May 9, 2023 – Bill C-311
Exactly seven years prior I was on Parliament Hill for Cassie and Molly’s law. On this particular day though, it was for the Violence Against Pregnant Women act.
I was there with Sherry and Chan Goberdhan, the parents of a woman named Arianna who was murdered when she was 20 days away from giving birth to their grand-daughter Asaara. It happened only months after the government voted against additional protection for pregnant women.
We were there – together this time – to support MP Cathay Wagantall in her latest effort.
Shaped by the Scandal of the Day
It began with an early morning press conference just outside the floor of parliament. Sherry and I were invited to make a brief statement.
After that, we grabbed a coffee and Cathay told us that it looked like the debate was going to be moved to another day. There was a scandal afoot and it seemed likely it was going to preempt our plans.
The buzz was around Chinese political interference. There had been a threat to a Conservative MP and his family that Trudeau failed to act on or disclose. The allegation was that the Prime Minister kept it quiet because of the advantage it gave him.
He allowed danger to others because it benefited him.
It was the very reason we were there, but in our case, it was the danger to women like Cassie and Arianna he had allowed for his own gain.
Match Maker Murderer
While serving a sentence at a medium-security prison, the man that brutally killed Arianna and Asaara was found to be looking for love on a matchmaking website for lonely convicts. He used a picture from his wedding day with Arianna in his profile.
I sat with her family in the observation deck of parliament to listen to Cathay’s statement about this story recently revealed in the Toronto Sun.
Change of Plans
We spent most of the rest of the day outside at the There Were Two display set up at the Centennial Flame where we collected petitions and talked to interested passers by.
It seemed all but certain the debate was going to be moved to another day, so Arianna’s family left to get a jump on the drive they had ahead.
As I too prepared to pack it in for the day, I got the text – the Liberals motion to adjourn Micheal Chong’s privilege debate had passed.
In other words, at the very last minute, they had made room for Cathay’s debate.
Woke Bully Theatrics
I’m not going to get too far into this here. You can watch the entire thing for yourself below. If I had to choose a single word to describe it, the word would be ‘absurd’.
Cathay did great though. She got straight to the point. She showed how the bill’s biggest detractor had been moving the goal post in order to sabotage the conversation.
That detractor, Joyce Arthur/ARCC, has shown nothing over these years but an intolerant devotion to her own opinions and prejudices. The very definition of a bigot. But very useful to a Trudeau/Singh government.
The division she manufactures is handed over to them to be packaged as a referendum on abortion. A time tested reliable means to raise money and rally support. Most of which coming from people that will never read the bill. And with a media incentivized to call less fouls on the team that pays them, it is marketing magic.
It’s a sinister alchemy that converts the choices of murdered pregnant women into the billboards of abortion politics.
Woke Bully Theatrics Part II
At this point I’d like to urge anyone following along to read the text of the bill if they haven’t already. It’s very short, and I think it’s important to grasping the magnitude of the absurdity that followed.
They weren’t responding to a bill that would cement pregnancy as an aggravating factor. They were putting on a show. Their portrayal was of a scene where alt-right zealots were forcing raped women into alleys to get abortions with coat hangers.
If they had any sense of awareness for the irony of describing such graphic and violent musings to families like the Goberdhans and mine, it was undetectable in their performance.
Even Jordan Peterson name was uttered. Maybe as a dog whistle or a woke incantation. I don’t know.
As much as I realized that this show was intended to pivot from a scandal – to betray the seriousness of our experience for their own political benefit – despite their demeaning attitudes and crassness, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for them. But maybe even more, I just felt sad that these were the people running the country.
Not one single time did they acknowledge that these women for whom Cathay spoke did not choose an abortion. Instead they were satisfied, even proud, to treat it as if they had.
Only when you abandon your last principle can you be truly shameless.
The Signal to Pivot
Later that night I saw Trudeau’s Facebook video. He was expounding how wonderfully “pro-choice” he was. So pro-choice, in fact, that he is blind to choices that aren’t abortion. On social media a chorus of Liberals responded to the cue and sang in unison of their matching virtue.
“Let me be clear, this government will never tell a woman what to do with her body,” Trudeau said in the recording, as if no one would remember what he’d forced them to do with their bodies for the past two years.
It reminded me of the time he mocked the native woman protesting for clean drinking water. His supporters just laughed and clapped along. Were they blind to the cruel irony, or did they just feel exclusively entitled to bask in it?
It was easy to see at that point why they made room for Cathay’s debate. It was a political slight of hand. But it was material that their huckleberries in the press could work with. It was the thing that would get repeated.
The sinister alchemy was in full force.
What’s Next…
Pierre Poilievre says he is all about common sense. I’m sure that’s why he supported Cassie and Molly’s law back then, and it’s why he’ll support this now. I am eager to hear him speak to it for what it is – a justice issue, a safety issue, and a reproductive rights of these victims of crime issue.
Will he push back on the misrepresentation by media and their political beneficiaries who have gas lit those of us asking for this legislation? Will he join us in standing up against the coercive control that these woke bullies employ?
The radical minority that holds this conversation hostage cannot be pacified. This bill proves that once and for all. The overwhelming majority of pro-choice Canadians agree something needs to be done. It’s time to do it – it’s common sense.
And it’s time to call out the ones nurturing this extremism for their personal benefit, and point at the underlying misogyny it takes for someone to turn away from this problem. Its time put a stop to the doublespeak of these fake feminists.
What happens when a pregnant woman is murdered is NOT her choice. It is NOT a safe and legal abortion. It is NOT health care. Those falsely equating it as such need to be called out for their insolence and extremism.
The absurdity of a government that seeks to define ‘hate’ for the purpose of controlling speech, but then claim it irreducibly complex to make a law to protect women when they choose to have a baby is not something Canadians are blind to.
It’s time to stand up to these ridiculous bullies, and I believe Mr. Poilievre is poised to lead that charge.
Canada is for everyone. The consideration of our standards and policies should not just be for those deemed useful to their woke narratives – but everyone with a legitimate need for protection in their vulnerability.
And the Violence Against Pregnant Women Act seeks to achieve just that.
