January 17, 2025
January 17, 2025
Dear Maureen, I’m Pete Baklinski, and this is your Canadian Pro-Life News Bits – where I let you know what’s happening on our country’s pro-life and pro-family front.
My colleague Josie Luetke has published a startling story about a Catholic school in Ontario affixing a “Pride” flag to a Crucifix in an elementary schoolroom. Blasphemy is defined as an “action or offence of speaking sacrilegiously about God or sacred things.” What happened at this school seems to fit that definition. This is a must-read story that highlights how LGBT activists have subverted Catholic education in Catholic schools while local shepherds have remained silent, watching it happen.
In a similar vein, my boss and CLC president, Jeff Gunnarson, has published a piece exposing pro-homosexual children’s books at a Catholic school in Southern Ontario. He’s calling upon local parents to take action at the school board level.
An interesting piece was published at The Hub in which the author critiques legacy media for slandering groups, such as Campaign Life Coalition—which the author mentions by name—as “the far-right.” Reading this was a breath of fresh air. It’s nice to see a reporter finally calling this out.
Don’t miss the must-see video of the week in which Lila Rose, one of the world’s most visible pro-life voices, takes on a room full of 25 pro-abortion activists and debates them with absolute grace and eloquence on the life issue. It’s a long watch, but well worth it.
Finally, don’t miss my reflection at the end about what the Federal Committee’s proposal to strip Christian and pro-life organizations of their charitable status really means. No one has yet spelled out how catastrophic this would be–until now.
Top Canadian pro-life stories you need to know about
The Hub: The legacy media constantly warns about the ‘far-right’—but struggles to define it
“This broad use of the term ‘far-right’ has left some to wonder: is the far-right truly a large imminent threat to Canada, or is this, as some commentators have suggested, a legacy media ‘moral panic’?”
Campaign Life Coalition: Blasphemy in the DPCDSB
A Canadian Catholic school has committed blasphemy by affixing a ‘Pride’ flag to a Crucifix.
Campaign Life Coalition: Take a stand against LGBT books in Catholic schools
It’s time to fight back against the LGBT grooming taking place at a Catholic elementary school in Kitchener.
Let Kids Be Kids: Christian group runs ads on bus to protect kids from medical transitions
The advertisement says, “put the brakes on medical transitions for minors.”
Comment: ARPA’s bus ads are pulling their weight. The ads, according to ARPA, have garnered a “huge response, both positive and negative.” The organization has seen a massive increase in web traffic to its website LetKidsBe.ca. Excellent news!
Everyday for Life Canada: A Monument to Life
“The work makes the viewer see the beauty and sacredness of human life.”
RealClear Florida: I Am Proud of My 17-Year-Old Self Who Bravely Chose Life
“It has taken me 18 years to tell my story. But thanks to the women around me, and my beautiful children, I finally have the courage to speak about my past, so I can offer hope and healing to women like me who find themselves unexpectedly pregnant.”
LifeNews: Pro-Life Group Formally Requests Trump Pardon 21 Pro-Life Americans Biden Put in Prison
“Thomas More Society attorneys submitted to the incoming Trump administration formal requests for presidential pardons on behalf of 21 pro-life advocates who have been unjustly prosecuted, convicted, and in several cases, imprisoned, by the Biden Department of Justice.”
LifeNews: Abortion Pill Reversal is Saving Thousands of Babies From Abortions
“The second chance for women to choose life through Abortion Pill Reversal continues to see success in large part thanks to the many medical professionals who are aware of its impact and are willing to implement it. In a recent development, pharmacists are now included in the roster of healthcare professionals on board to work with the Abortion Pill Rescue® Network (APRN).”
Population Research Institute: The Beatriz Case: A Historic Victory for the Latin American Pro-Life Movement
“The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has just rejected the pro-abortion lobby’s attempt to establish a “right to abortion” throughout Latin America.”
Campaign Life Coalition:
Lila Rose
Abby Johnson
Maureen, the federal government recently received a committee proposal to strip churches and Christian organizations of their charitable status, targeting the very foundation of our faith communities.
This isn’t just some banal proposal–it’s a direct assault on religious freedom and the values that have built this nation, founded, as our Charter states, on principles that “recognize the supremacy of God.”
If this proposal is adopted, the impact will simply be catastrophic:
Churches closed; assets seized by the CRA
Food banks run by churches–gone.
Shelters, addiction recovery programs, and youth ministries–shut down.
