ARCC Annual General Meeting, Jan 24, 2018

  • Agenda
  • Minutes
  • Regional Reports
    • PEI Report
    • New Brunswick Report
    • Toronto / Ontario Report
    • Alberta Report
    • BC Report
  • 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  •  2016  •  2017

Agenda

  1. Welcome and Introduction
  2. Motion to appoint Executive Director as Chair of Meeting (instead of President)
  3. Adoption of 2017 AGM minutes
  4. Adoption of 2018 agenda
  5. Proposed Motion: “For fiscal year 2018, ARCC will not appoint a Public Accountant. We will use the Compilation method of producing financial statements.”
  6. Reports from the provinces / regions
    • NB – Allison Webster
    • PEI – Colleen McQuarrie
    • Toronto / Ontario – Carolyn Egan
    • Alberta – Kathy Dawson
    • BC – Joyce Arthur
  7. Executive Director’s Report (national focus)
  8. Membership Report
  9. Fundraising Report 
  10. Financial Report
  11. New Business
  12. Election of Directors to the Board

Minutes of the Annual General Meeting

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

Jan 24, 2018 (covering 2017)

Call to Order 4pm PT

Welcome and Introductions

In attendance:
Executive Director: Joyce Arthur
Board members: Allison Webster, Lyndsey Butcher, Martina Zanetti, Kathy Dawson, Colleen MacQuarrie, (Regrets: Patrick Powers, Julie Lalonde, Carolyn Egan)
Members-at-large: Kady Thibeault, Cheryl Gaster

Motion to appoint Executive Director as Chair of Meeting (instead of President) – Moved Cheryl; Seconded Allison; Passed unanimously.

Motion: adopt 2017 AGM minutes (at this link: http://www.arcc-cdac.ca/AGM/2017-AGM-minutes-reports.html#minutes)– Moved Kady; Seconded Allison.  Passed unanimously.

Motion: adopt 2018 agenda – Moved: Joyce; Seconded: Cheryl; Passed unanimously.

Motion: “For fiscal year 2017, ARCC will not appoint a Public Accountant. We will use the Compilation method of producing financial statements.” – Moved Martina; Seconded Kathy; Passed unanimously.

Reports of Provinces: See full reports later on this AGM page. No Quebec report due to absence of Pat. PEI report parked because of audio problems – please see Winter 2018 newsletter for update on PEI. Carolyn submitted written report for OCAC/Ontario which Joyce presented.

Executive Director’s Report – Joyce Arthur (national focus) –See full report later on this page.

Membership Report (Joyce)

  • 166 members as of Jan 24/18, including 68 monthly donors.
  • 41% of members are monthly donors.
  • About 35 members expired in 2017; about an equal number joined.
  • A small number of people donate but decline to join (about 15 in our database over 2016-17)

Fundraising Report (Martina and Joyce)

  • Fundraising Committee has produced newsletter and use as fundraising tool.
  • Revamped website to make donations easier – increased donations over 2017.
  • Continuing to increase our social media presence
  • Fundraising committee meets about every 2 months

Financial Report (Martina Zanetti)

  • See Financial Report here.
  • Motion to accept the 2017 financial reports: Moved by Martina; Seconded by Allison, Passed unanimously

Election of Directors to the Board 

  • Peggy Cooke and Josie Baker have resigned from the Board.
  • Eight current Board members are entering the 2nd, 3rd or 4th year of their four-year terms:
  • Allison Webster – Fredericton NB
  • Colleen MacQuarrie – Charlottetown PE
  • Patrick Powers – Montreal QC
  • Julie Lalonde – Ottawa ON
  • Lyndsey Butcher – Kitchener ON
  • Carolyn Egan – Toronto ON
  • Peggy Cooke – Toronto ON
  • Kathy Dawson – Edmonton AB
  • Martina Zanetti – Vancouver BC
  • Lauren Dobson-Hughes joined the Board (unofficially) in November.
  • Motion by Lyndsey to nominate Lauren Dobson Hughes to ARCC Board. Seconded: Joyce.  Passed unanimously.
  • Elected and appointed unanimously.
    Correction, Feb 17, 2018:  Lauren had only expressed interest in joining the Board and had participated in one Board meeting, but had not committed. Due to a misunderstanding she was nominated and elected to the Board in her absence. The Board passed a motion by email in February to rescind her nomination as it was in error. Passed by a majority.

