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Maxime Bernier to announce re-opening of abortion debate in Canada if he wins June by-election – LifeSite

WINKLER, Manitoba (LifeSiteNews) –– People’s Party (PPC) of Canada leader Maxime Bernier will announce tomorrow that should he win an upcoming federal byelection in June, he will reopen the abortion debate in Canada’s House of Commons. 

LifeSiteNews got confirmation from Bernier’s spokesman, Martin Masse, that tomorrow he will be joined by Laura-Lynn Tyler Thompson, a former PPC candidate and “prominent advocate for common-sense social conservatism,” to announce “a reopening of the debate” on abortion.  

“His first policy announcement this Wednesday will be on reopening the debate on abortion, with Laura-Lynn Tyler Thompson at his side,” Masse told LifeSiteNews. 

“Maxime will be accompanied with Laura-Lynn, who as I’m sure you know proposed a bill to ban late-term abortion in 2019 with Paul Mitchell (another former PPC candidate). His declaration will be mostly based on what has been his stance for some time already, to force a reopening of the debate on this issue and break the taboo in the media and political class.”

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The son of pastor Artur Pawlowski could be facing massive fines and jail time after he preached Bible verses outside a drag queen story time held at a public library over the weekend.

Nathaniel Pawlowski was detained and ticketed on Saturday by Calgary Police Service (CPS) because he was preaching too “close” to the drag event, in an apparent violation of a new and oppressive bylaw.

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Pawlowski said that he was outside the event to “preach, read the Bible and just speak.” 

Video of the incident shows Pawlowski along with his friend Deklan Friesen speaking to a crowd outside the library.

Calgary City Council last month passed a new “Safe and Inclusive Access Bylaw” that disallows “specified protests” both inside and outside all city-owned and affiliated public buildings. Mayor Jyoti Gondek put her full support behind the buffer zone bylaw.

Please tell Mayor Gondek that the bylaw violating Charter freedoms is both unjust and absurd

The bylaw means pastors or concerned parents protesting pro-LGBT events at public buildings are barred from getting within 100 meters of any such location.

Top constitutional lawyer John Carpay recently blasted Calgary City Council for going to “war” against Canadians’ freedoms by using bylaws to target people’s ability to protest events at public facilities, including drag queen performance directed at children. 

In an opinion piece published on March 17 in the Western Standard, Carpay said “freedom of expression is meaningless if citizens are only allowed to say what’s approved by the government, or if expression is banished from public spaces.” 

Pawlowski noted that his ticket has no penalty listed yet, as police must “review the evidence on me and that they will be stopping by my home to issue charges.”  

His ticket does have a mandatory court appearance date. Each charge under Calgary’s bylaw carries a maximum fine of up to $10,000 and up to a year in jail.

SIGN: Nathaniel Pawlowski MUST NOT be fined or jailed for protecting kids from Drag Queens 

Pawlowski had asked the police officers if they would also be enforcing “the same law on to the other side with the Antifa protesters”, but nobody was served a ticket except for he and Friesen.

In June 2022, Calgary City Council, under its left-leaning Mayor Jyoti Gondek, amended the city’s bylaws to “specifically prohibit insulting or demeaning behavior, including unwanted sexual advances, or harassing anyone on the basis of age, race, sexual orientation, disability, gender, gender identity or gender expression, among others.” 

In February, Gondek vowed to use the bylaw to go after drag queen story hour protesters after some of the events were postponed by pro-family objectors. 

In early March, fulfilling her promise, Calgary City Council then passed the bylaw that banned protesting against drag queen story hours or any other “LGBTQ” events held at public facilities. 

SIGN: Nathaniel Pawlowski MUST NOT be fined or jailed for protecting kids from Drag Queens 

Carpay noted that while there are limits to free speech,  “Canadians have every right to express their views in public places, regardless of the content of the expression.” 

He also wrote how a 1992 Supreme Court of Canada decision in R. v. Zundel “explained all communications which convey or attempt to convey meaning are protected by the Charter [of Rights and Freedoms], unless the physical form by which the communication is made (for example, a violent act) excludes protection.” 

“The purpose of the Charter’s free expression guarantee is to promote truth, self-fulfillment, and political and social participation. That purpose extends to the protection of minority beliefs which the majority regards as wrong or false,” wrote Carpay. 

According to Carpay, Gondek seems to “believe it is wrong or false to oppose drag queen story readings in public libraries.” 

“She is entitled to express her views, but not to impose her views on others by effectively banning peaceful public protests through a so-called ‘Safe and Inclusive Access’ bylaw,” noted Carpay. 

There exists a “freedom of expression” which includes the “right” to choose “high-visibility locations to hold up signs or banners, sing or chant, hand out literature, gather signatures on a petition, and have a speaker get up on her soapbox,” continued the lawyer. 

“Protests are often held at the locations where injustices (or perceived injustices) are actually occurring,” he added. 

Christian pastor Derek Reimer was jailed and charged in early March for protesting a children’s drag queen story hour at a public library in Calgary.  

Carpay wrote that the city council’s use of “coercive power to relegate peaceful protesters to obscure locations where they cannot be seen or heard,” amounts to “crushing a fundamental Charter freedom on which our democracy depends.” 

“The point of protests is to be seen and heard,” wrote Carpay. 

Carpay noted that being forced to stand 100 meters away from high-visibility and high-traffic areas “reduces freedom of expression to near irrelevance.” 

“Protecting entrances from obstruction is already taken care of by the Criminal Code, and does not require a bylaw that imposes up to $10,000 in fines and up to a year in jail for peacefully protesting less than the length of four swimming pools away from an entrance,” charged Carpay. 

