The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Liberals using abortion as election wedge issue
The Liberals are pledging to update the Canada Health Act to regulate access to abortion services across the country and to use federal health transfers as leverage to ensure provinces abide by the new rules.
The new regulations would mean “there is no question, that no matter where someone lives, that they have access to publicly available sexual and reproductive health services,” states the party’s election platform, released Wednesday.
Abortion is one of the key political wedge issues where the Liberals want to distinguish themselves from the Conservatives.
“Canada is a country where we stand up for women’s rights,” Justin Trudeau said. “And I will not allow others to limit those rights.”
The Liberals have also attacked the Conservatives on the issue of abortion earlier in the election campaign, over a promise in their platform to protect “conscience rights” of health care providers who object to performing some procedures. The Liberal party said in a release that was “code for limiting access to abortion, medically assisted dying, and health care for LGBTQ2 Canadians.”
However, O’toole, asked about the Liberal promise at a press conference Wednesday, repeated that he stood for women’s rights.
“I’m a pro-choice Member of Parliament and leader of the Conservative Party, and I will always defend the right of women to make health decisions for themselves and always defend the right of access in all parts of the country. I’ve said that on many occasions during this campaign. I will say it every day.”
The situation over access in New Brunswick — which is subject to an ongoing Charter challenge by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association — is one of the “main catalysts” for the new promise, according to Joyce Arthur, executive director of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada.
Liberal leader Justin Trudeau said at a news conference Wednesday that “unfortunately, we’ve seen some conservative politicians” make it more difficult to access those services, “particularly to vulnerable women who don’t have the ability to travel long distances from one city to the next to get the services they need.”
In New Brunswick, the government only funds surgical abortion services in three hospitals, located in two cities. Progressive Conservative premier Blaine Higgs has maintained the province is providing adequate access.
“That regulation has a significant impact on women and girls and trans people seeking a basic form of health care that they need access to in their communities,” which is why the CCLA has launched a court challenge saying it violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, said the group’s equality program director Noa Mendelsohn Aviv.
It amounts to “an act of discrimination, plain and simple,” Mendelsohn Aviv said. “We have the right to equality under the Charter.”
The ARCC’S Arthur says there are other areas in Canada where access is uneven. “As soon as you get outside urban areas, it tends to worsen quite a bit,” she said. “And there’s access problems in any province where there’s, say, only one or two or three or so points of access, and that includes most other provinces like Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Newfoundland (and Labrador) and Nova Scotia.”
Arthur said, hopefully, the government wouldn’t have to withhold health transfer funding to enforce the new regulations, but would be able to hold talks with the provinces and reach agreements.
The Liberal platform also includes a promise to provide up to $10 million for Health Canada for a portal providing “accurate, judgement-free, and evidence-based information on sexual and reproductive health and rights,” including debunking misinformation about abortion, and up to another $10 million to organizations dealing with sexual and reproductive health needs of young people.
The Liberals are also promising to stop providing charity status to anti-abortion organizations like crisis pregnancy centres “that provide dishonest counselling to women about their rights and about the options available to them at all stages of the pregnancy.”
Trudeau said Wednesday that the government takes issue with groups that are “actively working, not just to promote their own views, but to limit the opportunities of women to make their own choices about their body. That is unacceptable in Canada.”
When it comes to how the issue of abortion has played out in the campaign, Arthur said she has mixed feelings about the debate so far. Arthur said she has reservations about O’toole, because he has voted in favour of an anti-choice bill in the past, anti-choice groups “were the main powerhouse behind him getting elected as leader,” and he has said he would allow free votes on private members’ bills that might restrict abortion.
But, she said, “I never like to see abortion being used as a political football during an election campaign. It’s health care, it’s a fundamental right for women and transgender people, that should be just there and it shouldn’t be debatable or it shouldn’t be political, or stigmatized.”