ARCC Annual General Meeting, March 1, 2016

  • Agenda
  • Minutes
  • Regional Reports: PEI, New Brunswick, Quebec, Ottawa, Toronto / Ontario, Alberta
  • Executive Director’s Report 
  • Financial Report (goes to PDF)


Note: Here are the minutes and reports from previous ARCC AGMS:

2008  •  2009  •  2010  •  2011  •  2012  •  2013  •  2014  •  2015  

Agenda

  1.  Welcome and Introductions
  2.  Motion to appoint Executive Director as Chair of Meeting (instead of President)
  3.  Adoption of 2015 AGM minutes
  4.  Adoption of 2016 agenda
  5. Proposed Motion: “For fiscal year 2016, ARCC will not appoint a Public Accountant. We will use the Compilation method of producing financial statements.”
  1.  Reports from the provinces:
    1. NB – Allison Webster
    2. PEI – Josie Baker
    3. Quebec – perhaps a few words from Thelma Bogante (in lieu of Pat)
    4. Ottawa – Julie Lalonde
    5. Toronto etc. – Carolyn Egan (and/or Peggy Cooke)
    6. Alberta – Jennifer Burgess
  2.  Executive Director’s Report – Joyce Arthur (will cover BC too)
  3.  Membership Report – Joyce
  4.  Financial Report – Martina Zanetti
  5.  Fundraising and Outreach – Joyce / Martina / All (to discuss ideas, how to get more members etc.)
  6.  Committees – Joyce / All (to discuss creating sub-committees to work on specific things)
  7.  New Business (if any)
  8.  Election of Directors to the Board – New prospective Board member Lyndsey Butcher (Kitchener-Waterloo) will be invited to say a few words to introduce herself. Then a vote or motion to elect her.

Minutes of the Annual General Meeting

Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada / Coalition pour le droit à l’avortement au Canada (ARCC-CDAC)

Tuesday, March 1, 2016, Via teleconference (Skype)

Call to Order 4:00pm PST

Welcome and Introductions

In Attendance: Joyce Arthur (Executive Director).
Board: Allison Webster, Josie Baker, Patrick Powers, Julie Lalonde, Carolyn Egan, Peggy Cooke, Jennifer Burgess, Martina Zanetti.
Members at Large: Thelma Bogante, Laura Dunbar, Lyndsey Butcher, Alison Zimmer, Jennifer Breakspear

Motion to appoint Executive Director as Chair of Meeting (instead of President)

Moved: Joyce; 2nd: Thelma; Passed unanimously.

Adoption of 2015 AGM minutes – Subject to Allison Webster’s name being spelled properly throughout (2 Ls in Allison).

Moved: Joyce. 2nd: Peggy; Passed unanimously.

Adoption of 2016 agenda

Moved: Joyce; 2nd: Peggy; Passed unanimously.

Motion: “For fiscal year 2016, ARCC will not appoint a Public Accountant. We will use the Compilation method of producing financial statements.”

Moved: Joyce; 2nd Martina; Passed unanimously.

Membership Report – Joyce. We have 152 paid up members as of March 1, 2016.  69 are monthly donors. 59 members expired last year and did not renew after reminders.

Provincial Reports:

Executive Director’s Report: Prepared and read by Joyce.

Financial Report: Motion to accept financial reports as presented by Martina, subject to page 1 amended to demonstrate: “Legal Fund $20,000; Savings Invested in Term Deposit: $15,000” Moved: Joyce; seconded: Martina; passed unanimously.

Fundraising and Outreach – Many had suggestions regarding possible grant applications and where to apply to. E.g., Liberal government and Status of Women office, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, etc.  

Committees – Joyce / All (to discuss creating sub-committees to work on specific things)

  • Newsletter Committee: Joyce will open up to members at large. Thelma interested.
  • Fundraising Committee: Interested parties:  Jennifer Burgess; Lindsay Butcher; Alison Zimmer, and Peggy Cooke.


New Business (if any) – none.

Election of Directors to the Board – Prospective Board member Lyndsey Butcher (Kitchener-Waterloo) said a few words to introduce herself and explain her credentials.

