Tuesday, May 10, 2022

Another Whale Has Been Spotted Right Near Montreal — Here's What's Happening (PHOTO)

Thomas MacDonald 
mtlblog

A whale was spotted in the Saint Lawrence River near Montreal on May 8, Robert Michaud, president of the Groupe de recherche et d'éducation sur les mammifères marins (GREMM) confirmed to MTL Blog.



© Provided by mtlblog


This is the second whale sighting near Montreal in recent years. In 2020, a humpback whale captivated the city after travelling hundreds of kilometres upriver. Its breaches near the Old Port warmed the hearts of pandemic-weary Montrealers.

That whale was eventually found dead near Varennes.


© Provided by mtlblog
Minke whale in Montreal.Minke whale in Montreal.Alain Belso | Courtesy of the GREMM

This time, it's likely a minke whale, a much smaller species, Michaud told Narcity Québec. It was seen in the Le Moyne channel near Montreal's Île-Sainte-Hélène.

"It is not frequent, but it's normal for animals to move away from their regular range," the GREMM president said.

"It happens to whales as well as polar bears and moose. Often it's young animals that are explorers, disoriented animals or animals that have made a series of mistakes — a bit like us when we get lost in the forest, a series of bad decisions that lead us to places and positions that are very uncomfortable."

He added that it's "difficult to say in the case of this minke whale what brought it here, but one thing is certain: it's not in the right place, it's not good for its health and we hope it decides to return home as soon as possible."

Unfortunately, he said, officials can't do much to turn it around.

"We don't have a safe and efficient way to make the animal go back downstream; it has already been tried elsewhere with no success. Its fate is somewhat in its own hands, and what we're going to do is watch over the navigation."

In the meantime, the GREMM is sending a team to try to take photos and examine the animal. Michaud said it's small and likely young.

Mariners have also been warned of its presence.

According to the NOAA, minke whales can grow up to 35 feet in length.


In 1836, Maria Monk exposed an alleged account of sexual abuse of Catholic nuns and the killing on infants by the clergy in Montreal, Canada. 

However, the book was dismissed by scholars as an anti-Catholic hoax.

Maria Monk - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Monk
Maria Monk (June 27, 1816 – summer of 1849) was a Canadian woman whose book Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk, or, The Hidden Secrets of a Nun’s Life in a Convent Exposed (1836) claimed to expose systematic sexual abuse of nuns and infanticide of the resulting children

Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk (1836)

Awful disclosures of Maria Monk, as exhibited in a narrative of her sufferings during a residence of five years as a novice, and two years as a black nun, in the Hôtel Dieu nunnery at Montreal. By Maria Monk; in London.

In the prevailing anti-Catholic atmosphere of early-nineteenth-century America, and fresh after the Ursuline Convent riots of August 1834 in Massachusetts (in which a convent of the Roman Catholic Ursuline nuns burned down by the hands of a Protestant mob), the publication of Maria Monk's revelations of her time at the Hôtel-Dieu convent in Montreal became a sensation. With nuns forced to engage in sexual acts with priests and being locked in the cellar as a punishment for disobeying, the story had similarities to the popular Gothic novels of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Maria also tells of how any babies that were born as a result of these liaisons were immediately baptized, strangled, and buried under the convent. It was from this fate that she wanted to save her unborn child which led her to escape and consequently publish her exposé.

Although the preface claims the events and persons described to be real, after the initial sensation died down some began to question the veracity of Maria's tale. American journalist William L. Stone traveled to Montreal and visited the convent, later writing that the descriptions found in Maria's book bore no resemblance to the actual building. Tales of Maria's past seem to suggest that she had been confined by her mother in a house for fallen women from which she was expelled in 1835 due to her pregnancy. In October of the same year, a New York newspaper announced Maria's forthcoming book which was then published in January 1836. It is believed that the book was not written by Maria herself but either written down or indeed fabricated by one or more of the various clergymen that surrounded her during this time of publicity, such as Reverend William K. Hoyt and Reverend John Jay Slocum, in an attempt to make money through the sensational narrative. When or how she had come to meet these men and how much influence they had over her is unknown, as is the truth of the narrative found in her book or indeed anywhere else regarding Maria's life or character.

For a great list of various editions of the book and related material - including Maria's "sequel" and an affidavit from Maria's mother) - see this great page from the University of Penn Library.

TRICK OR TREAT? THE AWFUL DISCLOSURES OF MARIA MONK (1836)


by Tasha Jones | Oct 16, 2018 | Articles, Books, Montreal 

|

“Mr Bloom turned over idly pages of The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk, then of Aristotle’s Masterpiece. Crooked botched print. Plates: infants cuddled in a ball in bloodred wombs like livers of slaughtered cows. Lots of them like that at this moment all over the world. All butting with their skulls to get out of it. Child born every minute somewhere. Mrs Purefoy.” (Ulysses)

When it was first published in 1836, The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk caused a literary and religious storm in Montreal, and abroad. Why? Because the book was purported to be a real account of a young woman’s trials as an ‘inmate’ of Montreal’s Hôtel Dieu nunnery.

In the book, Maria claims that she and the other nuns (‘black nuns’ as she calls them) were systematically raped by the Catholic priests who lived next door to the nunnery. Any child born of these rapes was immediately baptized, strangled, and then buried in the cellar of the nunnery and covered with lime.

Maria also confesses to participating in the murder of a young nun who refused to kill a newborn baby. As a punishment for her disobedience, the nun was forced to lie down, and a mattress was placed on top of her. Priests and the ‘black nuns’ jumped on the mattress until the young nun was crushed to death, and her body was buried in the cellar.

But is the story real, or a publishing hoax?

And who was Maria Monk?

According to her Wikipedia entry, Maria Monk was a Canadian woman born on June 27, 1816. It’s possible that Maria suffered a head injury as a child, and she may have spent some time living in an asylum. A fellow patient in the asylum, with whom Maria may have been friends with, was supposedly a nun. Did Maria receive her ‘source material’ from her?

It’s also claimed in the entry that Maria spent seven years living in a Magdalene asylum. Did she use that experience as a reference for her text? Or was she used by her publisher who hired a ghost writer to pen the book?

Maybe Maria is the book’s author and she was an ‘inmate’ of the nunnery?

As it turns out, Maria’s story was debunked and the book is now considered a hoax. Perhaps this is one of the earlier examples of fake news?

Of course, I read the book because of its appearance in Ulysses. Leopold Bloom gets it for his wife Molly, but she wasn’t too impressed with it, unable to even remember the title:

“should we tell them even if its the truth they dont believe you then tucked up in bed like those babies in the Aristocrats Masterpiece he bought me another time as if we hadnt enough of that in real life without some old Aristocrat or whatever his name is disgusting you more with those rotten pictures children with two heads and no legs thats the kind of villainy theyre always dreaming about” (Ulysses)

The Awful Disclosures is not a page-turner by modern standards, but it has its charms. Although it’s hardly salacious, and lacks any detail about the sex crimes, it was still interesting to read about the tediousness of life in a nunnery. Go figure. The most shocking thing to me was that anyone would willingly sign up for a life of unremitting drudgery, constant supervision, and endless prayer and fastidiousness to religious patriarchy.

Upon taking the veil, Maria dies a symbolic death by lying down in a coffin, and from that moment on she has vowed complete obedience to the nunnery, and the male-dominated Catholic church.

