ARCC Annual General Meeting, Jan 14, 2019

  • Agenda
  • Minutes
  • PEI Report
  • New Brunswick Report
  • Quebec report
  • Toronto / Ontario Report
  • Ottawa Report
  • Alberta 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   •  2018  

Agenda

  1. Welcome and Introduction
  2. Motion to appoint Executive Director as Chair of Meeting (instead of President)
  3. Adoption of 2018 AGM minutes
  4. Adoption of 2019 agenda
  5. Proposed Motion: “For fiscal year 2019, 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 14, 2019 (covering 2018)

Call to Order 4pm PT

Welcome and Introductions

In attendance:
Executive Director: Joyce Arthur
Board members: Lyndsey Butcher, Martina Zanetti, Kathy Dawson, Julie Lalonde, Carolyn Egan (Regrets: Allison Webster, Mariane Labrecque)
Members-at-large: Thelma Bogante, Alison Zimmer

Motion to appoint ED as chair instead of president – moved: Thelma, second: Julie. Moved unanimously.

Motion to appoint Executive Director as Chair of Meeting (instead of President) – Moved: Thelma, seconded: Julie. Passed unanimously.

Motion to adopt 2018 AGM minutes as recorded at this link. Moved: Joyce, seconded: Martina. Passed unanimously.

Motion to adopt 2019 Agenda – moved: Joyce, seconded: Martina. Passed unanimously.

Moved: For fiscal year 2019, ARCC will not appoint a Public Accountant. We will use the Compilation method of producing financial statements – moved: Joyce, seconded: Kathy. passed unanimously.

Reports from the provinces – See full reports later on this AGM page.

Membership Report (Joyce)

  • 209 members as of Jan 14/19. (was 166 at last AGM)
  • 80 monthly donors (38% of members, 42 PayPal, 38 bank)
  • About 25 expiries in 2018 who did not renew after getting 2 renewal notices.
  • An increased number of supporters – people who donate but decline to join – likely a result of social media appeals

Fundraising Report (Joyce, Martina)

We applied for a Status of Women Canada capacity-building grant – more details at the top of the Executive Director’s report.

The Fundraising Committee meets several times a year to advance various fundraising ideas and tools. We publish our newsletter twice a year and using it as a fundraising tool. Our Facebook page remains very active and now has 5,088 members – a 30% increase in the last year. (And 2,113 followers on Twitter.) 

We recruited a volunteer Social Media Coordinator, Tasia Alexopoulos, to handle our FB and Twitter pages and try to drum up more support, followers, and donations. It’s been going extremely well, and Tasia is goddess-sent. Tasia sends us regular reports on our Twitter/FB activity, to help us see our growth and where we might improve. Tasia also started a Teespring merchandising campaign, where we sell ARCC T-shirts, mugs, stickers, and tote bags.  So far, we’ve sold 41 products (14 Mugs, 12 T Shirts, 9 Stickers, 6 totes) and our total profit is $93. The program costs us nothing to run.

We have a secondary mailing list using MailChimp, where we send periodic updates or news to supporters and members of the public who contacted us, encouraging them to join or donate.

Financial Report (Martina Zanetti)

  • See 2018 Financial Reports here. Surplus in 2018 of $3,333, even with more expenses than 2017. Still waiting for Alberta Handmaids to get bank account so we can transfer the $10K donation to them, which ARCC is holding for them.
  • Moved: ARCC to provide one-time honorarium of $500 to Tasia Alexopoulos in appreciation of her excellence as social media coordinator – Moved: Carolyn, seconded: Martina.  Passed unanimously.

New Business – none.

Election of new Directors and re-election of current directors who have reached end of their 4-year terms to the Board

  • All current directors other than Kathy Dawson have reached end of their terms and must be re-elected (Kathy now entering 2nd year)
  • Moved to elect or re-elect the following slate of directors to the ARCC Board: Allison Webster, Martina Zanetti, Carolyn Egan, Julie LaLonde, (all elected to a new 4-year term), and Mariane Labrecque (new Board member).  Moved: Alison Zimmer; seconded: Julie.  Elected unanimously.

