Clinic owner Dr. Adrian Edgar claims that the government is breaking the law by failing to pay for his clients’ abortions. His proposed lawsuit is based on the inaccurate claim that the New Brunswick government is breaching the Canada Health Act. This is not a sound legal argument. It is the provinces who have full jurisdiction to regulate and fund health care – not the federal government.
The Canada Health Act was passed in 1985 as a vehicle for the federal government to help provinces with additional health care funding, but not at the expense of provincial jurisdiction over administering health care. The purpose of the federal government’s involvement was never to make every province’s health care plan the same, but to help foot the bill to ensure that some basics are covered across the country. Many aspects of health care, from dentistry to mental health care to physiotherapy, are not covered.
Abortion is an elective procedure and need not be funded by provinces. All provinces fund abortions in hospitals, New Brunswick included, but New Brunswick has never funded abortions done in private abortion clinics. They have still always received full financial assistance from the federal government for health care because they are compliant with the Canada Health Act.
It is not New Brunswick’s health care needs that are causing this clinic to continue the fight, and it is not the people of New Brunswick calling for the funding. It is Clinic 554’s ideological focus and their bottom line at stake. The case is being made by a man directly set to profit from any additional funding. Clinic 554 has been in this position of threatening to close before, but carried on when their demands were not met. After failing again to get Premier Higgs to fund their business, they turned to the federal government to exert pressure, and now threaten to turn to the courts.
Federal government interference in this matter would be overreach – and Premier Higgs has rightly spoken out against that pressure. If the federal government interferes in provincial health care matters when those matters are fully in line with the law and the Canada Health Act, provincial jurisdiction is nothing more than a condescending joke. Our courts should be protecting our constitution, not bending to activist pressure.
Public health care was never intended to cover every single health-related expense a person could incur. Abortion is covered in every Canadian province, including New Brunswick, as is the abortion pill for those who want even easier access and a do-it-yourself approach. A private clinic that threatens the government and does not even report the number of abortions it performs annually should not be prioritized or required when distributing limited health care dollars.
We know that Justin Trudeau fully supports the legal killing of pre-born children. We also know that over 100,000 abortions occur every year in Canada – and they are all paid for with your tax dollars.
In response to the Trump administrations re-enacting of the Mexico City Policy, an order that ensures U.S. foreign aid will not be used to subsidize abortion overseas, Trudeau has begun to actively pursue new opportunities to fund abortion in underdeveloped countries.
And he wants to use more of your tax dollars to achieve his goal!
It’s already tragic enough that we pay for this grievous injustice taking place in Canada. Now the federal government seems intent on forcing us to pay for the killing of even more pre-born children.
The House of Commons has resumed sitting today. Your MP is back in Ottawa and they need to hear the message loud and clear that we do not want any more of our tax dollars going to fund the killing of pre-born children.
There are three ways we are asking you to connect with your MP:
- Call him or her. Your representative gets very few phone calls. A phone call makes them stop and take notice in a way email cannot.
- To find your MPs phone number simply type your postal code in the “Contact your Representative” bar at the top of this page.
- Call them at their ‘Hill Office’ number.
- Remember to be respectful and maintain a calm tone.
- In addition to using the talking points below, be sure you get an answer to this question: “Does MP [name] support the use of Canadian tax payer dollars to fund overseas abortions?”
- Follow this call with an email the next day
- You can use the Simple Mail letter provided here. Please edit the intro with a reference to the phone call you already made. Something like, “Thanks for taking the time to listen to me yesterday. I am sending this to ensure you have received my concern…”
- We also encourage you to use the same “Contact your Representative” tool at the top of this page to locate your MP and send your own email to him or her.
- As with the phone call, make sure you get an answer to the question: “Do you support the use of Canadian tax payer dollars to fund overseas abortions?”
- Call the Prime Minister and the Minister of International Development with the same message. The numbers for each office are above. Be sure to leave a message if you receive an answering machine.
Here are three simple talking points:
- You recently heard that the Canadian government was looking to expand on their funding of abortion overseas;
- You do not support your tax dollars going to pay for abortion at home or overseas;
- Pregnant women in developing countries are in desperate need of medicine, clean water, and maternal health – not abortion!
Will you take a stand with us and engage with these three calls to action?
Together we can make a difference!
]]>We are asking you today to:
- Pray for all those who have been deceived into thinking abortion is the simple removal of a bunch of cells.
- Pray that as the truth of abortion is exposed hearts and minds will be changed to oppose this wicked injustice.
- Take a couple minutes to send this email to your MLA/MPP asking him or her to end the funding of abortion. Go to http://simple.arpacanada.ca/choose, click on your province and look for the letter titled, “Why are we funding this?”
Thanks so much for making a difference!
The WNAL team
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