New Business

Cheryl Gaster is going to NDP national convention in Ottawa. Who to contact? Don Davies – current health critic; Niki Ashton; Sheila Malcolmson, current women’s critic. Joyce will check for other possibilities. Lyndsey recommended that Cheryl attend the Women’s Caucus meeting – push for national coverage of Mifegymiso.

Kathy said that the anti-choice Pregnancy Care Centre is presenting in schools in Alberta. Lyndsey confirms that CPCs are doing the same in Kitchener/Waterloo. Probably across Canada. Pro Choice Alberta is putting resources up on their website so that parents can be active in their own schools.

Adjourned: 5:25pm PT

Regional Reports

Report from New Brunswick

by Allison Webster, Fredericton

RJNB & Staff of Clinic 554 (the family doctor’s practice that took over from the Morgentaler clinic and is the Maritime Province’s only clinic offering surgical abortions) have had multiple meetings over the past year with the provincial Health Authorities (Vitalité & Horizon) and the provincial Department of Health (including meetings with the Health Minister(s), formerly Victor Boudreau and currently Benoit Bourque after the cabinet shuffle). Despite these meetings, surgical abortions remain unfunded at Clinic 554. Patients pay $700 or $850 out of pocket depending on their gestational age.

Clinic 554’s last meeting was with the Dept of Health in the fall of 2017, and subsequently Valerie, the manager of Clinic 554, sent some follow-up information as well as two follow-up emails and has not had any response whatsoever. So that is disappointing!!

We are also organizing meetings with the New Brunswick Medical Society and lobbying for billing codes to get added into the Medicare system that would reimburse Clinic 554 for Reproductive Health services offered.

In better news, wait times at the Moncton City Hospital are reportedly much shorter. Early in the year we had reports of patients getting turned away or waiting weeks but currently, appointments are reportedly available within about a week. (Also the standard at Clinic 554).

Clinic 554 has gotten more feedback from patients in the Saint John area (and many clients from there) remarking that it’s too difficult to get to the Moncton City Hospital and that it’s less difficult to get to Fredericton. So there remains a real gap in service for Saint John, one of the province’s largest cities.

The construction of the so-called “Women’s Care Centre” run by the New Brunswick Right to Life Association is getting closer to being done next door to Clinic 554. The old building burned down due to an electrical fire inside. There have been no protesters from that organization around Clinic 554 since Clinic 554 took over. Valerie said they’ve been told that even with the rebuild next door, the anti-choice organization has “no intention of interfering” with Clinic 554. We shall see.

Finally, this upcoming fall is another provincial election, and RJNB did a great job four years ago of making abortion access a campaign issue, so hopefully New Brunswick activists can again push for the restriction against clinic abortions in the province to be lifted and for fairer abortion access across the province.

Joyce added: ARCC brought the issue of NB’s restrictive regulation limiting funding of abortions to hospitals to the attention of NDP Health Critic Don Davies, who raised it in a brief meeting with federal Health Minister Ginette Petitpas-Taylor and her staff. They were noncommittal and ARCC will continue following up with Taylor’s office, as well as continue supporting RJNB (Reproductive Justice New Brunswick) until abortion services at Clinic 554 are fully funded.

Report from PEI

Please see the Winter 2018 issue of The Activist /L’Activiste newsletter for news about PEI.

Report from Ontario

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

OCAC moved its office and is now sharing with Bathurst St United Church and the Toronto Health Coalition. We are continuing with our ongoing work of archiving materials from the beginning of the campaign to overturn the federal abortion law. Fascinating materials which we are wanting to maintain Its going slowly but well with a number of young women who are very enthusiastic.