Motion to Elect Lyndsey Butcher to the ARCC-CDAC Board – Moved: Joyce; Second: Carolyn; passed unanimously.

Directors are elected for four-year terms and may re-run for election. The following Board members were elected to their first year of a 4-year term at the last 2015 AGM, and are now entering their second year:

  • Allison Webster – Fredericton NB
  • Josie Baker – Charlottetown PE
  • Pat Powers – Montreal QC
  • Julie Lalonde – Ottawa ON
  • Carolyn Egan – Toronto ON
  • Peggy Cooke – Toronto ON
  • Jennifer Burgess – Calgary AB
  • Martina Zanetti – Vancouver BC

Meeting adjourned: 5:40 PST

Regional Reports

Report from New Brunswick

by Allison Webster, Fredericton

Clinic 554 has been open for just over a year now. In addition to being a busy family practice and prioritizing care for the LGBTQ community in New Brunswick, Clinic 554 is also seeing patients every week who are unable or would prefer not to get to Moncton hospitals for abortion care. Barriers such as transportation, time off work and child care still remain in the way of access. Recently a patient was told she had to wait 3 weeks for an appointment at the City Hospital. We have also heard of people getting in right away, as well, so we aren’t really sure what’s happening there. Regardless, we still feel very strongly that people need and deserve the privacy of clinic abortion care in New Brunswick.  Moncton is also still referring people over 14 weeks gestation to the clinic. Unfortunately, the clinic remains unfunded for abortion services. 

In January I was invited to speak at the Mabel Wadsworth Women’s Clinic in Bangor, ME as a representative of ARCC and Clinic 554. The Mabel Wadsworth Clinic saw a huge spike in New Brunswick patients driving to Bangor when the Morgentaler Clinic closed. I lived in Bangor for a time, and still get back to visit pretty regularly, so last summer I had a chance to tour the clinic and meet Abbie Strout, the Education and Outreach Coordinator. We had been wanting to do an event together, so I was thrilled to be invited to their Choice and Chocolate event. We live recorded a podcast for the Reproductive Left that you can find on iTunes or Soundcloud if you’d like to listen!

Also as an ARCC representative, I was invited to speak at a panel at UNB on Feb 4. I spoke about the barriers that still remain in the way of true access to abortion in New Brunswick.  It was organized by one of the Fredericton Youth Feminists, and it was a great event. The turnout was so huge that we actually had to move to a larger room before we could start! There was also a silent auction to raise money to help fund some clinic abortions.

RJNB is currently doing a campaign to petition the Gallant government to fund clinic abortions. Due to provincial legislature rules, online petitions are not accepted, so we are doing a good old-fashioned pen and ink petition campaign. To download and print petitions, please head over to http://rjnb.org/petition/

As I mentioned via email, the federal health minister also declined to meet with RJNB. However, we are starting to gain some traction with some of the Liberal MPs in the province, so we will continue to pursue the federal Liberals for help with the provincial Liberals. We have heard that part of the reason Brian Gallant promised to “remove all barriers to abortion access” during his campaign was due to pressure from Trudeau and the federal Liberals, so there is some hope there.

Report from PEI

by Josie Baker, Charlottetown

The PEI pro-choice movement had another promising year in 2015.

This past May PEI had a provincial election. Although the two major parties tried to pretend abortion wasn’t an election issue, it was nonetheless hotly debated. The Liberals returned to power, with Wade MacLauchlan as premier.

Shortly afterwards, Courtney Cudmore went public about her experience trying to access medical abortion in PEI, and being denied assistance by the emergency room doctor when it wasn’t successful. This exposed the ignorance of the PEI medical system which is unwilling to provide a D&C for an incomplete medical abortion, when they will do the same procedure for an incomplete miscarriage.

Inspired by this story, artist Becka Viau started the Sovereign Uterus Blog, an online Speak-Out where PEI women could post their stories in their own words. This was unprecedentedly successful, and received significant media attention.

