By John-Henry Westen
OTTAWA, June 28, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – During the elections, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper made a promise which startled and offended Canadians who hold life sacred. Speaking of abortion legislation, Harper said, “I’ll use whatever influence I have in Parliament to be sure that such a matter doesn’t come to a vote.” (see coverage: https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jan/06011707.html )
And that is exactly what seems to have happenedÂwith the Canadian version of the Unborn Victim of Violence Act – even though the bill had nothing to do with abortion per se. The details of the account ofÂtheÂsudden death of that billÂare shameful and a pox on the Canadian Parliament.
Conservative MP Leon Benoit introduced the bill in May. Bill C-291, he said in introducing the legislation, would make it a separate offence to kill or injure an unborn child while committing a violent crime against its mother. He recalled a horrific incident from the province he represents where an unborn child was the target of a violent crime along with his mother, but the perpetrator, an ex-boyfriend, received no penalty for his murder of the unborn child. Olivia Talbot was six months pregnant when her assailant shot her once in the head and her child in utero three times.
Benoit’s bill was deemed non-votable in late May by a parliamentary committee. Benoit’s bill is the only private members bill, other than the one to support traditional marriage, to be deemed non-votable since Parliament changed procedural rules to assume all bills voteable unless specifically targeted as problematic by the committee.Â
Benoit decided to appeal the decision. He brought with him Mary Talbot, the mother of Olivia Talbot who was gunned down while six-months pregnant.
Benoit, however.Âwas never given the basis on which his bill was deemed non-votable and thus was forced to defend his bill without knowing the opposing arguments.Â
Shamefully, the MPs at the committee did not even permit Talbot, who had travelled to Ottawa from Edmonton to make a presentation to the committee, to speak.
And then came the most shocking development. Just prior to the vote on the issue, a letter was handed out to committee members signed by the Minister of Justice/Attorney General of Canada stating that in the opinion of the Attorney General the bill was unconstitutional.Â
That letter took the wind out of the sails of anyone at the committee who was in support of the bill. Especially since the Attorney General is none other than Vic Toews, an MP known to be pro-life.
Bill C-291 was modelled very closely on the successful US legislation. The constitutional issues were hammered out long before the matter came to Canada. During his defence of his bill before the appeals committee Benoit had ably demonstrated that his bill passed constitutional muster.ÂNonetheless, the appeal was rejected and the bill was granted one hour of debate on June 14, then dropped from the order paper without the possibility of a vote.
During that one hour of debate, the parliamentary secretary for the Attorney General provided the reasoning behind the determination of unconstitutionality. That reasoning however, was based on error.
Rob Moore, the Parliamentary Secretary explained the Conservative Attorney General’s opinion on the bill’s unconstitutionality saying: “Bill C-291 proposes to create a new criminal offence. Under the bill, a person who injures or kills a child before or during its birth, while committing or attempting to commit an offence against the mother who is pregnant with that child, could be charged with the same offence against the child. Under Bill C-291, an accused could be charged with such an offence without knowledge that the mother was pregnant and without the accused intending to injure or kill the child. Therein lies the problem.”
Moore added, “Bill C-291 proposes to create a new offence that would apply even though an accused did not intend to commit a crime.”
The statement is false. The intent was there to commit a crime, a crime against the mother. As Benoit explained in his defence, the bill bases itself, as does its US counterpart, on the common law notion of transferred intent. The concept can be exemplified by thinking about a man wishing to kill person A by shooting him, if A ducks and B is killed, the man can be charged with murder, rather than an accidental shooting, since his intent to kill A is transferred to B.
In fact, transferred intent is a concept already enshrined in Canada’s criminal code at section 229b. Those who followed the debate over the unborn victims of violence act in the US will note the similarities between Moore’s arguments and the abortion advocates who unsuccessfully fought the US legislation.
Moore even went so far as to suggest, as did US abortion advocates, that the law already has provisions for considering “aggravating circumstance(s) for sentencing purposes.” For example, sentences for crimes may be lengthened where the woman is pregnant or is the mother of one or more children.
However this suggestion and the analogous US proposals are lacking in the key area that the proposed law intends to correct. They ignore the fact that there is a second victim in the crime – the unborn child.
Benoit said that he believes he can amend the bill to resolve the constitutional concerns, and will reintroduce the bill. (But that is not likely to occur prior to the next federal election.) In his remarks during the one hour of debate he lamented the “sad political process” which thwarted his bill from having a “fair and honest debate.”
When Benoit reintroduces his bill, however, the criticisms raised by the parliamentary secretary to the attorney general will still apply. Thus it is doubtful that the Attorney General’s office will be supporting the legislation, even on a second round.
Benoit concluded his address with a statement addressed to those suffering from the tragedy which brought the issue to the fore in Canada. “Let me conclude by saying to Mary Talbot, the grandmother of baby Lane, and to Lane Griffith, the father of baby Lane, that we will not forget him,” he said.“If there is any good at all that can come from tragedy such as the one that befell Olivia and Lane and Liana and her baby, maybe it is this: that it will encourage all people of goodwill to mobilize together in an effort to bring an end to this abysmal lack of justice that exists in Canada today toward pregnant women and the children they love.”
See the Hansard record of the one hour debate on the bill:
https://www.parl.gc.ca/39/1/parlbus/chambus/house/debates/040_2006-06-14/HAN040-E.htm#Int-1598366