We are working with the Humanist Association to make monies available through a scholarship fund, the Morgentaler Scholarship, for new physicians to learn how to provide abortions. It’s been slow working with them but it’s just about ready to go. We are continuing to provide escorts to the Women’s Care Clinic which has experienced an increase in harassment recently. The police seem to be taking it more seriously since the safe access zone legislation was passed in Ontario.

OCAC worked quite hard along with organizations such as Planned Parenthood, ARCC and others to secure the passage of the safe access zone. Before the passage there was an upswing in anti-choice activity in the summer sponsored by the Centre for Bio Ethical Reform. They were leafleting, placing their signs on street corners, putting misleading information in mail boxes etc. There were a number of local picketings from pro choice supporters in opposition and we spoke at a public meting with city councilors and local member of provincial parliament on the issue.

We also worked on the funding of Mifegymiso by the Ontario government for anyone who has a health card. It is available at one site in Toronto for those without status. We worked with doctors encouraging more providers. The safe access zone will hopefully make more feel confident to do so. We also worked with some pharmacists. There are still limited numbers providing it, but it will grow.

We were actively involved in last year’s international women’s day organizing which brought out thousands in Toronto and had a table and distributed many buttons. We’ve had two film nights, one on the situation in Ireland and another on the United States which went well.

We were involved in organizing the Women’s March in Toronto on January 20th and had a contingent with banner and buttons.

Report from Alberta

By Kathy Dawson

  1. FOI requests and CRA Returns
    • Provincial FOIP/Freedom of Information Request
      Central Alberta Pregnancy Care Centre is operating “Keys to Young Parenting”, this has been funded for years by the Alberta Government (approximately $70K per year) and we have had no response to our letter writing campaign. Will follow-up once the review of the Central Alberta Pregnancy Care documents are complete. I am still reviewing the FOIP documents but reported them to Revenue Canada for misrepresenting their government funding. This agency has been expanding rapidly throughout Central Alberta and are building a $2.6M maternity home.
    • Federal FOI Canada Summer Jobs – grants given to Calgary Pregnancy Care Centre and CCBR – have not had time to review yet.
    • Anti-choice CRA Returns
      • I have entered 2011-2016 data on almost 200 agencies.
      • Canada Summer Jobs have been misrepresented.  Many reported zero in federal funding.
      • Qualified Donees are a new issue.  Anti-choice Charities Claiming Qualified Donees for Agencies that are not Canadian Charities
      • The excel data has gotten so large that I will be working in 2018 to establish a data base for
  2. Motion 514 – Be it resolved that the Legislative Assembly urge the Government to examine strategies for reducing barriers to abortion and reproduction health services in rural and northern Alberta. MLA Ms. Renaud. http://www.assembly.ab.ca/ISYS/LADDAR_files/docs/houserecords/mo/legislature_29/session_3/20170302_1200_01_mo.pdf
    • This motion will be coming early in this session. 
  3. Inform Canada, 211, Health Link networks
  4. Worked on Guelph Bus Ad complaint. We have some good background to use for other ads.
  5. Anti-choice school trustee candidate defeated.
  6. We are compiling a list of anti-choice activists.
  7. News: April 2017 – Red Deer Catholic School invites Red Deer Pro-life to teach: https://globalnews.ca/news/3369064/alberta-catholic-high-school-under-fire-for-pro-life-presentation-comparing-abortion-to-holocaust/

My outstanding items for 2019:

  • Social media – falling behind
  • Create database
  • Review FOIP/FOI
  • Inform Canada/211/Health Link
  • Follow-up on Alberta Letter
  • Motion 514
  • Election coming in 2019 – I believe abortion will be politicized in Alberta as NDP seeks to get bozo eruptions from Jason Kenney.
Report from BC

By Joyce Arthur

We wrote the new NDP Health Minister, Adrian Dix, asking him to provide universal coverage for Mifegymiso. Many others wrote letters and lobbied too, and on Jan 2, 2018, the BC Government announced that BC would start full coverage on Jan 15. BC is the 6th province to do so.

