Oust Oosterhoff from Tory caucus: OPSEU
Niagara West MPP’s remarks ‘way out of line’ on abortion, says union president
Niagara West MPP Sam Oosterhoff’s controversial call to ban abortions in Canada is “way out of line,” says the head of Ontario’s largest public sector union.
OPSEU president Warren (Smokey) Thomas demanded Oosterhoff be kicked out of government caucus, saying “he’s playing to his crowd, but I think he’s out of step with the rest of Ontario.”
“Certainly all the women I know.” Premier Doug Ford’s office declined comment Wednesday. But speaking with reporters earlier, he dismissed Thomas’s demand for Oosterhoff’s removal from the government benches.
“I’m not worried about Smokey or any of the smoke that he’s blowing,” Ford said. “It doesn’t bother me at all.”
He said his government won’t revisit the abortion debate, adding “you can’t close anyone’s views down.”
“Again, we aren’t opening up that debate whatsoever.”
Oosterhoff did not respond to an interview request Wednesday.
Thomas, whose Ontario Public
Service Employees Union represents about 155,000 members, said “for him to stoke that (controversy) … I just find that way out of line.”
“My union is like 66 per cent female … they’re all up in arms and saying good for you for calling him out,” said Thomas.
“What I find disappointing … is for the female members of that Conservative caucus, I would think they’d be giving him a dressing down.But you don’t hear nothing from them, and I find that concerning.”
At an anti-abortion rally May 9 in front of Queen’s Park, Oosterhoff took the microphone to tell several hundred protesters, “we have survived 50 years of abortion in Canada and we pledge to fight to make abortion unthinkable in our lifetime.”
He clarified afterward, saying by “we” he meant the public and not the government.
Later in the legislature when Ford said he will not reopen the abortion debate, his caucus — including Oosterhoff — stood to applaud.
The MPP’s comments, however, lit up social media and led several dozen protesters — including some dressed as characters from Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” — to confront him at a meet-and-greet event at the legion hall in Grimsby Saturday.
He spoke to a few of the protesters. Eventually, police were called — Oosterhoff said by legion staff — to clear a path for him to leave the property.
He did not speak with reporters, calling the incident “unfortunate” in an emailed statement.
It was at least the third time since December that Oosterhoff has required police assistance.
In December, he complained to Niagara Regional Police about what he considered threatening online posts from Niagara resident Rob Gill. Gill was upset Oosterhoff had shared a stage at an event with a preacher known for vigorously opposing same-sex marriage.
Then earlier this month, Oosterhoff’s staff phoned police to remove about 15 middle-aged people who carried books to his office to stage a read-in protest against cuts to library services.
Thomas said he didn’t find the premier’s abortion debate statement reassuring: “Doug Ford had to be dragged kicking and screaming (to speak) and then he handed it off to another cabinet minister.”
He called Oosterhoff’s comments offensive, noting Kingstonarea MPP Randy Hillier was thrown out of caucus in March for answering “yada, yada, yada” to concerned parents of autistic children during a meeting.
“(Ford’s) lack of a statement kind of makes you wonder what he thinks,” said Thomas.
“He has to, somehow, sort of keep that wing of his party, the far righters, in check somehow. Maybe this is the way he does it … if somebody in another party had done a similar thing, Doug Ford would be the first to jump all over him.”