It's been all over the news lately - a G7 leader known for ridiculous tweets, one liners, and, even more, his hair, has been shown to be a bully yet again.
Yes, of course I'm speaking of the man we all love to loathe: it's Justin Trudeau, this time with the pro-life camp in his progressive sights. For a guy who has children and was ostensibly raised Roman Catholic, the Prime Minister sure has a funny way of viewing the innocent unborn and their hearty defenders.
In case you missed the fire making this smoke, the Summer Jobs Grant application form is to feature a checkbox that affirms belief in the right to abortion as a prerequisite to receiving funding from the program. It's unclear whether Mr. Trudeau and the gang in Ottawa simply misjudged the uproar that would result from this ham-fisted maneuver, or if they intentionally wanted to enrage a large portion of the populace.
In either case, pro-lifers are not amused.
As was well summarized by the NatPo, there is in fact no right to abortion in this country anywhere at all: there is in reality only a legal vacuum on this topic, thanks to the 1988 ruling by the Supreme Court that struck down the existing criminal laws against abortion. Since that time, weak-kneed politicians of every stripe have failed to implement even a shred of legislation on the subject; no other G7 nation has such a lack of legislation, which should make one wonder.
There are individuals with much expertise who can walk you through all the caveats on this question, many of which boil to down to provincial healthcare mandates that determine how late an abortion will be allowed. There's also hold outs on publicly funded abortion, all of whom are Maritime provinces if I recall correctly. But, on the question of federal law and what might constitute as a crime against the unborn, the law is silent thanks to that day of infamy in 1988.
There are plenty of ways to debate this question, from the historical fact that abortion is always a tool for males to exploit females, to the scientific fact that life begins at conception, to the clinical fact that abortion is devastating to women's physical and mental health. But that's not what's at issue here. The question is: can the government, an entity that takes money from everybody, demand an ideological purity test from some people before giving access to funds?
Governments are allowed to make many demands of their citizens. At bottom, they are all requirements to obey laws that prevent the destruction of the state and the destruction of one's neighbour via violence or fraud. What they cannot demand is that private belief conform to a given person's, or ministry's, or an entire elected assembly's own thought; and any form of external coercion to compel private beliefs ought to be called by its true name: tyranny.
Section One of the Charter states "]The] Charter... guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society." Mr. Trudeau raises the Charter constantly, but he ought to read it, as Section One eviscerates the checkbox as well as the attached text. Put bluntly it fails the test of "reasonable limits," almost hysterically so if the stakes weren't so high.
I want to pause here for a moment and try to let this sink into the minds reading these words: if this is how easily a government chooses to blatantly and openly discriminate against a group of people who volunteer countless hours over a still unsettled legal question like abortion, what cause or group won't they bully? Are you an ideologically pure citizen, constantly raising your eyes to the Prime Minister and murmuring the proper progressive incantations of the day?
This is a textbook case of government overreach, and into the most sacred realm of a democracy: privately held belief. Justin Trudeau's dismissal in 2019 can't come soon enough.