A significant victory came shortly afterwards on June 2nd, when the newly elected Premier announced at a press conference that PEI women would be able to self-refer for a provincially funded procedure at the Moncton hospital. We knew that this was partially put in place by his predecessor, Robert Ghiz before leaving office. The press conference also included an announcement of the restriction that limited women to two provincially funded abortions.

After significant work and consultation with LEAP, a number of elders to PEI’s abortion rights movement incorporated and formed a non-profit organization called Abortion Access Now. On January 5th, this group served notice of a law suit against the province of PEI for having a policy restricting access to abortion for PEI women. At this time we are still in the 90 day waiting period that the province has to respond.

Abortion Access Now also held a Hot Chocolate Social in January to celebrate the founding of the group and to honour J’nan Brown, a community elder who turned 80 this summer and who has been a tireless advocate for women’s rights.

Unfortunately, a local hermit issued a counter-suit against the government for providing abortion access to PEI women. Our lawyers assure us his actions may strengthen our case.

Some creative movements for choice have also emerged recently, notably @iamkarats who postered Charlottetown with really well done stencils depicting Ann of Green Gables in a black bandana. The anti-choice group issued a condemnation of the image, which brought some wonderful national media attention. Further actions with this image are planned.

We have high hopes that the government will decide against fighting the lawsuit, and will concede. If not, we have some fundraising to do!

Report from Quebec

by Thelma Bogante / Joyce Arthur, Montreal

Thelma reported on the role and some of the activities of FQPN (Fédération du Québec pour le planning des naissances). She attended a film event last year put on by FQPN related to reproductive rights.

Joyce – Exciting news about the bubble zone bill introduced by Carole Poirier, deputy minister for Status of Women for Parti Quebecois in Quebec. The Morgentaler Clinic in Montreal had been protected by an injunction but lost that when they moved and have been experiencing protesters. Although ARCC and Joyce were not directly involved in this, the bill was inspired by BC’s Access to Abortion Services Act. We have now added ARCC’s name to the list of supporters of the bill (we had been left off due to an oversight). It will take time to work its way through system, but high hopes it will be passed, as government will support it. Joyce has spoken to the M.Clinic director, France Desilets, and ARCC will help to publicly support the bill such as by explaining the details and benefits of the BC law.

Report from Ottawa

by Julie Lalonde

Things have been fairly quiet, on the activist organizing front, here in Ottawa. I have not gotten official word, but it seems the clinic is more disconnected from community that it has been in the past. I’m not sure if there was an incident, it’s under new management or things have been fairly calm and routine so there’s no need to engage with community.

On the NGO and advocacy front, Planned Parenthood Ottawa had a scare fairly recently where they thought they would have to close their doors. It seems anti-choice organizations have been targeting them in relation to what’s happening in the States and it is scaring away funders. Thankfully, they were able to pull together a short fundraising campaign which resulted in a boost of funding.

Otherwise, the mood in Ottawa has been quite celebratory since the election. There’s hope for increased funding to reproductive justice organizations; more discussion of issues around core issues like access; a general sense that we’re heading in a positive direction and can settle into the actual long- term work and be less reactionary.

Reports from Ontario

By Carolyn Egan (Ontario Coalition for Abortion Clinics, OCAC)

OCAC has supported the premier of a play the “Supine Cobbler”, which is a spaghetti western with the theme of abortion.  It features five young women and played for a week in a warehouse in Liberty Village. We will be sponsoring it again as a one-night fundraiser at Buddies in Bad Times in September.

Rosemary Warren has been working with the Humanist Society which has a charitable number and we have established the Henry Morgentaler Scholarship for doctors and medical students to be trained in the provision of abortions.

The Centre for Social Justice sponsored a forum on feminist victories featuring OCAC and the Equal Pay Coalition with older and younger activists.  We spoke alongside Anjalee Kulkarnhi from Medical Students for Choice to a packed house.

Shannon Stettner’s anthology “Without Apology: Writings on Abortion in Canada” will be coming out in a number of months. Linda Gardner and I just finished the final edits on our article “Reproductive Freedom: The Ontario Coalition for Abortion Clinics and the Campaign to Overturn the Federal Abortion Law”. Shannon is a long time OCAC member.