ARCC members attended the Repeal the 8th gathering in Vancouver on Sept 30, to support the global campaign to repeal the Eighth Amendment in Ireland, which gives equal rights to fetuses. Please see the report in our Winter 2018 newsletter. We also connected with the organizers and offered them ARCC’s help with next year’s rally.

Executive Director’s Report

By Joyce Arthur, Vancouver

Canada Summer Jobs – We did extensive research and discovered that anti-choice groups were getting a lot of funding from the Canada Summer Jobs program. Kathy Dawson in particular has done much of the work, with help from Fern Hill and Joyce. This all came out of research of “crisis pregnancy centres” (CPCs) – we found that many of them were getting CSJ funding, and then found that some anti-choice political groups were also getting this funding, including the CCBR. We issued a press release in April, which was picked up by iPolitics. The very next day, the Liberals promised to stop the funding from Liberal ridings, and would look for a way to end it from all ridings. In December, the Liberals announced the new attestation requirement. Applicants must agree that their core mandate activity and the summer job itself will “respect” Charter rights including reproductive rights and LGBT rights. It caused a lot of outcry and confusion, and the Minister of Employment and Social Development, Patty Hajdu, issued some clarifications. ARCC was prominent in the media defending the attestation requirement, refuting the objections to it, and explaining what the requirement meant. We also called for the Ministry to clarify it. They did, and their new guidelines closely matched ARCC’s interpretation. We are now working on an op-ed about the issue.

Funding to anti-choice groups –The total CSJ funding to anti-choice groups from 2010 to 2017 was almost $1.7M. The total government funding at all levels from all sources (municipal, provincial, federal) is $14.3M. This is only what was reported by anti-choice groups, and we found that the CSJ funding was significantly underreported by charities that received it.

In the spring and summer, we carried out a letter of the week campaign to various governments and gov’t agencies, alerting them to CPC funding and asking them to stop doing it. This was partially successful and we continue to monitor and do follow-ups. We now have so much data on CPCs, the funding to anti-choice groups, charitable tax data etc., that Kathy is creating a database to house it all and make it easier to work with.

We created a comprehensive list of anti-choice groups, showing 284 groups across Canada:
– 57% (128) are CPCs, rest are advocacy groups
– 76% (216) have charitable tax status
– 25% (71) of advocacy groups have charitable tax status
The initial purpose of the list was to help the Liberals figure out which groups not to fund for CSJ. But now it’s become useful as a PR tool to make people aware of the huge number of anti groups out there and how many are charities. We also use it to help with our campaign to remove their charitable tax status.

Charity status of anti-choice groups – We studied 50 charities that got CSJ money – 44 (88%) were found to have misrepresented or NOT reported their CSJ grants as federal funding on their CRA charity return. These 44 charities received $859,404 and only reported $416,363.  On Jan 12, we submitted complaints to CRA on these 44 groups with reporting irregularities, and hope that audits will be carried out on all of them. This request also reiterated our previous request in Dec 2016 to audit 34 charities (27 of which are repeated on the new list). We reported other issues to the CRA too, such as donations from 15 anti-choice charities to 27 non-charities, including some anti-choice political groups, which is not allowed under charity regulations.

CCBR bus ads – Last June, the anti-choice “Going going gone” bus ads ran in Peterborough after the city caved into the extremist group Canadian Centre for Bio-ethical Reform because of their lawsuit threats. The local pro-choice group raised funds to run their own ads inside buses and ARCC helped publicize their fundraising campaign. In August, CCBR lost its lawsuit against Translink in Vancouver, which had refused to run its bus ads. CCBR has not appealed.  We are still waiting for the appeal decision in Grande Prairie Alberta, as CCBR had also sued that city, then lost and appealed. ARCC has been highly active throughout all these cases, including helping activists in Peterborough, providing information to cities and lawyers in every city affected, and working with the lawyers from Grande Prairie and Translink in particular. The Grande Prairie case is important because it was a very strong decision against the anti-choice ads, and the judge also supported cities’ use of the Canadian Code of Advertising Standards as a reasonable guide to approve or reject ads.