Her reward? To be gang raped later that night by three priests. This, with the approval of the Mother Superior.

If you’re interested in browsing through the book yourself, it is available for free at Project Gutenberg, and despite its faults, the content is still relevant and spooky, especially during this time of year.




MARIA MONK.

Boston Pilot (1836-1837), Volume 2, Number 33, 13 August 1836 IIIF Collection Link

We would direct the attention of our readers to the following extracts from those liberal, talented, and spirited papers, the New York Transcript and New Hampshire Patriot, in reference to the gross and groundless falsehoods parroted forth, from the instructions of her clerical keepers , by that modern Messalina, Maria Monk. The testimony of several respectable Protestant Clergymen, who have lately visited the Convent at Montreal, and who are about publishing the results of their observations and enquiries, will certainly fasten disgrace and dishonour on the clerical fanatics who enjoyed the criminal and libidenous favours of that infamous creature. p. Maria Monk’s Awful Disclosures. We perceive by the Montreal papers, that the inspection of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery in that city, proves that the Disclosures are a tissue of falsehoods, as far as regards the localities of that religious house, and that it is quite certain that this woman could never have been an inmate of it. It is disclosed, moreover, that she had resided at one time in a sort of Magdalen Asylum in Montreal, for penitent prostitutes, and that the names of the pretended nuns introduced by her into her work, were actually those of certain of the frail sisterhood who were in the asylum at the very period she inhabited it. The “ Refutation” will appear forthwith, and when it sees the light, we will give an analysis of it to our readers. Since writing the above we have been favoured with an inspection of the manuscript copy of the “Refutation,” and the pieces justifcatives appended thereto in the form of a mass of affidavits, the most important of which are those of the gentlemen who visited the interior of the Hotel Dieu nunnery, to compare it with the description given by Maria Monk. Among those were the Rev. Mr. Curry, Corresponding Secretary of the Home Missionary Society ; the Rev. G. W. Perkins, Pastor of the American Presbyterian Church; the Rev. Henry Esson, Pastor of the Scotch Presbyterian Church; Benjamin Holmes, Esq., Cashier of the Montreal Bank, Justice of the Peace ; John Ostell, Esq., Architect and Surveyor; and John Jones, Esq., Editor of the Ami du Peuple Newspaper. — All these gentlemen declare that there is not the slightest resemblance between Maria Monk’s description, and the buildings and vaults; and that had any alteration been made since the publication of the book, it would have been necessary to alter it from summit to foundation. Nothing can be more complete than the sworn evidence of these gentlemen, who are among the most respectable in the British Provinces. There are also affidavits of James Ray, so frequently mentioned in the “Disclosures;” Maria

Howard, Miss Reed, and Jane McCoy, who were repentant prostitutes in the Magdalen Asylum at the time Maria Monk was there; andjalso of various persons with whom Maria Monk" lived during the period she states that she was an inmate of the nunnery. The work will be ready in a fortnight, and will be issued by, one of our respectable publishers. We, therefore, consider this most impudent humbug as being most satisfactorily exposed. A little time was necessary for this conclusion ; anti that time has been so employed as toj bring’ conviction to the minds 'of the most bigoted and credulous. [N. Y. Transcript. Maria Monk’s “Awful Disclosurf.s.’’ A further examination of the affidavits about this woman’s impostures, discovers the fact, that the account she gives of the interior of the nunnery act.oids with the localities of the female penitentiary in Montreal, superintended by Mrs. McDonnell ; ‘that the conventual discipline she relates, is in some degree copied from that which prevails in that institution ; and that Louis Malo a constable of the Court of King’s Bench, is the real father of her child. Is it not an extraordinary instance of the credulity of the public mind, that upwards of 25,000 copies of such ridiculous trash as Mr. Theodore Dwight’s rifacimento of a strumpet’s lies, should have been sold, and that a feeling of indignation and abhorrence should have been so excited against a religious society so excellent, exemplary, and universally respected as the Sceurs de Charite of the Hotel Diet] hospital foi the sick and infirm ? [N. Y. Transcript. From the New Hampshire Patriot. Maria Monk:—again. As the editors of the different religious papers in this State (we regret to say without a solitary exception to our knowledge,) have avowed their belief in the monstrous and abominable legend published to the world as the narrative of this abandoned woman, but, in reality invented by an artful and designing cabal at New York, and written by Mr. Theodore Dwight, the public cannot fail to be interested in whatever is calculated to establish or impeach the veracity of the “Awful Disclosures,” since it will equally serve to strengthen or diminish their confidence in the candour, Christian charity, sound judgment, and unerring discretion of the religious'press. They will accordingly be pleased to learn that measures have been instituted by the ecclesiastical authorities of the Roman church, such as are calculated to satisfy all of the truth or falsity of the pretended revelations of horrors and abominations. The Bishop of Montreal has named a committee to examine and report upon the alleged disorders of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery, the pretended scene of Maria’s imprisonment and suffering; with whom a Protestant clergyman is joined in order to remove the slightest opportunity for questioning the fairness and impartiality of the investigation. In announcing this arrangement, the N. Y. Transcript enumerates the following reasons why its editor—by the way, one of the most talented, best informed, and most unprejudiced in that city—entertains no doubt of the issue: “ In the first place, to every unprejudiced and reasoning mind, the book itself was its completest refutation, and the character of the authoress, as given by herself, was sufficient to destroy her reputation for truth. VVe happen to be well acquainted with the localities, and with most of the gentlemen whose names were introduced ; and from what we know of them, from the position of some, and the peculiar circumstances of others, we were morally sure, that the affair was a fabrication. In the next place, we had many conversations with respectable Protestants from Montreal, who expressed their utter disbelief of the entire story, and who informed us of sundry events in the life of the authoress, quite sufficient to shake the belief of the most enthusiastic in the horrors of her tale ; the ignorance of the female whose recital was embodied by another, was also a suspicious circumstance, as the art of book making is now pretty well understood, and this publication was immediately followed by another of a more revolting character still, from the pious press of Leavitt, Lord & Cos.; and lastly, from the fact that she was disavowed by her mother and brother, who declared the whole story a fiction, and the relator a disgrace and a misfortune to them. When she came out with her charges against the Catholic clergy of Canada, she must have made up her mind, that her own character would be scrutinized, and ‘ her pedigree looked into for on the good character of a witness depends his or her credibility. This test has not redounded at all to the advantage of the good fame of the person on whose credibility depends the stability of the ingenious legend named ‘Awful Disclosures,’ which title might more appropriately be affixed to the developments recently made in Montreal respecting her. It appears to have been ascertained that a constable of the Court of King’s Bench there, (whose name we have) has discovered that she was at one time an inmate of a licentious house in the suburbs, and that on one occasion she figured at the criminal bar for pilfering. The Catholics. The last Monitor contains an excellent article on the course which certain religious bigots are pursuing towards the Catholics in this country. The spirit and sentiments it contains are such as will commend it to every liberal, enlightened Christian and patriot, and should put to the blush the bigotry and knavery which stoops to the grossest falsehoods, knowingly and wilfully, in order to prostrate a sect who manifest in their lives as many of the Christian virtues, and as much perfection, as any other in the land. We shall transcribe the article to our columns. [New Hampshire Patriot. Patriotism. The Presbyterians and their associates from some of the other churches, sent no invitation—or, in other words, would not permit the children of Unitarians and others, to walk in the Sunday School procession, at Louisville, on the fourth of July. We have not heard, for some time, of a meaner exhibition of sectarian animosity. On the national anniversary of our liberty, when every heart should be grateful—when the sight of our country’s flag, associated as it is with such proud recollections, should have gladdened the bosom of every patriot in the land to see a line of distinction drawn upon that day, between the children of our citizens, was indeed a pitiful proceeding. What a bright example was this for the rising offspring of our country, what an effectual method to fill their hearts with love for one another, from which, when grown into manhood, they would not depart! Had Catholics been guilty of such conduct, what a cry would be raised throughout the land—what appeals to patriotism, what love of country would be professed, what a horror for the Pope, Prince Metternich, and the emperor of Austria! Whenever Catholics have been proved guilty of such conduct as this, then, indeed, let( them be denounced ns traitors. [Catholic Telegraph.]