OCAC participated in a forum on Reproductive Justice at an International Conference on Women’s and Children’s Health at McMaster University.

On September 28th for the Global day of Action on Abortion OCAC held a rally which took place during the federal election.  We had cutout faces of the federal leaders for participants to hold.  Speakers included Olivia Chow from the NDP, and speakers from the Immigrant Women’s Health Centre, the Canadian Federation of Students Ontario, an Indigenous women’s organization, Women and Trans Centre, a young OCAC activist spoke and it was chaired by an OCAC member and LGBTQ activist. Peggy spoke on behalf of ARCC.

During the election we also sponsored a rally at the office of Kelly Leitch, MP, and at the time Minister for the Status of Women. We were raising women’s issues including the blatant Islamophobia of the Harper government toward Muslim women.  This was co-sponsored by Women Working with Immigrant Women.

We are continuing to provide escorts on Saturdays for the Women’s Care Clinic and doing speaking engagements in local area high schools.

Report by Peggy Cooke

(Peggy spoke to a class of Medical Students for Choice at Western University in January 2016.)

I spoke for about 15-20 min about access, specifically focusing on NB and PEI (it was great timing with the recent legal challenge!). I also talked about ARCC a lot, and some of our issues and campaigns that we work on. I then opened the floor for questions. There were probably 12-15 students there, and at least 90% of them asked questions. They were really engaged and had a lot of insightful stuff to say.

Most of them wanted to know about how to integrate pro-choice politics into their practice as doctors, and how they could help now. They were also very interested in the situation in the Maritimes and had a lot of questions about that. I had prepared some discussion starters just in case, but we very easily filled up the hour. It was really really inspiring and lovely to meet such engaged future docs!!

Report from Alberta

By Jennifer Burgess

Most local activism was done, formally or informally, through the Calgary Pro-choice coalition, which includes representatives from the Kensington Clinic, the Calgary Sexual Health Centre (CSHC), and local activists.

News:

Article about over-the-counter birth control in Calgary Metro newspaper: http://www.metronews.ca/news/calgary/2016/01/04/the-need-for-over-the-counter-birth-control-in-calgary.html

Article about RU-486 pill in CBC: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/ru-486-abortion-pill-approval-good-news-for-rural-alberta-women-proponent-says-1.3174883

Activism:

April 2015 – Organized a screening of The Vessel, a film about a doctor who provided abortions on a ship in offshore waters. The Event was a joint effort between the Pro-choice Coalition and CSHC. Fundraised for the CSHC’s Reproductive Health Access Fund, a special fund for women in rural Alberta to access safe abortion services. About 50 people went. It was a good turn out but not a lot of “new faces”.

October 2015 – Posting on Facebook about which federal political candidates were anti-choice.

January 2016 – Currently planning actions to counter 40 days of life protesters. Held a successful poster- making workshop that might have been infiltrated by an anti-choicer. We plan to provide activists with signs and a partner to stand outside the Kensington Clinic in solidarity with the patients.

Supporting a letter writing campaign to Bishop Henry to ask him to stop Catholic parishes in Calgary organizing their parishioners to stand on front of the Kensington Clinic. Alberta posters

Posters from January Poster-making Workshop

Executive Director’s Report

By Joyce Arthur, Vancouver

ARCC work on provincial issues:

New Brunswick – ARCC continued to bring attention to the province’s restrictive regulation limiting funding of abortions to hospitals, and to support New Brunswick activists in the fight to repeal it and generally improve access in NB. Although abortion is now available at another hospital in Moncton, that is insufficient as it still requires many women to travel (including PEI women) and Clinic 554 is still not funded for abortion, even though it gets funding for everything else. On Feb 16, 2015, we wrote again to Health Minister Victor Boudreau, and got an unhelpful response back from Associate Deputy Minister Lyne St-Pierre-Ellis, who claimed NB was obeying the Canada Health Act. She is mistaken.

