Ottawa funds anti-religious bigotry, says rights group

By DEBORAH GYAPONG
Canadian Catholic News
Ottawa

The Catholic Civil Rights League (CCRL) is urging the federal government to cease funding groups that express anti-religious bigotry.

CCRL specifically named Pro-CAN, the B.C. Pro-Choice Action Network, for its extremist position on abortion as well as its vitriolic attacks against Christians and members of the pro-life movement.

The CCRL said an Access to Information request by Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott revealed Pro-Can received a $27,400 grant in the 2004-05 fiscal year, yet its websites and publications are laced with anti-Christian bigotry.

For example, Pro-Can director Joyce Arthur accuses pro-life supporters of being "religious fanatics" and compares them to slaveholders and Nazis.

"Because underneath anti-abortion rhetoric lies fascist disrespect for the human rights of a large part of humanity," Arthur writes on the Pro-CAN website.

Arthur accuses pro-life supporters of being anti-woman and anti-child, and says the Catholic Church's anti-abortion stance "comes primarily from religious justification for oppressing women."

"Government funding of such bigotry in a country which supposedly values and protects freedom of religion and conscience boggles the mind," Vellacott said in an Aug. 26 news release.

"We would hope Liza Frulla, minister responsible for the status of women, will uphold respect for religion and for the viewpoints of all Canadians and end its funding of Pro-CAN," CCRL President Phil Horgan said in an Aug. 31 news release.

By funding Pro-CAN and similar groups Ottawa is giving favoured status to groups whose views "are insulting to most Canadians," Horgan said.

"There are many groups that engage in advocacy work on such issues as the definition of marriage, the right to life, freedom of religion and freedom of expression, with no government funding, and we believe all such groups are entitled to a level playing field."

Vellacott also discovered that the federal government gave a $322,646 grant to the Canadian National Coalition of Experiential Women (CNCEW), a group seeking the decriminalization of solicitation for prostitution.

Vellacott said CNCEW testified before a House of Commons subcommittee advocating "immediate decriminalization of sex workers" on the same day REAL Women of Canada testified that prostitution harms women and children and suggests the government fund programs to help women leave the sex trade.

REAL Women receives no government funding.

Vellacott accused the government of "discriminating against an entire segment of Canadian women," who are pro-life, pro-chastity and pro-family.

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