Mark Carney and pro-life Canadians

I sent this letter to Mark Carney six days ago. I haven't heard back from him.

Dear Mark Carney,

I have heard that you are a practicing Catholic.

So I was wondering. If you become Prime Minister, will you restore funding to pro-life groups for the summer Jobs program? Will you allow pro-life people to be Liberal MPs? Will you cease and desist the attacks on Pregnancy Care Centres that began with Justin Trudeau and Joyce Arthur? Basically, will you stop all discriminatory actions against pro-life people?

Pro-life people were not well treated under Justin Trudeau. As it appears you are set to win the Liberal leadership, and that an election will take place soon afterwards, it would be good to know how you would treat pro-life people should you win the election.

Thank you and I look forward to hearing back from you soon.

Sincerely,

Patricia Maloney

Free speech is a crime if you are pro-life

I've posted all information on Fr. Tony's case is here.

Fr. De Souza has the best analysis yet of Fr. Tony Van Hee's case:

"The Crown appears to consider it an offence to protest restrictions on free speech if, in the past, you protested against abortion. The crime is exercising free speech while pro-life."

I think we finally know now why pro-life people aren't allowed to practice their Charter right to free speech. It's actually because they are pro-life. If you were pro-choice and carried that exact same sign inside the bubble zone, you wouldn't be charged with anything.

So now we know.

Dear Doug Ford and Caroline Mulroney. Can you please explain why?

Here are their email addresses if you'd also like to ask the Premier and the Attorney General this question.

doug.fordco@pc.ola.org
caroline.mulroney@pc.ola.org

Jim Watson thinks pro-life people want to take away women's rights

The March for Life is coming up on May 10 this year.

You will remember last year's flag flap when Jim Watson and some of his councilors--and I mean that literally, they are not our councillors because clearly they don't represent us, they represent Jim Watson--took down our pro-life flag after they agreed to put it up.

I've been talking to some people and apparently they are wondering why the city took the flag down at all. That they never received a reason that made any sense. We do know that there was a lot of nonsense coming out of Watson's and his councillors' mouths trying to defend their discriminatory actions against it. But it was all a bunch of gibberish.

But we actually do have a reason why the flag was taken down. And the reason comes directly from the horse's mouth.

The reason is simple. As one person told me at the time: they went to the same strawberry social that Jim Watson went to and cornered him and asked him point blank. And Watson told them the reason was because pro-life people want to take away women's rights.

"...And finally, I brought up the issue of the pro-life flag at City Hall being taken down after complaints by some city councilors, and I expressed my concern about an interview he had given to Global News where he said pro-life campaigns are "divisive" and have no place at City Hall (http://globalnews.ca/news/3447325/pro-life-anti-abortion-ottawa-flag-jim-watson-what-happened/ ). He tried to avoid answering the question at first by diverting the issue away from City Hall and asking me why Parliament Hill wouldn't allow a pro-life flag to fly (which I had no knowledge of.) Getting back to City Hall, I reminded him that he allowed an LGBTQ flag to fly, and I asked, shouldn't pro-lifers be treated equally and be allowed to have their flag flown as well? Isn't that only fair? Why the double standard?

His response hit the nail on the head for me as to why he feels it is fine to discriminate against us. He said (paraphrasing): "The LGBTQ community promotes human rights. You want to take away women's rights." So that was it. Plain and simple..."

Watson was also rude to this (second-class) citizen of Ottawa:

"I couldn't just stand there and ignore such an accusation,so I started to say that that is not what we want to do at all, but I couldn't go any further because then he cut me off and said, "I'm not here to debate this issue; I'm here for a Strawberry Social," and he started turning to walk away. I remained calm and respectful the entire time, and in a last ditch effort, I politely asked him (even though I figured it was probably hopeless): "Would you be willing to meet with me sometime to discuss further." To which he curtly replied, "No, I'm not going to discuss this with you anymore; I've already given you ten minutes of my time" and he walked away. "Thank you for your time, Sir," I replied. (And I think it was actually only about 5 minutes of his time, not 10.)"

A rude mayor. Who has no idea what it means to be pro-life. Saying we want to take away women's rights which is untrue and unfair. Watson is just one more pro-abortion making stuff up about us to further his own agenda. Just like the other radical "pro-choice' chauvinist extremists in this country.

At least now you know. Let's see what Watson and company have in store for us at this March for Life.

Ottawa FOI Part 4 - the full FOI report for your viewing pleasure or displeasure as the case may be

For those of you who would like to look at the full 487 pages worth of my FOI to the city of Ottawa on the pro-life flag nonsense here is the link.

And if you wondered if your response from Mayor Jim Watson was a form letter or not. Rest assured that. It was.

Here are my three previous posts on the subject.

https://run-with-life.blogspot.ca/2018/02/ottawa-foi-part-2-joyce-arthur-compares.html
https://run-with-life.blogspot.ca/2018/02/ottawa-foi-part-2-how-jim-watson-and.html
https://run-with-life.blogspot.ca/2018/01/ottawa-foi-part-1-not-raising-pro-life.html

Ottawa FOI Part 1 - Not raising the pro-life flag was a concern for city lawyer

I recently made a freedom of Information request to the city of Ottawa for all the internal emails at the city regarding the city's decision to lower the pro-life flag last year on May 11, the same day as the March for Life.

Below is an email Rick O'Connor sent to council after falling on his sword about the "error" that was made in raising the flag.