Lyndsey Butcher will not be re-running as a director – standing down as of today (going on maternity leave).

Pat Powers will not be re-running as a director. AGM agreed that ARCC will provide Patrick a card and gift (suggestions included pro-choice books) for his longstanding dedication and service to our organization.

Ashley Fraser from PEI left the board earlier this year, as did Colleen MacQuarrie of PEI, both due to other commitments and lack of time.

Additional new board members would be desirable, especially from NL, NS, PE, MB, and SK.

Adjourned: 5:38pm PT.

Regional Reports

Report from New Brunswick

by Allison Webster, Fredericton

Despite lobbying, we have not been able to get the NB Government to fund therapeutic abortions at clinics in the province. Patients are still paying 700-850$ for abortion services at Clinic 554 in Fredericton. All government funded procedures are in Moncton or Bathurst only. There remains no regional coverage in Saint John (one of NB’s largest cities).

This fall there was a change in government- from a Liberal majority government to an alliance between Conservative and People’s Alliance (another right-wing party against, among other things, official bilingualism). The new Premier (Blaine Higgs) has said he’ll keep the “status quo” when it comes to abortion services. We certainly aren’t optimistic that he’ll improve access in any way.

Medical abortions seem to be helping those who are very early in the pregnancy. Clinic 554 has noticed a decline in early TAs [therapeutic abortions] and may be moving to holding TA clinics every other week. Keeping the clinic open and from going bankrupt is a top priority. Clinic 554 is still helping those who call and cannot pay for their procedures (and who cannot get a drive to Moncton for a funded appointment) as much as possible, but this is putting a real strain on the viability of the clinic. Clinic 554 does so much for our community- not only by providing patient centered, compassionate abortion services but also excellent health care for the LGBT community and other underserved populations. We need to support Clinic 554 in every way possible.

Joyce added: In April, ARCC wrote to the federal Health Minister Ginette Petitpas-Taylor regarding the issue of NB’s restrictive regulation limiting funding of abortions to hospitals, asking her to take action to persuade NB to repeal the regulation, or withhold a portion of healthcare transfers to NB until abortion services at Clinic 554 are fully funded. We followed up in October but have not heard anything.

Report from PEI

Please see the Fall 2018 issue of The Activist /L’Activiste newsletter for news about PEI (a piece by Kate McKenna, author of “No Choice.”)

Report from Quebec

By Mariane Labrecque (FQPN) – Read out by Joyce

The anti-choice movement got a lot of press coverage in the last 2 months, from a cover story in La Presse (One of Quebec most important newspaper) to television programs. The coverage is negative towards them and they are being denounced. The FQPN benefited from this coverage and got a lot of visibility.

In Quebec, le comité de veille stratégique en avortement (The abortion watch committee) is being reactivated with a meeting scheduled on January 23 with 15 members from unions, university researchers, community organization, abortion clinics and feminist movement.

There are still problems with accessibility to abortion’s services in cities outside Montreal and the abortion pill is still not available easily.

Report from Ontario

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

Ontario Coalition for Abortion Clinics (OCAC) is working with Humanist Society of Canada re: raising $10K for a scholarship for medical students to be trained in abortion services (whether medical or surgical). Rosemary Warren pulling together materials, and we’ll be advertising it to medical schools etc.

Mifegymiso’s restrictions are being eased slowly in Ontario – free for all those with an OHIP card– uptake hasn’t been as big as we had hoped. But more physicians are getting involved.

Bubble zone law passed in Ontario (Joyce a big part of that) – concern about Doug Ford meddling with it after his election, though no indicator at this moment that it is at risk soon, but we remain ever vigilant. ARCC is working together with ON activists to be ready if any moves against Bubble zone – Jan 24: first individual appearing in court with a breach of it – ARCC monitoring.