 ITDR. JOHN S. BARTLETT, No. II Atkinson Street.


“Awful Disclosures”
— But No Longer Unbelievable
Maria Monk Reconsidered


In the light of modern revelations and nunsploitation movies, 19th Century tales of immorality and crimes in Roman Catholic convents appear far less fantastic.

IN 1836, a controversial book exploded upon the scene like an artillery shell, written by a woman who had supposedly fled the revered Hotel Dieu nunnery in Montreal, Canada. It bore the title, Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk, or, The Hidden Secrets of a Nun’s Life in a Convent Exposed! The book immediately touched off an acrimonious firestorm of wild polemics with its sensational allegations. And no wonder — for the author, “Maria Monk”, claimed that in the many years that she had been enclosed there in the cloister of the “Black Nuns,” as the sable-clad Sisters of Charity were called, she had witnessed or been subjected to a number of horrific crimes and abuses.



The nun’s tale



Priests, Monk claimed, under the pretext that such godly men could not sin, regularly used nuns for sex in a private room reserved for “holy retreats.” On the very day she took her solemn vows, she said that she herself had been forced to have intercourse with three priests, and once again with the first for good measure. More on that later.

Monk said she had personally witnessed an offspring from such a union being immediately baptized after birth, nonchalantly suffocated, and tossed into a pit of lime in the basement (where there were presumably others), with acid later added to dissolve the tiny corpse. A ledger she found in the Superior’s office listed many more.

At the mere whim of a superior, disobedient or recalcitrant nuns were severely disciplined with punishments that ranged from petty annoyances up to Inquisition-like torture. In dark cells in the cellar near the pit, several sisters were imprisoned for unknown sins apparently for life. Nuns would disappear in the night for no known reason never to be spoken of again; Monk firmly believed some had been murdered. Suicides were also not unrumored.

All of this took place in a forbidding atmosphere of medieval despotism, where the only thing expected of a nun was silent, unquestioning obedience. Superstition ruled supreme — hair and nail clippings of an elderly nun thought to be holy were prized as relics, for instance. Bizarre penances, such as drinking the Superior’s foot-bath, were often imposed and strange rituals were frequent. Nuns, for example, would be placed in their coffins upon taking their vows to show they had died to the world, and then propped sitting up in church after they died to show they now lived in Heaven.

Meanwhile in this hell on Earth, the sisters were expected to constantly spy on each other and inform the Mother Superior of any defects, disobedience, or independence in themselves or others. Yet lying to outsiders was encouraged insofar as it would further the faith — especially if it brought in wealthy new recruits.

The aftermath


According to her own account, having become pregnant, she escaped, and told her story to a Protestant minister at a hospital for the poor in New York. He persuaded her to tell her story to the world.

At any time, such outrageous charges would have sparked an outcry; in the jostling pandemonium of pre-Civil War America, they touched off an immediate conflagration of bombastic claims and counter-claims. For this was the era of the “Know Nothings,” stridently anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic nativists. Even before the Potato Famine brought starving hordes of Irish over, these men feared the influx of Roman Catholics as a sneaky invasion of papists determined to subvert the liberties of free, white Protestants and take over the country. Catholic apologists instantly saw that Monk was a tool being used by Protestant nativist agitators and fought back vigorously in kind.

It was quickly realized that proof of Monk’s story hinged on the existance of certain secret entrances and passages built into the nunnery. She had described these in detail, showing how a priest could gain entrance to the cloister unobserved at any time, day or night, with secret signals so he did not have to mention his name or even speak a word. Like the much later controversy surrounding the McMartin Preschool, a Col. William Leete Stone found no signs of such secret passages in the Hotel Dieu during a brief inspection and after interviewing her, was convinced she had never even been there. This finding, along with the story that she was a actually a prostitute, had been in an asylum, and died in prison as a pickpocket, was loudly trumpeted throughout the press, and Catholic propagandists triumphantly labelled her an imposter and hoaxer to this day.

But was she? She was not the only former nun to break silence at that time; shortly before Monk, a woman named Rebecca Reed came out with similarly horrid tales that led a mob to burn her former convent in South Carolina. Famous ex-priest Charles Chiniquy, himself a French Canadian, spoke out about many clerical abuses in Montreal several decades later. Maria Monk herself countered the claims of Stone in the back of her book with statements of nearby residents attesting to unexplained building supplies for interior alterations at the Hotel Dieu that happened shortly after she first spoke out in the newspapers.

In the Preface she implored,

Permit me to go through the Hotel Dieu Nunnery at Montreal, with some impartial ladies and gentlemen, that they may compare my account with the interior parts of the building, into which no persons but the Roman Bishop and Priests are ever admitted: and if they do not find my description true, then discard me as an imposter. Bring me before a court of justice — there I am willing to meet [her detractors] and their wicked companions, with the Superior, and any of the nuns, and a thousand men.

This, needless to say, never happened and Maria Monk is nowadays remembered only with derision. Despite the fame, or rather notoriety, her life ended tragically. She lost credibility by running off again, falsely claiming she had been abducted by a gang of priests. She may have been married briefly, but in any case had another child, was arrested for pickpocketing, and died in poverty in an almshouse in 1839 (although some sources say 1849).

Her testimony


But for someone out to boldly defame the Catholic Church, she went about it in an odd manner. The tone of the book is anything but lurid or sensationalistic; she knew the gravity of what she was claiming, and related her story quite calmly and rationally throughout. It is certainly not titillating. While using florid Victorian language about her feelings concerning the “debased characters” of the priests who had access to the convent and its inhabitants, Monk showed great circumspection in discussing the actual abuse.

This, for instance, is all she had to say about what happened after she took her vows:

Nothing important occurred till late in the afternoon, when, as I was sitting in the community-room, Father Dufresne called me out, saying, he wished to speak to me. I feared what was his intention; but I dared not disobey. In a private apartment, he treated me in a brutal manner; and, from two other priests, I afterwards received similar usage that evening. Father Dufresne afterwards appeared again; and I was compelled to remain in company with him until morning. [Emphasis added.]

I am assured that the conduct of priests in our Convent had never been exposed, and it is not imagined by the people of the United States. This induces me to say what I do, notwithstanding the strong reasons I have to let it remain unknown. Still I cannot force myself to speak on such subjects except in the most brief manner.

And indeed, she was true to her word. Far more space in her book was devoted to the daily life of the nuns. More space is even allotted to the antics of “mad Jane Ray M’Coy”, who helped her survive, than all the discussion of the wicked doings of the priests and her superiors.

