November 2, 2024

Abortion Rights Issue Surfaces in Canada Before U.S. Election

When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addressed the House of Commons this week regarding abortion rights, he also had a message for his daughter, who was seated in the gallery.

A crowd with some people holding signs that say

An anti-abortion rally on Parliament Hill in Ottawa in May. Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press, via Associated Press

"I want her to hear me as long as everyone else does," Mr. Trudeau said. "This government is unequivocally pro-choice. We will always defend a woman's right to choose."

Mr. Trudeau's Liberal Party on Tuesday revisited a 2021 campaign promise to penalize anti-abortion organizations that it said provided "dishonest counseling" to pregnant women.

As the prime minister has been fending off calls to step down as leader from members of his own party, the timing of the announcement was notable.

It came one week before voters will choose the next president of the United States, where views on women's reproductive rights have animated the race before Election Day on Nov. 5.

[Read: Why Gender May Be the Defining Issue of the Election]

"This issue coming out of the American election percolates into Canadian political consciousness," said Darrell Bricker, the Toronto-based chief executive of public affairs at Ipsos, a polling company.

Abortion is often called a "settled" issue in Canada. The topic does not rank among the top concerns for Canadian voters, who are preoccupied with housing costs, health care access, the economy and immigration, according to survey results published in July by Abacus, a polling firm.

There is also a consensus among federal party leaders. Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative leader, has repeatedly said that if elected, he would not restrict abortion rights.

The work in Canada has mainly been focused on increasing the availability of abortion services, particularly for women with low incomes and those in rural areas.

To improve abortion access, the government proposed legislation this week that would target charities that offer pregnancy counseling, which are sometimes called crisis pregnancy centers. The legislation would amend Canadian tax law and cause such organizations to lose their charitable status if they fail to disclose to the public whether they provide abortion services or refer patients elsewhere.

In a report released last year, the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, an advocacy group, reviewed the services and website information of 146 such centers, most of which had charitable status. Fifty-five of those organizations did not offer the disclaimer that they do not provide referrals or assistance to abortion services or contraception, the group found.

Joyce Arthur, the coalition's executive director, said in a statement that the government's proposal is a step toward greater transparency and increasing faith in the charitable sector.

Revoking an organization's charitable status would be a punishing move for most charities, which structure their finances around tax exemptions, including on income and goods and services.

Justin Trudeau speaking into a microphone in front of a softly blurred background.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced changes to tax laws that may affect some pregnancy counseling centers. Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press, via Associated Press

Jeff Gunnarson, the president of Campaign Life Coalition, an anti-abortion group, urged the Conservatives to oppose the legislation.

"This legislation is nothing more than evidence of a Liberal vendetta against pro-life organizations that offer women more choices other than abortion, such as adoption and parenting," Mr. Gunnarson said in an open letter to Mr. Poilievre.

When speaking to Conservative voters who believe in restrictions to abortion, the party's strategy has been to maintain its stance on the issue and keep the focus on the bigger priority of defeating the Liberals, said Mr. Bricker of Ipsos.

"They don't want any division like they had in the last election," he added.

[Read: How Canadians Fell Out of Love With Justin Trudeau]

Putting gender issues on the agenda for Canadians, and positioning Conservatives as a threat to progressive values, is a customary political tactic of the left. But as support for abortion has become more entrenched in the public opinion of Canadians, resurfacing the abortion debate appears to be an ineffective strategy for the Liberals, who have fallen 20 points behind the Conservatives, according to a recent public opinion poll by Nanos Research.

"I've been observing Canadian politics for long enough to know that this is a tried and true tactic," said Christine Van Geyn, litigation director at the Canadian Constitution Foundation, a civil liberties charity. "Any time their polls are low, they want to bring up abortion."

When Canada decriminalized abortion in 1969, it added restrictions to limit the procedure, including the prerequisite that a panel of three physicians determine that the pregnancy endangers a woman's health. About 20 years later, the Supreme Court ruled that restrictions to abortion were unconstitutional.

Abortion rights have dominated the American news cycle since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, ending the constitutional right to abortion.

"We certainly have our own culture wars, but abortion has been legal in Canada for a long time and there's broad support for it," Ms. Van Geyn told me. "There's not a partisan desire to introduce legislation on this issue."

(Also, thank you to the readers who wrote in to welcome our new Canada bureau chief, Matina Stevis-Gridneff. Ian Austen will be back for next week's edition of the Canada Letter.)

Trans Canada

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Vjosa Isai is a reporter and researcher for The New York Times in Toronto.

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