Anti-abortion organization endorses PC leadership candidate Daudrich

Anti-abortion advocates are pushing for Manitobans 14 and older to buy a Progressive Conservative party membership and vote for leadership candidate Wally Daudrich.

RightNow, a Toronto non-profit that works to nominate and elect pro-life politicians across Canada, is backing Daudrich. It said Fort Whyte MLA Obby Khan, the only other Manitoba PC leadership candidate, didn’t respond to its request for an interview.

In an interview with RightNow that’s been posted online, Daudrich said there’s a lot the province could do to reduce the number of abortions and assisted-suicide deaths.

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS FILES

PC leadership candidates Wally Daudrich (left) and Obby Khan. Daudrich said he may be the province’s only chance at a “pro-freedom, pro-life and true conservative” party leader for years to come.

He called for support programs for pregnant women: “No one should feel forced to have an abortion because of circumstances in their life.” Daudrich said he’d ensure that assisted suicide “is not actively promoted” in Manitoba health facilities.

Electing him may be Manitoba’s only chance to have a “pro-freedom, pro-life and true conservative” party leader “for years to come,” said Daudrich, who owns a lodge in Churchill.

The business owner said one of the “first things” he would do would as premier would be to rescind Bill 8, the Abortion Protest Buffer Zone Act. The law, which took effect Feb. 1, prohibits protests, demonstrations or picketing around health centres that provide abortion services. Its goal is to protect patients and providers from harassment and intimidation, the province has said.

“Bill 8, I think, contravenes some Canadian statutes because it is a free speech issue,” Daudrich told the Free Press.

“The right to assemble and the right to protest — it’s being denied to certain segments of our population,” said the longtime party member who owns a home in Morden, and met his wife while studying at a U.S. Bible college.

Manitoba was one of the last provinces to impose abortion service buffer zones in Canada.

“This is something that we have been pushing for, for well over a decade,” said Kemlin Nembhard, executive director of the Women’s Health Clinic in Winnipeg.

“In many other provinces, this is just the normal course of action,” said Nembhard, who called Daudrich’s views on abortion “draconian.”

“People have a right to receive care — and this is basic health care — without being threatened or harassed,” she said Friday.

Daudrich said he’s not alone in opposing abortion and medically assisted suicide, and is not afraid to make it part of his election platform.

“I think I’m just saying what everybody is thinking, and my position is right of centre. It’s not extremist. It’s very, very nuanced and very, very balanced,” he said Friday.

Nembhard said Daudrich’s comments and views on abortion are “bleeding” over the border from the U.S. She said she worries the rollback of reproductive rights there could roll into Canada “if we don’t speak out now, and put the kibosh on it.”

The PC leadership campaign, meanwhile, didn’t get rolling in the mind of the public until Daudrich started ramping up the right-wing rhetoric, said Chris Adams, a University of Manitoba political studies prof.

“For the past two months, we’ve seen him take a certain stand on a lot of issues and the temperament of the campaign, too, is quite right of centre,” he said.

“These positions are things that will mobilize evangelical Christians within the party as well as other people in the party who are concerned on these issues,” Adams said. “Pro-life Catholics, of course, will be happy to see this position taken — not all Catholics, I should say, but the pro-life activists,” he said.

He said the positions are aimed at attracting support from party members — not voters.