In an age so famously reticent to speak of sex this was natural perhaps; surely quite different from the explicitly detailed confessions gloried in today. For many survivors of such cult-like abuse, however, often the only way it can be talked about is in such an unemotional, matter-of-fact manner as Monk. It is too painful otherwise.

The wrath of God’s wives

It is indeed strange that many people who are willing to ascribe any degree of wickedness to male clergy have a strong denial about female religious. Among victims and survivors that I have talked to those who had been molested by nuns seemed to bear a special burden, perhaps because of this. Yet, as every veteran of parochial schools has at least one story about mean or crazy sisters, a certain recognition of it exists in popular culture.

Undeniably, the best reason to reconsider Maria Monk’s claims is based on modern revelations of victims and survivors of clergy sexual abuse. Reports in recent years have detailed extensive and global abuse of nuns by priests, which the Vatican has vigorously denied. Nuns, especially in Africa, have been even more vulnerable than before as they are deemed to be safe from AIDS.

It may be significant that Canada has unfortuntely been one of the major epicenters of these scandals. Since the late 1980s, there has been one grim exposure after another of abuse and neglect of children in Church-run institutions on a massive, institutional scale, beginning with the Mount Cashel Orphanage run by the Christian Brothers in St. John’s, Newfoundland, and extending through one institution after another across the entire country.

Thousands of children over decades at Mt. Cashel and in similar facilities were subjected to foul food, severely beaten with belts and fists on a regular basis, and occasionally sodomized. A film, The Boys of St. Vincent’s, effectively dramatized the situation, but was banned in Canada after its first showing.

Then there are the so-called “Duplessis orphans”, some 3,000 children who were condemned to be treated as retarded simply for the higher rates the government would pay for their care. Indian children were treated even worse, if that’s possible, in Church-run residential schools. Two nuns, for instance, members of the Sisters of Charity, have been charged with assault at a residential school in Ontario. However, this abuse occured not just in Catholic schools, but also those run by Anglicans, Presbyterians, and the United Church of Canada as well. The recompense due to the Native population from this legacy of abuse may soon lead to the bankruptcy of the entire Anglican Church of Canada.

All of these innocents were victimized by an unholy bargain between the Church and the Canadian state, where the Church took charge of orphans and the underprivileged with the blessing of government grants and virtually no oversight — a situation already begun in Maria Monk’s day. (To which I say, thank God for the Masonic Founders of the US and the separation of church and state!)

The Sisters of Charity also figure in scandals in Ireland and in Australia. In Ireland, a Sr. Dominic of the Sisters of Mercy not only molested a 10-year-old girl, but also held her down to allow “a smelly vagabond” rape the child. Such cases are not common, but they do exist.

In Australia, war orphans sent from England were subjected to such abuses by the nuns as being burnt with a red-hot poker during an exorcism, locked in underground cells, scalded in boiling water, and so on in some of the worst atrocities ever said to be described there. “Madness, ruthless and sadistic madness, on the part of at least some of the nuns, and a depthless depravity on the part of some of the men who inhabited the place, are the defining characteristics of some of those who ran the orphanage,” Professor Bruce Grundy, the author of a report for the government, exclaimed. “There was no limit to the sexual deviance that could be engaged in with those unlucky enough to find themselves singled out as ‘the chosen ones’.”

He began his investigation, by the way, after police failed to find evidence that stillborn babies and children who died from disease were buried in unmarked graves. One can only wonder how these stories get started.

But, knowing the depravity that human nature is capable of, can anyone today claim in good conscience that Maria Monk‘s story could not be true? I doubt it.


The first victim



Illustrations from an Anti-catholic tract.
Top: "A Nun Stabbing a Priest," Middle: "Death-Pit — Trap Door — Cell," Bottom: "The Smothering of the Nun."


It is time, I believe, for her name to be rehabilitated and her courage recognized and honored. Whether crazy or an imposter, Maria Monk was the first voice to speak out for North American victims of clergy sexual abuse, and paid the price for it. She was roundly reviled for her efforts. Even if she became a madwoman, pickpocket and a prostitute with several illegitimate children, it does not indicate her story is not true but more likely the opposite, for many victims of abuse come to unfortunate ends, especially if scorned and disbelieved. Certainly her verbal maltreatment by the mouthpieces of the Church after she spoke out is similar if even more severe than what many later survivors have faced.

With such factual horrors having been proven by government commissions and courts of law, the claims of rampant abuse and crime by Maria Monk do not sound so wildly extravagant anymore. Even the charges of infanticide which moderns find most revolting might look entirely different to those women who lived in medieval gloom before the invention of contraception.

After all, the Roman Catholic Church opposes such measures as abortion partially because it believes the soul of the infant, if unbaptized, will not be allowed into Heaven due to Original Sin. At least, the nuns might say in their deluded self-justification, their babies, being brought to term and baptized, were guaranteed an eternity of happiness, unlike today’s aborted fetuses forever doomed to Limbo, whatever that means. Their sins, they would claim, were thereby the lesser.

In any case, Maria Monk never claimed all nunneries were corrupt, but only spoke of her own experiences. But hers was not the only one so debased, and conditions have not necessarily changed for the better. A decade ago I listened in pity and horror along with several hundred other people at a conference as an elderly woman softly told her story. She had, at her quite advanced years, recently quit Regina Laudis, a wealthy convent, related somehow to the Benedictines and Sisters of Mercy, based on an island off the East Coast. Among other things, she claimed that the order stole land, duped recruits and supporters, and led by several shady confessors, advocated Eucharistic meditations for the sisters that were overtly autoerotic fantasies. Her complaints to the ecclesiastical authorities brought no relief but only harsh discipline for herself, and so she was forced to leave in protest.

Whether either her tale or that of Maria Monk is true or not, how can any of us on the outside ever know for sure? The lives of those women behind the cloister’s forbidding walls remain as insulated from the world today as if they were in a Dark Age harem.

Empty convents


Ironically, Maria Monk’s ultimate revenge lays not so much in reform but in extinction. It is not generally realized that many more nuns than priests have quit since the Second Vatican Council. Roman Catholic orders of female religious are withering away as their members grow old and are no longer replaced. Figures show that in the US there are only half as many in 1994 as there were in 1965, and the average age of a nun is now over 65.

The reason for this mass exodus may not be that the modern outside world is so glamorous. Perhaps it’s because the cloister is not that mysterious but cozy refuge portrayed in those old Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman movies any more than the priesthood is.

In reality, a convent is more like a prison, the uncomplaining inmates of which the Church has ruthlessly and thanklessly exploited throughout two millennia. Only those women who have actually been there can say if any of these disturbing tales are true, if a nun’s life is indeed worth such sacrifice. It should be noted that once Vatican II threw open the doors, many of these inmates have spoken, silently but eloquently, with their feet.

And so the cloisters’ silence deepens. The halls do not echo much anymore with the nuns’ whispered secrets or their footsteps hurrying on unknowable errands, but the mystery remains.
Links


The Nuns' Stories: Vatican Condemned for Abuse of Nuns by Priests

Awful Disclosures — the entire text in .gif and .pdf format

Imposters — from the 1910 Catholic Encyclopedia



Consumer groups and opposition parties support move to block Rogers-Shaw merger


The Competition Bureau’s move to block the telecom mega-merger between Rogers and Shaw was applauded by consumer advocates and political opposition parties on Monday.



