March for Life Canada 2025: A Synopsis and Call for Reflection

The March for Life on May 8 2025 was attended by fewer than the 20,000 or so participants of previous Marches – and by some counts much fewer, a number which, very much reduced from pre-Covid years. Still the spirit was strong, and zeal for the cause of life shone forth. This was certainly quite shy of the capacity of, say, Lansdowne Park stadium in Ottawa.

I mention Lansdowne Park with history in mind. In 1947, World War II atrocities still raw, over a million from across Canada and the United States and elsewhere converged for a re-consecration of Canada to Mary mother of God. Hopes are afoot to commemorate the event in 2027, 80 years after; and leaders might want to consider holding the March for Life in conjunction: perhaps marching from Lansdowne Park up Bank Street to Parliament Hill with a statue of Our Lady of the Cape in the vanguard.

Another motive for the mention is that numerical comparison of engagement may be an indicator of the proportionate loss of faith and its correlate concern for innocent life. If so, then all the more reason for a spiritual revitalization under Mary’s mantle.

From this year’s March, notably absent were schools in any significant number. This may relate to the duress of visiting Ottawa on a Thursday, disrupting school schedules for the latter two if not 3 weekdays. But the non-involvement of Catholic schools in the march has always been disappointing. Their conspicuous absence exposes the non-supportive position of OECTA and OSSTA in the one province with the greater ‘catchment’.

Notably absent as well on the Hill were any of the newly elected or re-elected MPs and other dignitaries other than the Ottawa-Cornwall archbishop and his auxiliary, or mainstream media camera crews, though some articles with photos were published by the National Post, Epoch Times, Hill Times and other venues. Even clamouring pro-choice activists were not to be found there or along the march: rather a first. To them this was evidently a non-event. The same assessment would seem to be held also by the RCMP.

Use of the parliamentary lawn was to be shared with a gathering of Africans concerned with bloody policies in their native states. I cannot say whether our organizers had knowledge of this from the RCMP or sought to arrange with these friends mutually agreed dates, encouraging many of them to attend the march. But proLife numbers required not more than half the space, and the RCMP had anticipated as much.

Mass at St. Therese’s parish the evening prior, celebrated by local auxiliary bishop Mathieu at the invitation of pastor Vincent Perreira was on the other hand packed, and hundreds – most of them young (including several from Our Lady Seat of Wisdom College) – participated in the candlelight gathering at the nearby Human Rights monument. Rousing speeches went up – for instance from Jakkie Jeffs, president of Alliance For Life Ontario [AFLO] – promoting hope for being savvy and doubling down on educating the uninformed.

His grace Marcel Damphousse of Ottawa-Cornwall (Yvan Mathieu again present) spoke supportively on Parliament Hill, followed by excellent speakers and some stirring live music, as per the usual fare at the march; and considerable excitement stirred the crowd at the announcement of pope Leo XIV’s election.

Overall, crowd – not quite somber in the sunshine – was somewhat subdued, with a more reflective prayerful disposition than prevalent in bigger marches. I sampled a general wish that many more may participate and wake up to the needs of the vulnerable at both ends of the age spectrum and now in the middle of life; for a UN report no less (UN agencies not being pro-Life) has faulted Canada’s rapacious euthanasia rate.

The following day at Hampton Inn and Conference Centre a youth summit and leaders’ summit were slated, both under-attended. Many dozens of bag lunches for the youth were unclaimed. The leaders’ summit was equally underwhelming, two hours being taken with a screening of Roe v Wade Canada with no new (and some incorrect) information for leaders. Following an election synopsis and remarks by several speakers there was no time for proLife leaders to discuss strategy or inform one another in a forum on developments. This haste was aggravated by the room’s later booking for a splinter group meeting which could have happened in a small breakout room.

After the summit a few of us did confer on the urgent need for more intensive strategizing and more frequent sessions than this annual off-chance. That sentiment was reinforced the following day by Arpad Naguy of Campagne Québec Vie [CQV] who is boldly running as independent in a September by-election north of Shawville (there being not one proLife incumbent now in Quebec). Arpad adds that the Quebec electorate is also woefully uninformed of the history of developments in the cause for Life, due to a lack of Christian education since schools were de-confessionalized two decades ago.

Overtures have been made with Campaign Life Coalition [CLC] and AFLO to try to start the ball rolling of greater cross-group information and strategizing in these times which promise to be especially heartbreaking under another Liberal government. In the immediate wake of our march, the Waterloo Catholic school board voted again to fly the pride flag – such is the lateness and escalating urgency of grass-roots engagement.

Should the event transpire again that a secular interest proposes budget claw-backs of charitable status or tax reliefs for places of worship, readiness will be required to present contrary positions with briefs to parliamentary committee, to lobby strenuously, and to inveigle MPs and senators.  At the dinner of the archbishop of Ottawa-Cornwall the following week I learned that its own finance committee does not have any such preparedness on the agenda. Moreover the CCCB letter to the former minister of finance was very weak, asking only for ‘not disproportionate’ treatment.

