1991 - The Ontario New Democratic Party (NDP) government under Bob Rae formed a Task Group on Access to Abortion, composed entirely of abortionists and pro-abortion activists. The Task Group was formed to address the non-existent problem of "access" to abortion in Ontario. This was the beginning of a shameless campaign of government advocacy for the abortion industry and abuse of political and legal power to suppress the pro-life movement.

1. 1992 - The Task Group report recommended that, among other ways of promoting abortion in Ontario, the government should seek to disable the pro-life movement by prohibiting pro-life demonstrations. In spite of a petition-card campaign, in which 50,000 Ontarians protested the proposal, the government began to implement it.

2. A lawsuit was chosen as the means to stop the pro-lifers. Criminal charges were not pursued, since pro-lifers had been consistently peaceful and law-abiding in their activities; and legislation was out of the question, since it would involve democratic debate.

3. The government's aim was to silence any and all pro-lifers at many critical locations. In a civil suit, however, one must aim at a specific individual or group related to the location; the government proceeded to find "scapegoats" - leading pro-life citizens on whom they could hang an injunction protecting various abortion-related sites across the province.

Having thus anchored the injunction, they included measures to extend the prohibitions to any and all persons.

4. 1993 - the government initiated a court action to obtain the injunction. Although their goal was a permanent injunction, they applied first to obtain a temporary injunction, in anticipation of a trial. They asked the court to prohibit 18 named persons and all other persons from engaging in any pro-life activity within 500 ft. of 23 locations. They also sought $500,000 in punitive damages from the 18.

5. In addition to providing a team of lawyers from the Attorney General's office, the government quietly paid the fees of the abortion clinics' lawyers, Morris Manning and Clayton Ruby. All of this was at taxpayers' expense, of course, with the services of Mr. Manning and Mr. Ruby alone costing more than $778,000.

6. The 18 defendants were grilled over a four-week period in the pre-hearing discovery process. Some endured literally thousands of questions over several days of gruelling interrogation. One Evangelical lady was mocked for daring to speak of her faith in Jesus Christ.



The Interim Injunction Decision

On August 30, 1994, Mr. Justice George Adams presented his ruling on the temporary injunction application. He:

• dismissed the application against two of the 18
• refused to grant any injunction for hospital zones
• reduced the limits sought for some of the other injunction locations
• banned all pro-life activity within 500 ft. of abortionists' homes, within 25 ft. of abortionists' offices, within 60 ft. of two clinics, and within 30 ft. of a third clinic

In 1995, Judge Adams followed with a dismissal of the government's demand for punitive damages; however, confounding the defendants and their lawyers, he refused to require the government to pay any of the legal fees of the remaining 16 defendants, which to date run into hundreds of thousands of dollars. The prosecution had all of its large expenses (at least one and a half million dollars) paid for by Ontario taxpayers.

Current Status of the Injunction

As of October 19, 1998, the "temporary" injunction remains in place and is strictly enforced. There have been no further developments on the injunction case and it appears that the political, legal and abortion establishments prefer to keep it that way.

There has been no movement by the government to either drop the civil case or to continue to the major trial that would be required to complete the application for a permanent injunction.