The annual “March for Life” in Ottawa, billed as “the nation’s premiere pro-life event,” is always political - some years more so than others.
Next Thursday, the march is bound to be extremely political, thanks to events exploding around abortion rights in the United States, as well as a Conservative leadership race in this country and a capital city still on edge from other mass protests this year.
Yes, Canada is not the United States and not every political development south of the border migrates inevitably northward.
But there’s little doubt that Ottawa marchers will have an extra spring in their steps next week at the prospect of abortion rights getting rolled back by the U.S. Supreme Court, as reported by Politico through an unprecedented leak from the judges’ deliberations.
Many Conservative politicians have made appearances at March for Life over the years to show support for the cause. How many will be showing up this year?
That will be fascinating to watch, given the initial gag order issued by interim Conservative Leader Candice Bergen’s communications staff to Conservative MPs and senators on Tuesday, instructing them not to comment on events surrounding the U.S. Supreme Court.
Technically, the reason given was that it wasn’t appropriate for Canadian politicians to be commenting on matters still before the U.S. court. But this is, as my colleague Stephanie Levitz reported on Tuesday, a very “active” issue within the current Conservative party - not just in the ongoing leadership contest, but during the stormy tenures of Andrew Scheer and Erin O’Toole.
Campaign Life, which organizes the annual Ottawa march, was denouncing the Conservative party on Monday for failing to approve the leadership campaigns of two candidates deemed friendly to the anti-abortion cause. The organization will be looking for evidence that anti-abortion views are still alive and thriving in the Conservative caucus.
Social conservatives have had influence beyond their sheer numbers in successive Conservative leadership contests, amassing enough memberships not to take over the party - not yet, at least - but to throw their support toward a favoured candidate.
So next week’s march matters, and so does whatever fallout emerges from the potential rollback of abortion rights in the United States.
Comparing Canada’s legal regime around abortion to that of the United States is an apples-and-oranges exercise. Jacques Gallant put it succinctly in his explanatory piece for the Star on Tuesday: In the United States, the focus is on criminality, whereas in Canada, the tension revolves around access and services.
But there’s a good reason for Canadians to feel nervous about what’s going on in the United States, because it is part of the ongoing shock to that system from defeated president Donald Trump. It’s thanks to Trump’s judicial appointments that the Supreme Court seems poised to roll back rights that U.S. women have had for almost 50 years, since the historic Roe v. Wade decision.
Trump, it’s turning out, was easier to defeat electorally than culturally in the United States. The country is still polarized politically; the war on facts, science and the mainstream media has been taken up by all of those who support Trump and the Republican politicians afraid of his continuing influence.
When Canada looked at that mob who laid siege to the U.S. Capitol Building on Jan. 6, 2021, many people said such a thing couldn’t happen here. Then came the ugly protests during last summer’s federal election campaign, with Canadian crowds channelling the hateful energy of the Trump crowds south of the border.
And then, of course, came the trucker convoy protests of this year, which definitely felt Trumpian, and were cheered on by Trump’s acolytes in U.S. politics and Fox News. Canada, like the United States, can’t seem to shake what Trump unleashed on the body politic back in 2016.
That’s why this momentous leak from the U.S. Supreme Court rattled all the way across the Canadian border this week, too, especially around the political streets and corridors of Ottawa. There’s just been a little too much of Trump-inspired disruption coursing through Canadian politics recently.
It remains reasonable to ask how much of that is finding a home in the current Conservative party, vulnerable as it apparently is to social conservatism and leadership aspirants who are getting giddy highs from trashing Canadian institutions like, say, the Bank of Canada or government “gatekeepers.”
The March for Life turns 25 this year, according to the website. It has grown from a small, almost fringe protest into a formidable, must-attend event for some politicians, especially Conservatives - not unlike some other protest events we’ve seen in recent months.
No wonder Canadians were paying attention this week, then, to what Trump continues to tear down in the United States.
Susan Delacourt is a national affairs columnist.