MP Garnett Genuis has said with good reason that the proposal will return in this government, perhaps sooner than expected (depending on an interim budget). His take is based on committed declarations for it by Liberal candidates during the recent campaign.

Now CLC and other pro-Life / pro-Family groups (eg. PAFE – Parents as First Educators) who survive on generosity without tax relief, might be forgiven imagining that a pernicious policy to other charities would not affect them .. but it is a grave mistake! Charity fatigue hits everyone and constrains what people will give.

All of us who are even half-hearted in generosity receive threefold the begging letters we would like, because other organizations get wind that we donated to one. That flurry will only increase, and faithful tithing at church will need to escalate to rescue-tithing just to keep a few churches open. Without even that factor on the table, the Ottawa-Cornwall archdiocese has warned (between the lines in its new ‘vision’) that inside of 8 years parishes will close down. One can expect the same across Canada.

Part of this archdiocesan new vision is to “go deep” .. meaning to get informed and deepen faith and resources for a needed catch of new ‘fish’ (the other “go out . go together” legs of the vision). Now, getting so informed and equipped has to mean meeting and strategizing, as well as correcting serious lacunae and misconceptions.

After the 1988 Morgentaler ruling there developed a period of what I’d call intellectual or even moral hiatus in the pro-Life movement – both political/legal and educational. This has left our current young participants with a serious lack of helpful knowledge or debatable terms, making them vulnerable to still more discouragement with inexplicable failure or a sense of nowhere to turn.

Given my very wide experience in the movement, including a decade as executive assistant and writer for the only pro-Life senator in his day (the late hon. Stanley Haidasz), and remaining close to committee submissions at key moments – such as the lead-up to our ignoble MAiD regime – I may be in a position to offer comment. Some of what I have to say might be of value to younger activists.  As a further instalment I will provide necessary political, legal and strategic background. Among the salient points are :

• a) there is and never has been (and cannot be) a right to abortion here or anywhere
• b) the vacuity in law was created in 1969 by adding “after becoming a human being”
• c) a contrary petition of 1 million was ignored by Pierre Trudeau as prime minister
• d) the supreme court in 1988 knowingly omitted to close this present vacuity in law
• e) government bill (C-43) – an inside job – had the same form as MAiD, for abortion
• f) senate defeat of C-43 on a tie prevented the entitlement, but still left the vacuity
• g) striking the words in (b) would simply make abortion manslaughter
• h) the wide disdain for (g) – even by proLife lawyers – is criminalization of women
• i) the concern of (h) is allayed by ‘exculpating’ women who plead coercion
• j) to limit the harm of ongoing vacuity, conscience defence was proposed
• k) 9000 Canadian health practitioners petitioned for conscience protection in 1996-7
• l) other than the Health act, nothing obliges funding for abortion procurement
• m) given (a) and the high health-state of pregnancy, abortion is not health-care
• n) intellectual and moral hiatus befell proLife strategy in the Harper years and since
• o) the Carter (2014-15) ruling was predicated on the falsehood that suicide is a right
• p) MAiD, formally like C-43, creates an entitlement to assisted suicide
• q) conscience exemption for health practitioners was rejected in MAiD legislation
• r) instead, effective referral was promoted by the architect of MAiD
• s) while MAiD is silent about conscience exemption, local colleges urged referrals
• t) misdirection of conscience to ‘conscientious practice’ remains unaddressed
• u) policy academic think-tanks sprang up (eg Ottawa U) in a woke environment
• v) from (u): gene-selected babies, mail-order abortion pills, ‘pregnancy-able’ men
• w) little proLife active critique of (v) or vigilance for trial-balloon policies
• x) interest in Roe v Wade outcome despite older C-150 with very different flaws
• y) over-focus on ‘human being’ in criminal code when ‘child’ is duly acknowledged
• z) chance to counter Vatican committee on proximal complicity in mRNA drug

Lastly, the need is pressing for mutual cooperation with groups such as PAFE (Parents as First Educators) to expose the promotion in public schools (particularly ‘Catholic’ ones) of gender identity and dysphoria. This might be thought by pro-Lifers to not impact on abortion or euthanasia, but there are strong reasons why that shrug bespeaks a further serious lacuna.

As an ‘old hand’ I appeal from ageism that tends to blot past experience on the shallow ground that from it came no apparent success. From this ignorance stems desperation: for instance the intemperate zeal that issues calls for public display of ghastly pictures, setting aside the dignity of the deceased or the grace-of-office (as given to a jury) required for viewers including minors.

Because shock impedes reason and prompts anger and rejection of the messenger, the majority are glad CLC has continued to discountenance the use of it at the march. But contrarians are busy visiting our schools, particularly our independent ones to ‘radicalize’ in this direction. As Father Ted Colleton would have put it, I am a radical in the better sense of the word. Still, I laud the intemperate at least for showing the urgency of strategizing in truth. May we all pull together to meet that cry of the innocent.