The silencing of Christian voices in the public square.
This is more than an issue of taxation–it’s an attack on our Canadian way of life. If we don’t oppose this now, the consequences will be irreversible.
How did this happen?
Very quietly, some days before Christmas, a Finance Committee report was tabled in the House of Commons that called upon the Government of Canada to implement hundreds of recommendations in the upcoming 2025 federal budget.
Alarmingly, two recommendations from the December 13 report included that the government strip religious organizations along with pro-life organizations of their charitable status.
Among the over 400 recommendations from the committee, two of them, 429 and 430, recommended respectively that the government “No longer provide charitable status to anti-abortion organizations,” and that it “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.”
The BC Humanist Association, an organization that exists to advance the goals of atheists and agnostics and which claims that one “can be good without god,” took credit at the beginning of January for submitting the recommendations last July. It's not surprising to see an anti-God organization submit the recommendations. What is surprising, however, is that a government committee included such anti-Christian proposals in its report.
The committee included members from all the major political parties who, apparently, supported these recommendations. While the Conservative Party had a dissenting opinion in the report, it did not mention or oppose these charitable status recommendations.
Father Raymond J. de Souza was not using rhetoric in a December 29 piece in the National Post that the proposals, if adopted, would cause the “obliteration of the charitable sector” across Canada.
Over 40 percent of our country’s registered charities advance religion. If these 32,000 religious charities, including churches and religious-based groups which operate soup kitchens, shelters, refugee homes, and food banks, were to suddenly lose their charitable status, they would be forced, according to Canadian law, to pay a revocation tax, which is predetermined to be equal to 100 percent of the value of the organization’s remaining assets.
The only way to avoid this tax is for the organization to transfer all remaining assets to another registered charity, none of which would be Christian-based, something that most Christian charities would rather avoid doing.
To understand just how devastating this would be, it is key to understand that the revocation tax effectively captures the total value of the religious group’s buildings, properties, funds, and other assets (bank accounts, savings, investments, vehicles, equipment, furnishings, etc.), ensuring they cannot simply remain with the organization or be used for non-charitable purposes.
For example, imagine a church with charitable status owns a building worth one million dollars, has one hundred thousand dollars in savings, and has furnishings and equipment valued at fifty thousand dollars. In this scenario, upon revocation of charitable status, the revocation tax would be 1,150,000 dollars, which the church would need to pay to the Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA) to maintain ownership of these assets.
If the religious group or church cannot pay the revocation tax, the CRA has the power to seize and liquidate any and all assets to satisfy the tax debt. Given the likelihood that many, if not most, religious groups would be unable to pay such a tax, their properties, buildings, and assets would be seized by the government.
This proposal, if adopted, could easily become the historical equivalent of Thomas Cromwell seizing extensive tracts of land and wealth from English monasteries during the Reformation under the orders of Henry VIII as part of the King’s maniacal effort to obliterate the power and influence of the Catholic Church in his country.
Historian George Bernard has called the dissolution of the monasteries in the late 1530s “one of the most revolutionary events in English history.” The King’s 1534 Act of Supremacy that allowed him to engage in these actions ushered in a persecution of the Church that resulted in the execution of hundreds who refused to comply, including, famously, Thomas More and John Fisher.
Christian groups in Canada are already raising a voice of alarm about the proposals. The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada has warned that the proposal, if adopted, “would have a far-reaching and devastating impact - on religious charities, the people they serve, and Canadian society,” adding that the measure would "destabilize the charitable sector in Canada.” The Christian Legal Fellowship is urging the government to “abandon” the proposal, stating that, if adopted, the “consequences would be devastating.”
All that could happen to our country's indispensable faith-based charities could also happen to pro-life charitable organizations if these measures are adopted.
It is absolutely crucial that whoever will be leading the Federal government when the time comes to visit these proposals resolutely reject them for the good of our country and its citizens.
If you are Canadian and concerned about this attack on Christianity in our country, here is what you must do: contact your MP and demand that they oppose these proposals.
Find your MP here.
It's been wisely said that the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
Now is the time to act. Now is the time to raise your voice and make a difference. Canada is a Christian nation under the supremacy of God. Our country is worth saving.
As we sing in our national anthem: "God keep our land glorious and free!" God-loving Canadians, we must take up this anthem as a prayer to save our country.
Be bold and daring for life!
Pete Baklinski
Director of Communications
Campaign Life Coalition
Follow Pete on X: @petebaklinski