A woman holds two cellphones in this photo illustration, Monday March 29, 2021 in Chelsea, Que. The House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology is hearing from Rogers and Shaw Communications executives on a merger.

Anja Karadeglija - 8h ago
 National Post

“For consumers, it’s a strong message that their affordability concerns do matter right now,” said John Lawford, executive director of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre.

The Competition Bureau said it would seek to block the deal “in an effort to protect Canadians from higher prices, poorer service quality and fewer choices, particularly in wireless services.”

The $26-billion merger raised concerns about wireless competition and affordability because it would see Rogers — one of Canada’s Big Three wireless providers that hold 87 per cent of the Canadian wireless service market — buy Shaw.

Shaw’s Freedom Mobile has been credited with driving down prices as the fourth competitor in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia.

But the Competition Bureau said Monday that “removing Shaw as a competitor threatens to undo the significant progress it has made introducing more competition into an already concentrated wireless services market.”

The bureau said its investigation found that competition between Rogers and Shaw has already declined and “if the proposed merger is allowed to proceed, that harm will continue and may worsen.”

Lawford said the decision was unexpected, going by decisions the bureau has made in the past. “I suspect… the government is falling off its chair in surprise, as am I,” he said.

Telecom researcher Ben Klass also said the move to block the deal “definitely wasn’t expected.”

Advocacy group OpenMedia called for the Liberal government to join the Competition Bureau and “kill a deal that is good for no one but the Rogers family and Shaw family.”

Competition Bureau seeks to block Rogers-Shaw deal in bid to fight higher wireless prices

Competition authorities 'opposing' $26-billion merger of telcos Rogers and Shaw

The Rogers-Shaw deal must pass three different regulatory approval processes: from the CRTC, the Competition Bureau and Innovation Canada. The CRTC has already approved the deal, and now the bureau has said it will block it, but the decision by the Innovation Minister is still outstanding.

The Liberal government has previously said the companies would have to divest Freedom to another buyer.

NDP finance critic Daniel Blaikie noted his party has been opposed to the merger. “We’re glad to see the Competition Bureau taking this seriously…this is something that ought not to be going ahead.”

He said in an interview the Liberals should follow the Competition Bureau’s lead. “They should also be opposing this merger, because we have not seen convincing evidence that it’s going to lead to better prices or better service for Canadians or that it won’t mean job losses in Shaw offices.”

Conservative innovation critic Gérard Deltell said Conservatives “appreciate the decision by the Competition Bureau to challenge the Rogers-Shaw merger on the grounds that it would result in less competition, fewer choices, and higher prices for Canadians.”

Alex Wellstead, director of communications for Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne said in an emailed statement the ministry will continue its process. He noted the Competition Bureau is an “independent law enforcement agency.”

“As it relates to requests to transfer licensed spectrum, ISED will continue to review any application on its merits and will render a decision in due course,” Wellstead said. “As Minister Champagne has previously stated, our government is committed to promoting competition and ensuring affordability in the telecommunications sector.”

Klass said in his view, “the right thing to do is to block the merger outright.” He said “none of the obvious suitors really present a strong case to fill that role of a fourth carrier in Ontario, B.C., and Alberta on a sustainable basis.”

The Competition Bureau process is not public, meaning it’s not clear what option Rogers and Shaw presented to the regulatory body.

One of the options is Xplornet, who became Manitoba’s fourth player after the merger of Bell and MTS. The Globe and Mail reported last month that Rogers presented the government with a deal that would see Xplornet take over Freedom Mobile.

Klass said in an earlier interview Xplornet was “given a chance to try and compete in the mobile sector and they’re not doing it there… they’re offering way less data for the money than the other companies.” On Monday, the biggest plan advertised on Xplore Mobile’s site was a 10 GB plan for $70. In comparison, in Manitoba the Big Three offered 25 GB plans for between $60 and $75, and Bell a 10 GB plan for $55.

Rogers has turned to Quebecor as a potential buyer in recent days in an effort to rescue the deal, according to media reports.

Consultant Gerry Wall said in an earlier interview Quebecor has a history of driving competition in Quebec, where it currently operates. “They have the lowest price on a lot of different plans in the Quebec market. So they not only know the business, know how to do it, but they’re also demonstrably aggressive in terms of their pricing.”
Still 'non-negotiable': Canada's natural resources minister redraws line on Line 5


WASHINGTON — Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson is doubling down on Canada's assertion that the continuing operation of the Line 5 pipeline is "non-negotiable."


© Provided by The Canadian Press

Wilkinson made the comments Friday in the House of Commons as Opposition MPs seized on media reports that the controversial cross-border pipeline is facing yet another court challenge.

On top of efforts by the state of Michigan to shut down Line 5, an Indigenous band in Wisconsin is now asking a judge there to do the same.

The Bad River Band of Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa argues in court documents that Enbridge Inc., the pipeline's owner, no longer has the right to operate on its territory.

Fifteen of the 20-year easements that allowed the company to operate on band territory expired back in 2013 and were never properly renewed, they argue in court documents.

"Enbridge has continued to operate the pipeline as if it has an indefinite entitlement to do so," say the documents, first reported by the Globe and Mail.

"This constitutes an unlawful possession of the subject lands, and an intentional, ongoing trespass upon them."

The band filed a motion in February seeking a summary judgment against Enbridge — in other words, to shut down Line 5 without a trial.

"The continued operation of Line 5 is non-negotiable," Wilkinson said Friday in response to a question from Conservative MP John Brassard.

"We will take appropriate steps to ensure the continued safe operation of this critical infrastructure. And we continue to work closely with the owner of Line 5."

Wilkinson said he will continue to raise the matter in discussions with his U.S. counterparts. Federal officials say the minister will be in D.C. for meetings on a number of bilateral issues in the coming days, potentially as early as next week.

The Conservatives, however, want the government to take a harder line, urging Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly to intervene in the Wisconsin case the same way they did in Michigan: with an amicus brief to put Canada's economic interests on the record.

"As before, the government needs to take a 'Team Canada' approach to combat this latest legal challenge to an international pipeline that is critical to our nation," Conservative MPs Greg McLean and Marilyn Gladu wrote in a letter to Joly earlier this week.

"We call on you to fully advocate and support Canada’s interest once again, by filing an amicus brief and ensuring the terms of the 1977 Transit Pipeline Treaty are respected."

Enbridge, meanwhile, is in the process of trying to relocate the pipeline away from band territory, said spokesman Jesse Semko, adding that a 1992 agreement with the Bad River Band allows for operations to continue until 2043.

That relocation project will involve a Wisconsin contractor and union and Indigenous labour, as well as $46 million spent specifically on Indigenous businesses and communities in the area, Semko said.

"Agreement has been reached with 100 per cent of private landowners along the re-route, which was chosen because it minimizes environmental impacts and protects critical resources."

The Wisconsin challenge comes as Enbridge tries to fend off Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who fears an ecological disaster in the Straits of Mackinac, where the twin lines cross the Great Lakes.

Enbridge insists the pipeline is safe and has already received a level of state approval for a $500-million concrete tunnel beneath the straits that would house the line's twin pipes and protect them from anchor strikes.

In the Michigan case, Canada has invoked a 1977 bilateral pipelines treaty aimed at ensuring the uninterrupted flow of energy between the two countries, and has petitioned the court there to allow those talks to play out.