Prince Edward Island – ARCC continued to support local activists in lobbying for access on Prince Edward Island, and we did public advocacy. Joyce Arthur published an article in May 2015 at Rabble about the PEI situation.  On Jan 7 2016, ARCC issued a press release supporting the new lawsuit against the province by Abortion Access Now PEI. The province has two payment restrictions in the province’s Health Services Payment Regulation, as well as a ‘Resolution 17’ passed in 1988 that opposes the performing of abortions, and an unwritten ‘Abortion Policy’ that says abortions will not be performed in PEI.  ARCC also issued a release in May 2015 decrying an emergency room doctor’s refusal to treat a PEI Patient who needed abortion aftercare, although luckily the woman was able to find appropriate care, and the doctor involved later apologized. 

Nova Scotia – ARCC wrote a letter to Health Minister Leo Glavine on July 20 2015 asking them to fully fund or mostly subsidize malpractice rates for Ob/Gyns. Rates had increased a lot and the province was backing down from funding it, leading to doctors threatening to leave province. There was no response and there’s no information available on what has happened with the issue.

BC – ARCC had helped a local activist in 2014 from Williams Lake BC to fight the city’s approval of “Celebrate Life” week sponsored by an anti-choice group, which had been approved annually for years. As a result of our complaint and her activism, the city created a policy on how proclamations are approved. Last year, we sent another letter asking the City to reject the same request by the anti-abortion group, and the City did so. ARCC issued a press release in September supporting the City’s decision. In May 2015 we also sent a letter of complaint to the Regional District of Central Okanagan, which approved a permit for an anti-choice display and event in a public park in Kelowna. Signs and volunteers basically advocated the restriction of pregnant people’s Charter rights by falsely claiming they have abortions right up to the ninth month of pregnancy. (There was no response.)

National Issues:

CPC website review project: In August 2014, we began a comprehensive review of the website of every “crisis pregnancy centre” in Canada. The project is progressing well. We’ve created a national list of all 178 CPCs (published now as a resource for Toronto activists fighting CPC ads), reviewed all the websites, analyzed the data, and are currently writing the final report. Joyce and ARCC member/volunteer Rebecca Bailin will present our findings at the National Abortion Federation conference in April. There is considerable misinformation on most sites regarding psychological distress after abortion, but much less misinformation about alleged physical risks like breast cancer and infertility. Many sites present a deceptive unbiased front to draw in unsuspecting clients. For example, many have no disclaimers that they don’t refer for abortion, or are not a medical clinic. There’s a lot of promotion of adoption and abstinence-only.

Bill C-225 – “Cassie and Molly’s law” – A private member’s bill has been introduced by Conservative MP Cathay Wagantall on Feb 23. It’s basically a repeat of Bill C-484 from 2008, with a few tweaks, such as an added clause that would include pregnancy as an “aggravating circumstance” in a crime against a pregnant woman. ARCC has prepared a draft position statement, and a clause by clause comparison of the new bill with the old C-484. We will oppose the bill based on arguments that it creates a type of personhood for fetuses because it makes them crime victims with a right not be injured or killed, and it divides pregnant women into two people who may have competing interests, and therefore it would be unconstitutional under Section 15’s gender equality. Another difference from C-484 is that it’s mostly the family of the murdered woman behind the bill, and family members and friends, particularly the woman’s partner, have been attacking ARCC and Joyce for being against the bill (on ARCC’s Facebook page). We will also begin a campaign against the bill, by providing a sample letter that people can send to their MPs, sending our statement to all MPs, and probably issuing a press release. We’ll also seek to have the bill declared non-votable by the Parliamentary Subcommittee on Private Members’ Business of the Standing Committee on Procedure & House Affairs. (Joyce wrote to Cmte member Irene Mathyssen and NDP Women’s Critic Sheila Malcolmson yesterday.)