According to Carpay, the Charter’s protection for free speech applies to those at the receiving end of a person speaking out.  

“Potential listeners who have the right to hear diverse points of view, and to decide for themselves what is true and false rather than having Mayor Gondek decide on their behalf,” said Carpay. 

“Calgary’s ‘Safe and Inclusive Access’ bylaw violates the rights of all Calgarians, speakers and listeners, and attacks diversity of thought and belief.” 

Carpay noted that “repressive regimes always take great pains to ensure their subjects are kept ‘safe’ from ideas which the regime believes to be wrong or false.” 

“In the past – and still today – those living in communist North Korea, national socialist Germany, theocratic Iran, Putin’s Russia, communist China and many other places have been kept very safe from ideas that the regime dislikes,” wrote Carpay.  

Carpay noted that in a “free society,” there is no way everyone can be “safe” from hearing one’s opposing views. 

“The ‘safety’ which woke activists on Calgary City Council are promising is attractive to those who support children being exposed to drag queens at public libraries,” wrote Carpay.

“But beware of the erosion of freedom, because the demons of censorship cannot be controlled after their release.” 

In addition to Carpay, the Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) has also objected to the new bylaw, and has vowed to commence a legal challenge against the “unconstitutional” policy. 

SIGN: Nathaniel Pawlowski MUST NOT be fined or jailed for protecting kids from Drag Queens

MORE INFORMATION: 

Pastor Artur Pawlowski’s son detained in Calgary for preaching against drag show – LifeSiteNews

Canadian constitutional lawyer rips Calgary law banning drag queen story hour protests – LifeSiteNews

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Bernier before has said that the PPC would reopen the abortion debate in Canada, notably after Roe v. Wade was overturned by the U.S. Supreme court last year.  

“Unlike all establishment parties, the People’s Party welcomes a debate on this issue. It’s time to join the civilized world,” stressed Bernier. 

Thus far, the Conservative Party of Canada has refused to commit to reopen the abortion debate in Canada, with current leader Pierre Poilievre promising his party would not do so. 

Bernier is opposed to late-term abortion, and last year blasted the late-term killing of unborn babies as “abhorrent” and akin to genocide.  

“It’s perfectly legal to kill a fully developed unborn baby during the third trimester of a pregnancy, a baby who would be viable if born prematurely,” Bernier wrote in a newsletter sent out to his followers. 

He has said in the past he is not per se fully against abortion in the early stages, but is firmly against late-term and sex-selective abortions. 

He has said he would allow free conscience votes for his MPs on all life issues. 

As for the PPC itself, it has no official party stance on abortion. 

Bernier and social conservativism

While Bernier, who served as former Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s industry minister and then foreign affairs minister, has historically been focused primarily on economic and immigration issues, in the last two years he has come out more strongly in favor of socially conservative policies.  

Bernier himself chose not to get the COVID shots and criticized the fact that every government in the country went along with vaccine passports. 

Masse also confirmed with LifeSiteNews that next week, Bernier will announce his official policy position “on the radical gender and trans ideology.” 

A press conference will be held in Winkler, Manitoba, tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. CST, which the PPC says is when Bernier will “announce his stance on abortion.”  

As for Thompson, in 2018 she lost her job with the 700 Club because of her lobbying against the province of British Columbia’s now infamous Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) 123 curriculum. 

She has been an advocate for free speech and was firmly against COVID lockdowns and mandates.  

Last Friday is when Bernier first announced he will run in the upcoming Manitoba federal by-election, promising to fight for traditional family values against a society “overtaken by evil,” including “transgender madness.” 

“The Woke Cult is demolishing the traditional pillars of our society and aims to establish a twisted and profoundly sick vision of the future. They are moving at a startling pace,”  Bernier said before a crowd of supporters in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, last Friday. 

In comments sent to LifeSiteNews, Bernier noted that he chose to run to prevent another “fake” conservative MP from Pierre Poilievre’s party from winning the riding. 

Bernier will run as a PPC candidate in the federal riding of Portage-Lisgar, Manitoba, which was held by former interim leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, Candice Bergen, for years until she resigned her seat last year. In March, he had hinted he was looking at running in the by-election. 

In the 2021 federal election, the local PPC candidate for Portage-Lisgar, Solomon Wiebe, had the best results of any PPC candidate in the country, getting about 22% of the vote. However, he was up against the popular Bergen. 

Of note is that the Portage-Lisgar area is where Bernier was arrested after holding an outdoor rally in 2021.  

Canada’s current abortion regime under Trudeau

Last Thursday, on the same day thousands of pro-life Canadians gathered in Ottawa for Canada’s 26th National March for Life, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal caucus released a video fawning over the deadly practice of abortion.

The day prior, Trudeau pledged millions in additional funding for pro-abortion initiatives across the country.

These actions, coinciding with the largest annual pro-life event in the country, were blasted by Campaign Life Coalition as Trudeau showing his “bitterness and animosity towards pro-life Canadians.” 

Unlike in the United States, abortion in Canada exists in a legal vacuum since being decriminalized over thirty years ago.

The 1988 Morgentaler decision saw the Supreme Court of Canada throw out the last remaining abortion law on the basis that it was unconstitutional. Since then, there exists no federal law regulating abortion, and thus the practice is permitted through all nine months of pregnancy. 

According to CLC’s website, abortion has killed over 4 million preborn babies in Canada since its legalization in 1969, which is roughly equivalent to the total population of the province of Alberta. 

UPDATE: This article was updated at 7:21 p.m. ET on May 16 to correct on error about Bernier’s cabinet position under former Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Bernier served as Harper’s industry minister and then foreign affairs minister, not his finance minister as the article previously stated.

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