We are also hoping to organize some pro-choice bus ads for Ottawa, in consultation with PPO.

Municipal actions against anti-choice material – Over the past year, graphic and upsetting images of aborted fetuses have been showing up on streets and in mailboxes in cities across the country, including Calgary, Regina, Toronto, Ottawa, Peterborough, Woodstock, and several other Ontario cities. ARCC has been closely involved in helping activists and city officials by providing information and resources to help them stop the graphic images. This includes Toronto MPP Peter Tabuns and several City of Toronto councillors, a dedicated activist in Woodstock named Kate Leatherbarrow, and others. We wrote to Woodstock City Council to support her campaign and are now helping Kate prepare for a referendum that she is sponsoring for the next municipal election to ask citizens to instruct City Council to pass a bylaw to ban the images, using the Advertising Code as a tool.

ARCC has recruited an activist and student in Calgary to write an analysis that we will use to persuade cities to cite the Canadian Code of Advertising Standards in their bylaws and policies related to signage and advertising. This would help give the Code more authority and allow cities to combat anti-choice ads and imagery more effectively (on the advice of a City of Calgary lawyer). We carried out a research project – with Kathy doing much of the legwork – to figure out how many cities already cited the Code – 57% do.

Ottawa Proclamation / Flag – ARCC was active in lobbying the City of Ottawa to stop the anti-choice proclamation that is issued every year for the March for Life. This year, the March even got a flag hoisted up a City flagpole, but this was quickly taken down after an outcry. ARCC worked with other Ottawa and Ontario groups to take action against the flag, particularly Planned Parenthood Ottawa. Our goal is to stop the proclamation from being issued this May.

Rachael Harder – In September, ARCC helped ensure that Conservative MP Rachael Harder, who is strongly anti-choice, was not appointed as chair of the Status of Women Committee. We were contacted by NDP Women’s Critic Sheila Malcolmson who asked us to put together a “dossier” on her. We found that Harder has a perfect “Pro-life rating” with Campaign Life Coalition, that she funds anti-choice centres in her riding, and she co-sponsored and strongly supported Bill C-225 for fetal rights, among other things. We also signed onto an open letter circulated by NAWL and signed by 7 women’s groups. The campaign succeeded, with the help of Liberal MPs on the SoW committee who walked out of a Committee meeting rather than vote. Harder’s nomination was rejected at the next meeting.

Criminal Code repeal – The federal government repealed a number of so-called “zombie laws” from the Criminal Code, either laws that had been stuck down by the Supreme Court, or anachronistic laws. The old abortion law was repealed, which was struck down in 1988. ARCC had lobbied for the repeal of the abortion law, and was also successful in getting two orphan clauses repealed that had NOT been struck down, related to the procurement, sale, purchase, and advertising of abortion drugs and devices. The repeal removes any doubts about the legality of abortion, and removes the risk of prosecution. It also ensures that it’s not illegal for a woman to do her own self-managed abortion with pills she gets from the Internet.

Bubble Zone for Ontario – ARCC was instrumental in getting a safe access zone passed in Ontario. Although initially sparked by a letter from the Ottawa mayor to the Ontario A-G, ARCC put together a coalition of pro-choice groups and other stakeholders in Ontario to figure out what we wanted in a law, and then lobby the government. It was ARCC’s idea to ask for default buffer zones so that facilities need not apply for them. We succeeded – the law provides automatic 50m zones for the eight standalone abortion clinics. Other facilities need to apply for zones up to 150m, but pharmacies and medical clinics can apply as well as hospitals. The homes of clinic staff, family doctors, and pharmacists are also protected, and offices of doctors who do abortions.