It's not yet clear whether the federal Liberal government will do so again in the Wisconsin matter, although it would likely require a separate set of negotiations, Semko added.

"Given Line 5’s volumes, there are no easy alternatives for the upper U.S. Midwest and Canada," he said in a statement.

"Moving the same volumes by truck or train would require more trucks and train cars than are currently available, would cost substantially more, and would burn more fuel in order to move it."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 6, 2022.

James McCarten, The Canadian Press

Definition of 'inefficient fossil fuel subsidy' still elusive in Canada

Friday,May 6, 2022
 The Canadian Press



OTTAWA — Thirteen years ago, as part of a commitment made by all G20 nations, Canada began promising to scrub out all inefficient fossil fuel subsidies from the government's books.

The commitment has been made in every G20 communique since, found its way into the 2015 Liberal election platform, and in 2016 the Liberals set a deadline to do it by 2025.

As an election promise last fall, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau moved that up to 2023.

But what exactly is an "inefficient fossil fuel subsidy"?

The government still doesn't know.

"The work to put parameters around the definition of inefficient is ongoing," said Hilary Geller, an assistant deputy minister for strategic policy at Environment and Climate Change Canada, on Thursday.

Geller was among several environment and finance officials appearing at the House of Commons environment committee, which is in the midst of a study of fossil fuel subsidies.

She said the work is supposed to be done "in time to have the phaseout" of the subsidies by the end of 2023. But when exactly the definition will be ready is "unclear at this time."

Conservative MP Colin Carrie was puzzled by the admission.

"How can you eliminate a subsidy if you can't define it?" he wondered.

Geller said it isn't as if the government is working blind.

"The government, I think, can be clear on what an inefficient fossil fuel subsidy is not," she told Carrie.

She said the G20 commitments are clear that the subsidies don't include programs for reducing greenhouse gas emissions or developing and installing renewable and clean energy sources.

Environmental advocates want the government to consider any federal aid given to fossil fuel companies to be an inefficient subsidy. Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson made clear last fall that aid to help companies reduce greenhouse gas emissions would not be considered "inefficient."

But landing on the definition to show exactly where the line is drawn has proven tricky.

NDP MP Laurel Collins, for example, asked if the new carbon capture and storage tax credit — which she opposes — would only be given if companies don't increase their production after they get the equipment.

The tax credit, introduced in the spring budget, has no such restrictions. Collins pointed out even if the emissions from producing the oil are trapped, emissions still arise when the products are used.

Last fall, environment commissioner Jerry DeMarco criticized an aid program to help oil and gas companies cut methane emissions to meet new federal regulations. He said the program allowed more than half of the companies to increase their production, but it didn't account for the increased emissions when that extra fuel was burned.

Canada has consulted for years seeking to define which subsidies it needs to eliminate. In 2018, it launched a G20-approved peer review with Argentina to examine each other’s programs to identify the subsidies that should be phased out.

Similar reviews done by China and the United States, Germany and Mexico, and Indonesia and Italy were completed in under two years.

On Thursday, Miodrag Jovanovic, an assistant deputy minister for tax policy at the Department of Finance, told the committee that Canada and Argentina likely won't complete theirs until the end of 2023.

Julia Levin, the national climate program manager at Environmental Defence, said that timeline means it’s unlikely any subsidies identified by the review will be eliminated by the end of next year.

"It's pretty shocking," she said.

In 2019, the auditor general blasted the federal government for refusing to provide documents to review any progress Canada had made eliminating the subsidies.

Jovanovic said Thursday Canada has cancelled nine tax-related subsidies for fossil fuels since 2009, with the last one he says exists on its way out after this year's federal budget.

That is a tax program allowing oil, gas and coal companies to use flow-through shares to pass certain tax deductions on to investors.

Jovanovic said there is no ambiguity in defining a fossil fuel subsidy for Finance Canada: it's any tax measure that supports fossil fuel consumption or production.

It's the "inefficient" part where there is disagreement, he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 6, 2022.

Mia Rabson, The Canadian Press

Uber, union reach settlement in Ontario unionization case: UFCW Canada


 The Canadian Press
Friday, May 6, 2022


TORONTO — Uber Technologies Inc. has fought off a unionization attempt from Toronto drivers for its premium Uber Black service with a settlement it signed with the private sector union trying to represent the workers.

The United Food and Commercial Workers Union Canada on Friday confirmed the settlement, which it said had been in the works since January, five years after the union started pursuing a case against the ride-hailing giant.

Debora De Angelis, the union's regional director of Ontario, said the settlement includes commitments that will see both parties explore new rates for commercial insurance, which tend to be high for gig workers, spend more on marketing airport rides that have dropped during the pandemic and increasingly involve drivers in product development.

Both sides will also team up to advocate with the Greater Toronto Airport Authority and municipal governments on shared interests impacting the hundreds of Uber Black drivers, who ferry customers around in premium cars, often making trips to and from Toronto Pearson International Airport and downtown Toronto.

Uber spokesperson Laura Miller confirmed the settlement in an email, saying it was "made possible" because of an agreement the company signed with the UFCW in January that will see the union provide dispute resolution to Canadian drivers, but the deal does not unionize workers.

The two sides reached a resolution in the case because they realized they could agree on several issues and help each other, meaning the Ontario Labour Relations Board will no longer be making a ruling in the case, De Angelis added.

The union took the settlement, she said, “because ultimately, what was that decision going to be? We don't know.”

“We heard what the drivers were saying and we were able to actually make sure that they have a voice.”

The union had been pursuing the case since 2018, when an Uber Black service driver was seeking representation after his account on the Uber app had been deactivated over a trip cancellation issue.

De Angelis recalls that the driver had a vehicle leased for $1,330 per month and once the app was deactivated, he lost his ability to earn a living and felt “helpless.”

The union and the driver eventually filed unionization papers on behalf of 300 Uber Black workers, but in labour board hearings in 2020 Uber argued union had not met the threshold of 40 per cent of the Uber Black driver population needed to become the drivers' bargaining agents.

The settlement will put an end to one of several cases Canadians working for Uber have pursued in recent years in hopes of unionizing, being designated as employees and earning rights like vacations, sick pay and better wages.

Uber has fought such asks in several countries, arguing the flexibility it offers workers to choose when, how often and where they work should not require it to give workers increased benefits, allow them to unionize or dole out more benefits.

In recent months, the company has lobbied provinces and territories to force Uber and other app-based companies to create a self-directed benefit fund to disperse to workers for prescriptions, dental and vision care, RRSPs or tuition.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 6, 2022.

Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press
CN Rail pressed by federal transport minister over its 'unacceptable' English-only board of directors

The Canadian National Railway Company (CN) got a symbolic slap on the wrist by Transport Minister Omar Alghabra for its absence of French speakers on its board of directors.

Catherine Lévesque - 
May 9, 2022.

© Provided by National Post
Transport Minister Omar Alghabra speaks at the House of Commons official languages committee on May 9, 2022.

Speaking at a parliamentary committee on official languages on Monday, Alghabra insisted that the situation at CN Rail was “unacceptable” and said he made it very clear to the company that it must be corrected even though the Official Languages Act does not explicitly require their board of directors to have a representation of French speakers.

“I think it is really important that CN and others like Air Canada set a leadership example. Of course, they have a responsibility to meet their obligation under the Official Languages Act. But even on things that may be where the act was silent, they have a responsibility to demonstrate leadership,” said Alghabra during his testimony to MPs, Monday afternoon.

