, performed its last abortion Friday, its lease expired and provincial funding refused.
Eldon Hay, a retired United Church minister in Sackville, N.B., calls abortion the “litmus test” of social conservatism in New Brunswick. He traces it to former premier Frank McKenna, whose Liberal government passed Regulation 84-20 of the Medical Services Payment Act in 1989. To be covered under medicare, the law requires two doctors to agree the procedure is “medically necessary,” and that it must be performed in a hospital by a gynecologist to receive government funding.
“There hasn’t been a premier since, of whatever colour,
It would be lovely to think that we are traditional thinkers here. But unfortunately we often feel like we’re outcast
who has dared to even touch it,” says Mr. Hay.
Reproductive Justice New Brunswick has raised over $100,000 in attempt to save the Morgentaler Clinic, at least for the short term. The clinic has survived over 20 years thus far despite the province’s “antichoice mentality,” says the group’s chair, Kathleen Pye.
“You hear the stories of why people come to the clinic and oftentimes we get the sense that there’s a feeling of shame,” said Ms. Pye. “It’s really strong and they almost feel like they’re bad people for having to come to us. You don’t get the same sense of shame in other provinces.”
The Progressive Conservatives hold 41 of 55 seats in the New Brunswick legislature, and many PC MLAs participate in the annual March for Life, organized by Ms. Crouchman’s group.
“This anti-choice mentality has been in our government for as long as we can remember. We’re almost in a bubble,” Ms. Pye said. “Any time you try to work with governments, particularly over something that’s maybe more gendered or feminist, it’s very difficult. In order to get funding, you have to really watch the party line.”
The abortion-rights voice doesn’t resonate as strongly as it does elsewhere, says Donald Savoie, a prominent professor of Canadian public policy and administration and the Université de Moncton.
“Politicians that want to win seats around here have to be careful on [criticizing] social conservatism because it still resonates,” he says. “You see it on the whole public policy agenda that deals with social conservatism. You tread very carefully if you’re a politician.”
In May, Premier David Alward told Leo Hayes High School in Fredericton that it could not fly the pride flag during Pride Week — although he said it was because it didn’t fit the province’s rules for flags outside public buildings. He later said the province was rethinking the policy.
Mr. Savoie says there are three main reasons that Maritimers, especially those in New Brunswick and P.E.I., have held onto their social conservative values much longer than the rest of Canada. ( Abortions aren’ t perf o r med in neighbouring P.E.I., but the provincial government pays for abortions elsewhere after a referral from a family physician.) It’s still very much a “rural society,” with New Brunswick only now crossing the rural-urban 50/50 threshold, a milestone Ontario reached some 100 years ago.
“Fundamental religion resonates more in rural areas than it does in urban areas traditionally,” he said. “Church still matters a great deal in the Maritime provinces. They’re closing churches in Ontario and Quebec at quite a clip. We are closing churches here but not nearly at the same speed as the rest of the country.”
The population is also aging at a faster rate, and remains something of a “closed society,” as young people and new Canadians opt for big cities like Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal.
Mr. Savoie notes many immigrants have flocked to Alberta, which is often viewed by outsiders as the Canada’s most socially conservative province but doesn’t always fit the stereotype. In 2011, polls showed Albertans were poised to elect the Wildrose Party until candidates were quoted making anti-gay statements. The long-governing Tories ended up with a surprise majority.
“On social values, I think Alberta is moving quicker, faster than the Maritime region on such issues as same-sex marriage, abortion and so on,” said Mr. Savoie. “The mayor of Calgary is a lot more open than say the mayor of Doaktown in New Brunswick. You see a lot more new Canadians moving to Alberta. You’re seeing urbanization — Calgary has become a big city. It’s a younger population and not aging nearly as quickly. Taboos break down a lot quicker.”
Rev. Karl Csaszar, senior pastor at Fredericton’s Skyline Acres Baptist Church, said Canada’s socially liberal shift has not made its way to New Brunswick simply because many people reject the values associated with it.
Mr. Csaszar added that Maritimers “have the reputation of holding onto the values of our parents and grandparents longer.”
Last month, the New Brunswick Law Society decided to accept lawyers from Trinity Western University’s law program, which is set to open in 2016. The school requires students to sign a “community covenant” that forbids sex unless within a marriage between a man and a woman.
The issue mirrors a similar policy at Moncton’s Crandall University, a small Christian liberal arts school, which in 2012 defended its anti-gay hiring policy amid public criticism. Crandall argued that it had the right to educate based on its beliefs, according to 1983 New Brunswick legislation, and therefore hire staff according to their sexual preference.
Rev. Hay, a longtime gay rights activist, says that unlike with the abortion issue, there’s a sense attitudes toward samesex marriage are changing.
“Twenty years ago, it was very brave of me to say I was in favour of gays,” he said. “My fellow clergy scorned me. But now, astonishingly, it has turned the other way. It’s far more OK to be gay and lesbian, far more appropriate or appreciated or affirmed, than to say ‘I’m in favour of abortion.’”
New Brunswick may be more open to same-sex marriage than it was 15 to 20 years ago, said Mr. Savoie, but New Brunswick continues to embrace the social conservatism that has defined its politics for so long.
“It’s not dead in New Brunswick. Perhaps it’s dying, but it’s dying a lot slower than the other regions,” he said. “It’s much more pronounced here and it’s part and parcel of who we are.”