Pro-choice Coalition – ARCC has taken the lead at forming an adhoc coalition of pro-choice groups to have semi-regular teleconference calls about twice a year to share info on what we’re all doing, discuss the issues of the day and our positions, and look for opportunities to collaborate on things. We used to have these calls with a few groups and found them quite useful. We are broadening the coalition this time to almost 20 groups, including a handful of PP clinics and sexual health centres. The first video conference meeting will be in the first half of February.

Mifegymiso – The original Health Canada restrictions on Mifegymiso continued to fall by the wayside through 2017, with an ultrasound requirement the only one left. It is now fully covered by six provinces, and partly covered by the rest. A growing number of clinics and doctors now provide medical abortion, and ARCC’s list of clinics now lists seven new clinics providing medical abortion in BC, Sask, and Ontario. Most of the time, the clinic contacts us, asking to be added, showing that our list is a much-used and trusted resource.

Canada Health Act amendment – ARCC has been planning a new project to amend the CHA to define private clinics as hospitals if they are doing a medically required services, and all provinces must fully fund. We’ve prepared some draft sample text to amend the CHA. But we still need to follow through with this by contacting the PMO and Health Canada, and figure out the best method. Don Davies, the NDP Health Critic, may be willing to introduce a private member’s bill if that is the only way.

UK Abortion Act – Joyce went to London UK at the invitation of a Parliamentary Committee looking at how to reform the UK’s Abortion Law, which turned 50 in October. Joyce gave an oral presentation about Canada’s successful experience with no law since 1988, and recommended that the UK repeal its entire law, and pass a positive, non-criminal law that would recognize women’s right to abortion and guarantee access. She also spoke against “conscientious objection” against abortion, which is inappropriate in healthcare and hinders access. The UK was the first country in the world to explicitly allow CO in any type of healthcare, and that was the abortion law.

NAF conference / Ontario road trip – Joyce attended the National Abortion Federation conference in April in Montreal, and the highlight of the conference was the Canadian providers meeting. A presentation on bubble zones, plus discussion about protesters, got people talking and this is where the idea of getting a bubble zone law for Ontario was hatched. After the conference, Joyce travelled to Peterborough to meet with activists there, and then Ottawa, where she met with Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights, and Planned Parenthood Ottawa.

Abortion Statistics – CIHI revised its methodology last spring to capture a large number of abortions in Ontario that were previously not reported by the agency – about 19,000 in 2015. These are abortions done mostly by unfunded clinics and some doctors’ offices. They bill OHIP for the doctors’ fee, but may charge patients some fees for drugs etc. CIHI provided new totals for the years 2011 to 2015. ARCC maintains a comprehensive, up-to-date document on its website that includes abortion statistics going back to 2007. We explain the statistics, link to the original data, and provide additional estimates based on the data. Again, this has become a much-used and trusted resource. A lawsuit by an anti-choice activist resulted in an Ontario regulation being struck down that prohibited the release of any abortion stats. It was overly broad. ARCC wrote the A-G asking them not to appeal the decision, and they decided not to.

Position Papers – ARCC has been busy through 2017 updating the Position Papers on our website, and writing some new ones. We have a crew of volunteers doing the research and writing. So far, out of 53 existing papers, 35 have been revised and posted, while 10 are currently in progress. Two new ones have also been written and posted, and we plan to add about 10 more new ones over the next year.

Communications: ARCC continues to be highly active in disseminating information via its website, published articles, newsletter, media releases, our Facebook page, Twitter page, and speaking engagements. In 2017, we issued 9 press releases (and 1 so far in 2019). Our Facebook page remains very active and now has over 3,900 members. Joyce and other ARCC spokespersons carried out many media interviews and several speaking engagements over the year. ARCC continues to operate two listservs for members only: Activist and News. Our website was updated and revamped with the help of ARCC member and volunteer Mary Linville. We are publishing our newsletter twice a year and using it as a fundraising tool.

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