Ford has rolled back the new sex-ed curriculum (OCAC is part of a coalition to support the new curriculum, but it has created a storm, with an elementary teacher protest, a student walk out, and court case is ongoing.

Two campuses – Ryerson and Ont. College of Art & Design, had fairly regular pickets last year by CCBR with their graphic signs, and defending their “free speech”. New pro-choice groups on each campus are pushing back.

OCAC partnered with young Irish expats in Ontario surrounding the referendum. An OCAC member/activist also presented at the conference in Belfast.

Report from Ottawa

Prepared by Julie S. Lalonde

Things in Ottawa have been fairly quiet, in the best way. Ontario’s “Bubble Zone” legislation has made a huge difference here. We did encounter a number of anti-choicers protesting at various downtown spots during the fall of 2018. (Our Morgentaler clinic is located downtown). They all conveniently took up spots at exactly 150 meters away from the clinic, in high pedestrian traffic areas. They had their big graphic signs and a number of young people “just wanting to chat” with folks walking by, handing out pamphlets, that sort of thing. But no traffic in front of the clinic itself.

Otherwise the biggest issue remains “March for Life” and in particular, the pro-choice response. For years, a group of peaceful pro-choicers would counter-protest. The police would put up barricades. It was all relatively chill and straight forward. A few years ago, a direct action group calling themselves the Proletarian Feminist Front started showing up to counter-protest and their tactics resulted in a heavier police presence, several arrests and people getting pepper sprayed. This was a few years ago and it has really changed the dynamic of the counter-protest. Lots of people were turned off and it resulted in fewer people attending. Now it seems to be a smattering of different groups that organize the counter- demo and the hope for this year is that the PFF folks are outnumbered and slowly stop attending or deescalate their tactics.

It bums me out so hard that the pro-choice community can’t get their act together to show a united front against the antis, but that’s the nature of organizing in a highly educated, highly politicized community like Ottawa.

I think the pro-choice response to the March for Life happening in May will dictate how the community comes together (or not) around the upcoming federal election. (Defend Choice is one of the pro-choice groups that ARCC has worked with.)

Report from Alberta

By Kathy Dawson

Alberta Pro-choice Coalition is active on Twitter (@abprochoice), Facebook and has a website (abprochoice.ca) with 3 take action items:

  1. 211 networks
    1. Alberta 211 continues to list antis and responded to our petition November 2018 to indicate that our concerns would go to steering committee.  No response yet.
  2. Stop antichoice sex ed
    • Antichoice sex ed in the non-Catholic public schools has become an embarrassment to boards and antis are refusing to say what schools they are in. We discovered that fetus dolls are being brought into classrooms as early as kindergarten, bypassing the parental consent required for sex ed that begins in grade 4.
    •  Still a problem in the publicly funded Catholic and Christian schools
      • Signal Hill Kits and TeenStar program are allowing teachers to promote antichoice propaganda in schools
      • Curriculum is being updated and we will be writing a formal letter to the Minister of Education to request that medically accurate terminology be used in discussing fetal development.
      • Calgary Pregnancy Care Centre was finally removed from Calgary Board of Education schools
  3. Stop provincial funding
    1. Government has been funding the Central Alberta Pregnancy Care Centre Society of Alberta for many years.
      • Sole Source contract April 1, 2018 to September 30, 2018 $35,909
      • Still no official confirmation of contract end and this agency cites a grant worth $244K for maternity home operations.
    2. Summer Employment Programs (STEP & Canada Alberta Summer Jobs)
      • 2017-18
        • Crossroads Clinic Association                        $  1,950.68
        • Calgary Pregnancy Care Centre                        10,243.45
        • Lethbridge Pregnancy Care Centre                        809.59
    3. 2018-19 – Central Alberta Pregnancy Centre                  5,984.00

Maternity Homes:

  • The Central Alberta Pregnancy Care Centre Society has opened a maternity home
  • Lethbridge Prolife is also Elsie’s House
  • I have shared a list of maternity homes with Origins Canada – they are very concerned and there appear to be no regulations governing these homes. https://www.originscanada.org/
  • Crisis pregnancy centres and maternity homes: https://www.thenation.com/article/shotgun-adoption/

Lethbridge activists were successful in getting billboards and roadside advertising removed but unsuccessful in getting the antichoice memorial in Taber removed from the cemetery.

