Canada Wants to Shut Down Pro-Life Groups

The Standing Committee on Finance has recommended to the Canadian government that pro-life organizations lose charitable status, according to Steinbach Online.

Don Plett, a former senator from Steinbach who retired in May, provided an analysis to the outlet about the committee’s recommendation that the government “no longer provide charitable status to anti-abortion organizations.” In another suggestion that could impact Canadian churches, the committee also recommended that the government “amend the Income Tax Act to provide a definition of a charity which would remove the privileged status of ‘advancement of religion’ as a charitable purpose,” according to Steinbach Online.

Plett said that so far, the government has neither expressed interest in pursuing or rejecting the recommendations, and explained that these two are among 462 recommendations that the committee has made for the 2024/2025 budget.

“This is a long, long way from becoming law,” Plett commented. “However, having said that, this is the way things do become law.”

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Plett explained that losing charitable status would include the assets owned by the charitable status, and these assets would need to be transferred to another organization. The effects of such a change, therefore, would be far-reaching especially for the many affected pregnancy care centers and pro-life educational charities. Plett also posited “that this is intended to hurt more pro-life organizations than religious organizations,” Steinbach Online reported.

According to the former senator, Evangelicals and the Catholic Church have already expressed opposition to the latter recommendation.

“I think the Catholic Church would be able to have a fair bit of influence on our present Prime Minister,” Plett added, noting that PM Mark Carney has spoken about being Catholic.

He also explained that the recommendations come from an all-party committee, and pointed out that the involved Conservatives did not take issue and launch a petition against the recommendations until media coverage brought the issue to the public.

According to Plett, the scope of the current government could contribute to a higher likelihood of the recommendations’ failure.

“I’m not sure that the Bloc party is as supportive of (the recommendations) as the [New Democratic Party] is,” he said. “So, I think maybe the chances of stopping something like this are better now than they would have been in the previous government.”

LifeNews Note: McKenna Snow writes for CatholicVote, where this column originally appeared.

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