Health Minister meeting – In Nov, ARCC requested a meeting with new federal Health Minister Jane Philpott. There was no response and we followed up Jan 5. A brief response was received a short time later from an MA declining a meeting because of the Minister’s busy schedule. We responded by pointing out that she and Trudeau had promised to improve abortion access, and asking for a meeting in March or April instead. No response yet, but Philpott spoke to the media saying she’s only been talking to Health Ministers about it. It doesn’t appear she intends to talk to any advocacy groups, or knows how to improve access. New plan is to recruit experts (pro-choice activists and researchers) to bombard HM with info, ideas, etc. on how to improve access. Joyce has put together a list of issues and will network some key issues around to advocates with an invitation and instructions so they can start writing and phoning the HM.

Anti-choice advertising: ARCC has been active helping local activists fight anti-choice advertising, in particular CPC ads on buses in Toronto, and CCBR ads on the backs of buses in Peterborough. We are sharing some of our study resources with the activist in Toronto, who is working to get the transit company to refuse the CPC ads on the basis they pose a danger to public health. Re Peterborough, this is very concerning as CCBR is trying to force 12 other cities to place their ads too (presumably Ontario cities). But the cities all refused and CCBR has been filing lawsuits. ARCC sent a letter to the City of Peterborough asking them to refuse the ads under Section 15 of the Charter on gender equality, and because they almost certainly contravene the Advertising Code. We are recruiting volunteers to make complaints to Advertising Standards Canada against the Peterborough ad once it comes out, so we can get a decision that other cities can use to refuse the ad. The Kawartha Sexual Assault Centre in Peterborough has also contacted us for assistance in fighting the ads and we are working with them, as well as with local ARCC member Rosemary Ganley.

CCBR graphic images – The Canadian Centre for Bio-ethical Reform continued their offensive antics by doing a tour across Canada in the lead up to the election to recruit volunteers to help deliver graphic postcards slamming Justin Trudeau. They reportedly distributed about a million cards and there was quite a bit of negative media attention. Judging by the election outcome, their campaign was a failure, and maybe backfired on them because of the angry public reaction. ARCC sent letters to all city mayors, about 15, where CCBR distributed the postcards or displayed signs, asking them to pass bylaws prohibiting the distribution of such graphic images, and also wrote to MPs Hedy Fry and Justin Trudeau, both of whom responded to thank us for our efforts. ARCC also recruited a few people to attend and report on the CCBR meetings, and we responded to public complaints and inquiries about the postcards, encouraging people to complain to their city governments.

Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons in Saskatchewan and Ontario (and Ontario College of Pharmacists) – ARCC lobbied the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons in Saskatchewan to limit so-called “conscientious objection” by doctors who object to providing or referring for birth control or abortion. We sent letters in March, June, and August. The College watered down its final policy a bit in the end, instead of an obligation to refer to someone who can provide the services, there’s only a requirement to refer to someone who can “make an arrangement” to help, i.e, the referral can still be to someone who doesn’t provide the services. Meanwhile, in March, the Ontario College passed its new policy requiring an “effective referral”. ARCC had written a letter in February reiterating some of our concerns around the final draft, mainly that referral requirements don’t work because anti-choice doctors will continue refusing, and enforcement/discipline policies are required. After the policy passed, two Christian doctors’ groups launched a lawsuit against the College. This is still pending. Joyce wrote a Rabble article last March about it, explaining why the Christian doctors are wrong and predicting they will lose. In November, ARCC also wrote the Ontario College of Pharmacists to provide feedback on their revised Code of Ethics, asking them to stop allowing pharmacists from refusing to serve customers for personal or religious reasons, because that violates many other clauses in their Code. However, the College approved the new Code in December still allowing pharmacists to refuse service, but with an additional clause requiring “that the member participates in a system designed to respect the patient’s right to receive products and services requested”. We don’t know what that means.

Reciprocal Billing: Finally, the portability barrier has been fixed. In June 2015, abortion was finally taken off the Excluded Services list for purposes of reciprocal billing. This means that all Canadian women and transgender people should be able to get their abortions funded automatically under their Medicare when outside their home province, including NB women. There was almost nothing released publicly about this, but Ontario put out a new policy about it at the time. This was an injustice that the clinics and pro-choice movement have been fighting for years to no avail. It was finally made possible by the repeal of NB’s regulation requiring the approval of two doctors before a woman could get a funded abortion. That’s because a consensus was required from all provinces and territories to take abortion off the Excluded Services list, and NB was the only holdout.