“It’s unacceptable that (CN’s) board of directors does not have a francophone representative on it,” he added, all the while admitting that the federal intervention is limited, as CN Rail is a private corporation and he cannot appoint directors.

CN Rail has been heavily criticized in Quebec media over the past weeks after La Presse revealed that the company’s board of directors had no French-speaking members since former Quebec premier Jean Charest stepped down unexpectedly to join the federal Conservative leadership race. He had been nominated to the board three weeks prior for a five-year mandate.

SNC-Lavalin CEO delays speech planned mostly in English

Julie Godin, the only other French-speaking board member before him, stepped down last fall to focus on her other professional duties. CEO Tracy Robinson will be the only member representing Quebec on the 11-member board and is said to be taking French lessons.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did not mince words towards CN Rail in April, saying he had been shocked to hear that the railway company had not learned from Air Canada’s mistakes. CEO Michael Rousseau was chastised by politicians and media alike for a predominantly English speech made in front of the Montreal Chamber of Commerce last fall.

Rousseau told reporters at the time that he had been able to live in the province of Quebec without speaking French for 14 years and that he thought it was “a testament to the City of Montreal” that he had been able to do that. He apologized afterwards for his comments which he admitted were “insensitive” and has been taking French lessons ever since.

Rousseau reiterated his apologies to MPs when he was asked to testify in front of the Official Languages Committee on the “importance of official languages at Air Canada” in March and even said a few sentences in French in his opening statement.

CN Rail’s representatives were less apologetic when they testified in front of that same committee.

Sébastien Labbé, one of CN’s vice-presidents, said in April that he was aware of the absence of French-speaking individuals on the company’s board of directors and said that the situation would be resolved in the next year, as two of their board members’ mandates are ending. Labbé, who is from Quebec and speaks French, offered his opening statement in English only.

The federal government has been urging MPs to adopt C-13, An Act to amend the Official Languages Act, to strengthen the law and give more powers to the official languages watchdog, but has been facing resistance notably from the Bloc Québécois who sees it as a way of promoting bilingualism.

Alghabra reiterated that plea to the members of the official languages committee on Monday, but was met with little compassion on their end.

“The problem is I think that the federal government is not preaching by example,” answered Conservative MP Joël Godin, who highlighted the fact that Prime Minister Trudeau appointed Mary Simon as Canada’s first Inuk Governor General last year even though she does not speak French fluently and is taking lessons to perfect it.

Godin then went on to ask if the government would be open to amending C-13 to make sure boards of directors have a minimum of French-speaking members.

“We know that both of the organizations we’re talking about, CN and Air Canada, are private companies. … Having said that, I don’t want to pre-empt the study of your committee. I know you’re going to study it thoroughly,” said Alghabra, who encouraged his colleagues to vote for the second reading of this bill.

The federal government had presented a first bill to modernize the Official Languages Act in June 2021, but it died when Prime Minister Trudeau called an election.
CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

SNC-Lavalin to pay $30M under agreement with Quebec over bridge bribes

The Canadian Press


MONTREAL — SNC-Lavalin Inc. says it will pay Quebec nearly $30 million over three years to settle criminal bribery charges stemming from bridge work in Montreal.

The charges against SNC-Lavalin and SNC-Lavalin International related to events that occurred between 1997 and 2004 in connection with the Jacques Cartier Bridge deck rehabilitation project between Montreal and Longueuil.

Negotiations with Quebec's Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP) began immediately after charges were filed on Sept. 23.

The RCMP had arrested the same day two former executives of SNC-Lavalin — Normand Morin and Kamal Francis, former respective vice-presidents of SNC-Lavalin and SNC-Lavalin International.

The charges followed the 2017 conviction of Michel Fournier, former president and CEO of the Federal Bridge Corp.

He had admitted receiving $2.23 million in bribes from SNC-Lavalin in connection with the $128-million project to repair the bridge.

The remediation agreement will allow SNC-Lavalin to continue to do business with Quebec, Canadian and foreign governments, thereby reducing the negative consequences for the company's employees, retirees, customers and shareholders.

The agreement requires approval from the Quebec Superior Court at a hearing on Tuesday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 6, 2022.
How Canada came to have no federal law whatsoever on abortion

Tristin Hopper 
POSTMEDIA
 Sunday, May 8,2022

In France, getting an abortion after 14 weeks gestation requires approval from a physician. In Germany, anybody seeking an abortion must undergo mandatory counselling. Norway has abortion on request, but only in the first trimester.


© Provided by National Post
Dr. Henry Morgentaler talks to reporters in Ottawa after the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in his favour in a challenge of Canada's abortion laws, Jan. 28, 1988.

But in Canada, there is no federal law whatsoever restricting abortion.

Trying to abort a healthy fetus at eight months gestation will get you rejected by a hospital’s ethical guidelines, but there’s nothing illegal about it. And it’s all due to a rapid-fire series of events in the late 1980s so politically traumatic that most Canadian politicians still prefer to pretend it never happened.

Prior to 1988, Canada had a far more restrictive abortion regime than the United States. While the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision had cleared the way for legal elective abortion in all 50 states, in Canada abortion existed only as a rare medical exception.

For an abortion to be performed, it had to be approved by a “therapeutic abortion committee” of doctors who were instructed to reject any abortion that did not directly risk the life or health of the mother.

And even this was a more liberal regime than what had existed prior to the 1970s, when the country criminalized the practice outright. In the same 1969 package of criminal code reforms that legalized homosexuality, “therapeutic abortions” became the first legal way to terminate a pregnancy in Canadian history. The law was certainly restrictive, but it was far from a blanket ban: In the last year of the regime, in 1987, 63,662 “therapeutic abortions” were performed in Canadian hospitals.

Politically, abortion spent much of the 1970s and 1980s on the parliamentary back-burner. Then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau championed any number of progressive causes during his 15-year premiership, but elective abortion definitely wasn’t one of them. It didn’t arise as a major issue in any of the six federal elections between 1968 and 1988.

When the word “abortion” was brought up in the House of Commons, it was often levelled as a Progressive Conservative insult against the NDP, who were the first major party to put legalized abortion in their official platform. And even then, many NDPers continued to say that while they supported abortion access, they still weren’t tremendously enthused about the procedure itself.

“I do not favour abortion,” the NDP’s Stuart Leggatt said in a 1977 debate when a Progressive Conservative opponent accused him of using the term “family planning” as a euphemism for legalized abortion.

What changed everything was R. v. Morgentaler, the 1988 Supreme Court of Canada decision that struck abortion from the Criminal Code.

The case was the culmination of nearly 20 years of open civil disobedience on the part of Henry Morgentaler, a Polish-born Holocaust survivor who in 1969 opened Canada’s first publicly advertised abortion clinic in Montreal as an open challenge to the status quo.

The result for Morgentaler was a near-endless stream of raids, charges, appeals and — at one point — a brief prison sentence. But it was a 1983 raid on Morgentaler’s newly opened Toronto clinic that would yield a charge of “conspiracy with intent to commit abortions” which he would spend five years challenging all the way to the Supreme Court.

The basis of the resulting decision was that a law against abortion was akin to forcing Canadian women to give birth. “Forcing a woman, by threat of criminal sanction, to carry a foetus to term unless she meets certain criteria unrelated to her own priorities and aspirations, is a profound interference,” it reads.