Members of Council,

A number of Members of Council have contacted me with respect to the Proclamation and flag raising for today's March for Life.

First, I want to apologize to Members of Council with respect to today's flag raising. While the City's Flag Protocol Procedures mirror the City's Proclamation Policy in many ways, a review of this matter has determined that the request for the flag raising was made by an individual. This does not meet the criteria and, when this was discovered, the flag was taken down under my authority. The Mayor has requested a review of the Flag Protocol Procedures and the City's Proclamation Policy, which will be reported back. 

With respect to proclamations, all proclamations issued by the City of Ottawa are in accordance with a Policy adopted in 2002. The provisions in this policy reflect the law in Ontario with respect to proclamations, which ensures that the City's practices are in line with Ontario's Human Rights Code. The Ontario Human Rights Tribunal has ruled that, because proclamations issued by Mayors in Ontario are a service subject to the provisions of the Human Rights Code, the refusal of a Mayor to issue a proclamation may constitute a contravention of the Human Rights Code if the decision of the Mayor was based on any reason that is protected in the Code or by case law related to the Code. Therefore, based on the requirements of human rights law, most municipalities in Ontario have chosen to either eliminate the use of proclamations altogether or issue them using broad criteria. For this reason, the City of Ottawa's Policy specifically indicates a Proclamation "should not be interpreted as an endorsement by either the Mayor or the City of Ottawa." 

Because the City of Ottawa chooses to issue proclamations, they are provided on request to groups where the request does not violate the Ontario Human Rights Code. Only proclamations that are contrary to the City of Ottawa's policies or bylaws, discriminatory, espousing hatred, violence or racism, illegal, not located within the boundaries of the City of Ottawa, politically or religiously motivated or intended for profit-making purposes may be refused. It should be noted that "politically or religiously motivated" means affiliated for or against specific political parties or candidates or religions. 

I am attaching below an email on this topic issued by my office in 2011 to Members of Council to assist them in responding to resident inquiries for your information. 

The process for issuing proclamations and approving flag raisings is overseen by the Office of Protocol to ensure that the City's policies are interpreted without a political lens and in keeping with the Ontario Human Rights Code. As the request from this anti-choice group met the test of both policies, the proclamation was issued, as it has been for many years. This is the first year the request has been made for a flag raising. It was granted on the same basis as the proclamation.

Notice how the city is quite concerned with the Human Rights Code: 

"the refusal of a Mayor to issue a proclamation may constitute a contravention of the Human Rights Code if the decision of the Mayor was based on any reason that is protected in the Code or by case law related to the Code. Therefore, based on the requirements of human rights law, most municipalities in Ontario have chosen to either eliminate the use of proclamations altogether or issue them using broad criteria."

And also notice that the flag was raised based because of the same concern with the Human Rights Code.

This is the first year the request has been made for a flag raising. It was granted on the same basis as the proclamation.

You can also read the 2011 letter that O'Connor speaks about at the link above.

More on this later.

FOI report from Morgentaler facility shows no need for bubble zone

Yesterday the Ontario government introduced the Bill to Create Safe Access to Abortion Services under the "Protecting a Woman's Right to Choose" banner.

So why do we need this legislation? Evidence shows we don't.

I received a report through freedom of information from the Ottawa Police that details all the police incidents at the Morgentaler abortion facility on Bank St for the period of January 1, 2014 to June 1, 2017.

There were a total of 64 police reports for this period most of which most were false alarms, cancelled calls, administrative issues, and other minor issues. In this three year, five month period, there were exactly two level 1 assaults (minor injury or no injury). It is unknown if the assaults were perpetrated against pro-life or against pro-choice people.

I witnessed pro-choice violence myself at our Life Chain on Sunday. A women jumped out of her car, ran over to people showing non graphic signs screaming at them, ripped one sign in half, threw two other signs on the ground, then ran across the street to scream and harass other pro-life people with her continued loud profanity laced speech. Maybe we need a bubble zone around us?

What the FOI report does tell us, is that clearly the Ottawa police are doing their job of responding to calls at the abortion facility. This the police's job. Are we to now put up bubble zones every time someone is yelled at, harassed, or has their sign ripped up?

In other words, exactly why is this new law even necessary? It isn't. This is just one more example of discriminating against pro-life people.

Mayor Jim Watson - Pro-life discrimination

Dear Jim Watson,

I understand you are proud to kick off the pride festival next week. And that you will be flying the pride flag at city hall.

Can you please explain to me why the pride flag will be flown, but the pro-life flag could not be flown?

There is quite a double standard here. I am sure you can see that.

One group advocates for equality for LGBQT people and their flag is flown. Another group who advocates for equality for all human beings and their flag isn't flown.

It seems that one group is more equal than the other.

I look forward to hearing back from you.

Thanks

Sincerely,

Patricia Maloney

Jim Watson - tell us what you really think

By Patricia Maloney

This is what Mayor Jim Watson thinks about pro-life people. He starts out discussing raising the pro-life flag at city hall and how it is unacceptable and how he and everyone else at city hall supports a "woman's right to choose". At the end of the clip Watson switches to discussing the bubble zone he wants to put around the abortion clinic and tells us what he really thinks of pro-life people:

"In the 21st century it's just not acceptable to have that kind of behaviour in a civilized society."

No wonder the mayor wouldn't respond to my emails. We are not worthy of a response because our behaviour is unacceptable