Pro-abortion groups netted $152M in government funding since 2016

OTTAWA (CCN)—An Ottawa pro-life blogger who specializes in access to information requests reports pro-abortion groups have received a whopping $152,471,526 in government funding since 2016.

About $23 million came from Canada Summer Jobs (CSJ) grants, while the rest flowed from other federal, provincial and municipal sources, blogger Patricia Maloney said in an interview.

She pointed out pro-abortion advocate Joyce Arthur had complained last year pro-life groups had “raked in” $1.8 million in CSJ grants over a period of eight years, an amount Maloney described as “a pittance” compared to the millions pro-abortion groups have received since Justin Trudeau came to power less than four years ago.

“Joyce Arthur is always going after us,” Maloney said.

She decided to investigate what pro-abortion groups received in grants after Arthur drafted an open letter in February to federal leaders from Action Canada for Sexual Health & Rights praising this year’s changes to the CSJ program.

The changes removed the controversial 2018 pro-abortion attestation many critics called “compelled speech” or a “loyalty test” but replaced it with a new attestation and criteria surrounding the job and projects seeking funding.

“These new safeguards are designed to ensure that federal grant monies are not used to fund discriminatory activities that undermine human rights, including as they relate to bodily autonomy, sexuality, gender identity and expression,” the open letter said.  It had 91 signatories representing a range of organizations from abortion advocacy groups to sexual health clinics and victims’ shelters.

“Let’s look at all the people that signed your letter, and see how much money they received,” said Maloney, who has operated the Run With Life blog since 2010.

The blogger, who has a background in computer programming, scoured the federal grants and contributions data base to determine all the federal funding the groups received. Then she examined what they received in provincial and municipal contributions by going to the CRA charitable data base.

“These people who make a concerted effort to ensure pro-life people do not get federal funding all receive huge amounts of federal, provincial and municipal money,” said Maloney. “That’s how they run. They wouldn’t be here if they didn’t get this funding.”

“We get nothing,” she said. “When they say we’re well funded and it’s a scandal the money we get … they wouldn’t even exist without federal funding.”

Maloney began blogging and filing access to information requests in 2010 when former Conservative MP Ken Epp advanced a private member’s unborn victims of crime bill.  Maloney asked to see the emails the government was receiving both for and against the bills.

The government sent her “pages and pages of emails” with the names of the senders redacted.  Maloney counted them and found support for the bill was “overwhelming.”

“The pro-aborts were very loud, but they didn’t seem to be well-organized,” she said.

The blogger has since used provincial freedom of information requests to obtain information on Ontario and, recently, Quebec abortion statistics, discovering the abortion reporting of the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) is about 20 per cent lower than that of the province.

When Maloney found herself blocked by an Ontario law preventing access to statistics on abortion, she sued the province in 2017 with the help of the Association for Reformed Political Action Canada.  In June 2017, Ontario Superior Court Justice Marc Labrosse struck down the law, which ARPA described as a victory of freedom of speech.

Maloney has also used freedom of information requests regarding Ontario’s abortion bubble zone law restricting demonstrations near abortion facilities and discovered there were no police reports of harassment by pro-life demonstrators outside abortion facilities.

“They didn’t even bother to see if there’s a need [for this law], Maloney said, noting the push for legislation came from complaints from a pro-abortion group.

Arthur did not contest Maloney’s figures but said in an email, “... there’s no moral equivalence between anti-choice groups and pro-choice groups.”

“Anti-choice groups deserve zero government funding – and should not be charities either – because they seek to remove human rights from women and LGBTQ2 people, thereby undermining Charter protections and human rights legislation in Canada,” she said.

“Plus, they spread misinformation and propaganda. Pro-choice groups on the other hand support human rights and welfare, and work to advance legal and socio-economic protections as enshrined in law.”

This article was updated on Aug. 6, 2019.