The Charter of Rights and Freedoms was only six years old, and Canada’s existing abortion bans were struck down as a violation of the newly codified right of “security of the person.”


Despite popular belief, R. v. Morgentaler didn’t codify abortion as a constitutional right. The text even said it was a “perfectly valid legislative objective” for Canada to have laws protecting unborn fetuses. The Charter of Right and Freedoms, it read, did indeed authorize “reasonable limits to be put upon the woman’s right having regard to the fact of the developing foetus within her body.”

All R. v. Morgentaler did was quash the existing criminal ban and throw the issue back to the House of Commons. The Supreme Court at the time would have assumed that Canada would continue to have a law governing abortion, albeit one that wasn’t as
 “restrictive.”

This was a decidedly unwelcome development for the Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney. Already neck-deep in controversy for its pursuit of free trade with the United States, Mulroney was suddenly tasked with diving headlong into an issue he would soon describe as “too wrenching and divisive to be allowed to continue much longer.”

In recent polls, more than three quarters of Canadians have been found to support some form of legalized abortion. But the public mood was decidedly different in the late 1980s, and in the wake of the Morgentaler decision Mulroney was soon warning his caucus that “public feelings against abortion may be hardening in the country.”

The result, tabled in 1990, was Bill C-43. Shaped under the oversight of then-justice minister Kim Campbell, observers at the time called it a model of parliamentary compromise. It restricted abortions only to cases where the mother’s health was at risk — although it left open a pretty substantial loophole by including mental health in that category. Self-induced abortions — or abortions performed by anyone other than a licensed physician — would be punishable by two years in jail.


© Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press/File
The Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling on R. v. Morgentaler didn’t codify abortion as a constitutional right, as many believe.

The bill passed the House of Commons but suffered a sudden death the next year when it yielded a surprise tie in the Senate, which by the rules of the Red Chamber meant the legislation’s automatic defeat. For better or for worse, it remains the most consequential thing the Senate has done since its 1867 inception.

“It is going to be a very long time before a federal government tries to legislate abortion again, certainly not in the remainder of this century,” read the words of Calgary Herald columnist William Gold, penned just after the Senate vote. “There are no political rewards for this work, and there will be many other pressing problems crying for attention,” he added.

Thirty-one years later, Gold could not have been more prescient. Aside from a few fringe private members’ bills, the House of Commons has run headlong from anything even close to resembling an abortion law.

There are compelling arguments for an abortion law on both sides of the political spectrum. The pro-choice camp sees it as a way of codifying abortion access as a protected right (rather than a medical procedure permitted by virtue of a legal vacuum). The anti-abortion camp wants a legal framework that could ban late-term and sex-selective abortions.

But the moment abortion hits the order paper, both sides know it won’t be over until another round of “wrenching and divisive” debate has been completed.

It’s why, in sharp contrast to their conservative cousins in the United States, the Conservative Party of Canada has strenuously fought elections in which abortion was mentioned as little as humanly possible. This week, when news broke of Roe v. Wade’s possible reversal in the United States, the immediate reaction of interim Conservative Leader Candice Bergen was to say she didn’t want anything to do with it.

Canada welcomes Americans who lose access to abortion, but clinics say they're at capacity

Tom Blackwell - Saturday, May 7,2022

© Provided by National Post 
An abortion rights rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., on May 5, 2022. With the U.S. on the verge of ending its constitutional protection for abortion rights, clinics in Canada are bracing for a potential influx of Americans.

Before the 1989 Morgentaler decision effectively erased criminal restrictions on abortion in Canada, women here routinely travelled south to have their pregnancies ended in the United States.

In neighbouring cities like Buffalo, some doctors even expanded their services to accommodate the cross-border demand, recalls Carolyn Egan, a spokeswoman for the Ontario Coalition for Abortion Clinics.

Now with the U.S. on the verge of ending its own constitutional protection for abortion rights, clinics in this country are bracing for a potential influx in the other direction. That could mean longer waits for service or the possibility of having to grow existing facilities or even open new ones to meet the demand, they say.

“Because it happened historically going south it’s only natural to assume it could happen with Americans going north,” said Egan. “There is a real lived memory of the graciousness provided by clinics in the U.S. when Canadians were in need and I think that would be reciprocated.”

The Women’s Health Clinic in Winnipeg says it will care for any woman seeking the procedure and that includes Americans, who already come in small numbers, says executive director Kemlin Nembhard.

Still, a mass movement north for abortion would present challenges, she said.

“We’re not going to be turning people away,” said Nembhard. “But as a country that has 10 per cent of the population of what the U.S. has, it’s unrealistic to think we could fulfill the needs of what could potentially be flowing north.”

The issue is already on the radar south of the border, though. If the right to abortion in the States is overturned, “could you go to Canada to have an abortion?” asked the Detroit Free Press in a story this week.

That said, no one really knows what might happen.

The extraordinary leak of a draft decision from one of the U.S. Supreme Court’s judges suggests that Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that established the American right to abortion, is on the verge of being overturned.

If that happens, states would be free to set their own laws on the controversial issue. Abortion-restricting legislation recently enacted in Texas and other states would be validated, while those still on the books elsewhere from pre-Roe days could be revived.

Removing the abortion right would make no difference in a little under half the U.S. jurisdictions, Democratic strongholds like New York, most of New England and the west coast where the procedure would remain legal — and available to women from abortion-denying jurisdictions.

But some states bordering Canada could well be affected. That includes Michigan and North Dakota, which still have pre-Roe anti-abortion laws, and Montana, which passed legislation in 2019 that’s currently barred by the U.S. constitution.

While much is still uncertain, the possibility of an American influx “is definitely being discussed” among clinics here, said Jill Doctoroff, executive director of the National Abortion Federation Canada. “People who work in abortion care are quite passionate…. Folks want to be as helpful as they can be.”

And Doctoroff said that she’s been approached in recent months by abortion advocates and providers in the States asking about the possibility of Canada dealing with some of the U.S. demand if Roe is overturned.

Meanwhile, the federal government has indicated this country will remain open to serving American women seeking abortions. Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said this week he would instruct the Canada Border Services Agency to ensure such patients can enter Canada.

But exactly what a potential influx of abortion tourists might mean for clinics here is less clear, especially since many are currently at or beyond capacity.

Egan said she believes Canadian abortion providers would expand or launch new facilities if the demand grew significantly, saying that clinics in Ontario, at least, are not currently over-burdened.

“If there was indeed a need, I would be pretty optimistic that medical personnel here in Canada would try to set up a facility to help.”

But Nembhard said the number of patients accessing her Winnipeg clinic already exceeds the provincial funding it receives by a quarter to a third every year. Even without an American influx, she’d like to see governments improve the procedure’s availability through more money and other measures — like mandating abortion training in medical schools to increase the pool of doctors who can do the work

“ Obviously the U.S. is a much bigger country ,” said Joyce Arthur, head of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada. “We can’t accommodate huge numbers of people coming up from the United States.”

Meanwhile, if Canada does become an abortion destination for American women, that market may be limited by economic and social factors. Many would be too poor or otherwise marginalized to obtain a passport and pay for transportation to and accommodation in another country, advocates here note.

“Unless reimbursed from American abortion funds,” said Arthur, “it will only be a viable option for women who have some means and can travel.”