OTTAWA—An anti-abortion group successfully influenced a government plan to deny funding to Planned Parenthood, says a Conservative seeking re-election.
Brad Trost, incumbent for Saskatoon-Humboldt, addressed the Saskatchewan Pro-Life Association’s annual convention on Saturday and thanked its members for their help in killing federal funding for the group.
In the speech, a recording of which was obtained by the Liberals and given to the Toronto Star and Le Devoir, Trost claims a number of parliamentary victories for the pro-life movement, including a decision to deny funding for the International Planned Parenthood Federation.
Trost said he and “many” other MPs helped spearhead efforts to round up petitions “to defund Planned Parenthood.”
“Let me just tell you, and I cannot tell you specifically how we used it, but those petitions were very, very useful and they were part of what we used to defund Planned Parenthood because it has been absolute disgrace that that organization and several others like it have been receiving one penny of Canadian taxpayers dollars,” Trost said.
The organization, which provides sexual and reproductive health programs worldwide, had applied for $18 million and had been waiting for over a year for word whether the Canadian International Development Agency would approve the grant.
“It’s pretty disappointing,” Mark Hanlon, a director with the Canadian Federation for Sexual Health, the Canadian branch of Planned Parenthood, said of Trost’s remarks.
“I take it as a warning or a message indicating that this funding isn’t going to come,” said Hanlon, noting the group has still not heard from the office of the minister of international aid, Bev Oda.
William Stairs, chief of staff in Oda’s ministerial office said in an email to the Star late Wednesday that despite Trost’s claim, no decision has yet been made on Planned Parenthood’s application because CIDA is “still reviewing the file.”
Hanlon said the umbrella organization provides the “whole gamut of reproductive health services” including counselling for HIV/AIDS patients, unplanned pregnancies, rape victims, and “access to safe abortions, and making sure they’re rare.”
Brad Trost did not respond to the Star’s queries.
Ryan Sparrow, spokesman for the national Conservative campaign, responded late Wednesday via email, and did not deny that the group had been turned down.
He said only: “We base funding decisions on the quality of the proposals we receive. We are proud of our international assistance record and we are proud of the results that have been accomplished under our Conservative government.”
CIDA had not yet responded to the Star’s questions on the Planned Parenthood’s funding applications.
Liberal incumbent Marlene Jennings said Trost’s remarks raise concerns about how influential his pro-life constituency and others would be on a Conservative government, despite Harper’s claim, repeated in this campaign, that he would not legislate away abortion rights.
Conservative officials called an urgent news conference with reporters at 1:30 a.m. in Newfoundland to distance the party from Trost’s controversial comments. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s spokesman, Dimitri Soudas, referred to Trost as a “backbencher” and said he was mistaken to say a decision had been made not to fund International Planned Parenthood for delivery of the government's child and maternal health initiative that was announced at the G8 summit last summer.
“He’s a backbench MP who, without question, isn’t aware of the way that our program works,” he said, adding that the Conservatives would be willing to work with International Planned Parenthood and others who “focus” on the strict criteria set out in the government’s G8 initiative.
“I honestly don’t know where he got his information,” Soudas said.
Official Tory policy on abortion is neither pro-choice or pro-life, he said. It is simply a decision not to reopen the debate on abortion in Canada.