Mifegymiso: Health Canada finally approved mifepristone (in combination with misoprostol) last July, but the drugs still won’t be available for several months. ARCC was not involved in the approval process, but we raised questions after the approval about the restrictions and costs (training and registration required for doctors, ultrasound and follow-up visit required for patients, non-evidence based guidelines for dosage that increase pain for women, and approval only up to 49 days gestation when it’s good to at least 78 days, and cost of around $200 because it will be a prescription). We hope that restrictions can be eased after a few years.

Sept 28 Global Day of Action – Because of the election and everyone being busy, ARCC was unable to get much going for this day, but OCAC held an event in Toronto, and some activists held a film night event in Edmonton but it was not well-attended. This autumn may work out better, especially if Bill C-225 is still around and coming up for a vote.

Revised Vision/Mission/Mandate: Over 2015, ARCC revised our Vision and Mission and expanded our Mandate to support Reproductive Justice. Our main focus will always be abortion rights, but we wanted to endorse the concept of RJ and a range of issues that come under that umbrella. In December, we published the updates as well as new papers on Reproductive Justice, Transgender Inclusivity, and Sex Workers’ Rights Are Human Rights. The latter are just two aspects of Reproductive Justice that ARCC wanted to support and also provide further explanation on why we support those positions. There has been no negative feedback, and a number of positive responses.

Addendum: A letter of resignation was received from a member three days after the AGM, expressing concerns and disagreement with our new mandate and how we had arrived at it, and asking that the letter be read at the AGM. In particular, the member objected to the two papers on transgender inclusivity and sex worker rights. The Board and AGM attendees discussed the letter via email, with one member-at-large asking for clarification on the process and also not agreeing with the positions. A majority of the Board as well as the ED responded to explain why we supported those positions, the context for them, and the process behind arriving at them, and in the end the member respected that majority.

List of Anti-choice MPs: After the September 2015 election, ARCC updated its list of anti-choice MPs. Only 18% of MPs are now known to be anti-choice, 16% if we exclude the 7 Liberal anti-choice MPs who will be required to vote pro-choice on bills. (This is down from 36% before the election.)  55% of the Conservative caucus is known anti-choice. 41% of MPs have an unknown stance, however, all of them are Conservatives. 65 anti-choice incumbents were either defeated or resigned prior to the election, although 9 new ones were elected.

Global work: Joyce has been active internationally on several fronts. She attended the International Congress on Women’s Health and Safe Abortion in Bangkok in January, where she presented on the benefits of having no abortion law in Canada, also why doctors should not be allowed to refuse reproductive healthcare for personal or religious reasons, a presentation that promoted social networks for abortion providers, and a poster on “How to think about the fetus”. She has also been writing or co-authoring articles on the issue of so-called “conscientious objection”, in an ongoing effort to turn around the general consensus that this is acceptable if there is a referral requirement (but most anti-choice doctors refuse to refer). Joyce also refuted a dangerous study in the BMJ Open by anti-choice doctors, who tried to show that restrictive abortion laws in Mexico don’t increase maternal mortality and may even reduce it. She wrote two detailed rebuttals, one replying to a response from the authors, and the BMJ Open published both. Joyce continues to advocate for repeal of abortion laws based on Canada’s model, and Ireland activists have recently been citing our lack of a law in their law reform efforts.

Communications: ARCC continues to be active in disseminating information via its website, published articles, media releases, our Facebook page, Twitter page, and speaking engagements. In 2015, we issued 3 press releases and published several statements and letters on our website. Although Joyce discontinued her monthly column at Rabble.ca, she plans to return to writing it. Our Facebook page is very active and now has over 2700 members. Joyce and other ARCC spokespersons carried out many media interviews and speaking engagements over the year. ARCC continues to operate its website, as well as two listservs for members only: Activist and News. We hope to restart a regular newsletter in 2016.

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