  1. Alberta procedure: 
    Contact the M.D. or County, or the Alberta Transportation office, in which the billboard is located. 

    For Alberta Transportation, you can go towww.transportation.alberta.ca – there is a map that sets out the districts so that the correct office can be contacted.

    There are two sources of governance with respect to billboards.
    The first source is provincial legislation under s.13(1) of the Highways Development & Protection Act, and s.11(1) of the accompanying Regulations under that statute.
  2. https://www.change.org/p/town-of-taber-remove-pro-life-ad-from-taber-cemetery

Bubble Zone – Bill 9 Protecting Choice for Women Accessing Healthcare passed.  Jason Kenney and the United Conservative Party refused to participate.

Abortion Access – Alberta NDP were in discussion with hospitals across Alberta to provide abortion access – no further information is available.

40 Days of Choice/Prochoice Prayer/40 Days of Action

  • Ran this program on Facebook and Twitter during the 40 Days of Praying.  Used memes from Faith Aloud and accompanied it with 40 Days of Action
  • Generally, well received but there was some pushback from the non-religious community.  We received more engagement from the religious pro-choice people.
  • Will run this again next year but need to update the memes to be trans inclusive.

Presented Defunding Antichoice at the 13th Biennial Western Canadian Conference on Sexual Health May 4-5, 2018 – well received.

Webinar – Developing a webinar for the Alberta Society for the Promotion of Sexual Health on Antichoice Movement in Canada https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/b053e1_17480262fa814330b93d42d005f5c19e.pdf.
Our webinar will consist of three modules, with exercises and discussion questions (to be delivered by Kathy and Joyce).

To Do:

  1. 2019 focus will be on the upcoming provincial election and the threat of the antichoice United Conservative Party.
  2. Lethbridge Birthright identified a potential casino license that could be worth around $80K bi-annually.
  3. Work continues on identifying and challenging antichoice grants (across Canada)
  4. Need to get commitment from Government of Alberta to regulate CPCs & maternity homes
  5. Access must be improved in Alberta: 2 clinics (Calgary and Edmonton), 2 hospitals (Calgary and Grande Prairie)

Executive Director’s Report

By Joyce Arthur, Vancouver

Status of Women capacity building grant application – ARCC applied for a capacity-building grant in early December from Status of Women Canada. If we get the grant, it would be over three years for a total of $329,000. This covers part-time wages for a Project Director and 2 or 3 Project Assistants. Activities are to support local grassroots groups and activists, and produce and implement a strategic plan and communications plan for ARCC, which includes upgrading our website and catching up on our translations to French. The project objective is to expand reproductive activism and reach in Canada by building greater capacity for ARCC, our supporters, and smaller grassroots groups. ARCC has never applied for a grant before.

Canada Summer Jobs – In August 2018, Employment Minister Patty Hajdu met with stakeholder groups across Canada, including pro-choice and LGBT groups in Vancouver. She wanted support with media to help defend the 2019 Canada Summer Jobs program. She indicated how the program would be adjusted, which it was in December. Anti-choice groups are still ineligible, as is any group that would use the CSJ funding to undermine rights or discriminate. Language around “core mandate” was deleted and much of the attestation language was moved to the Eligibility section, with a focus on the group’s activities. Although Joyce mobilized the Vancouver group in late fall to get ready to respond, when the new requirements were released, the Ministry was happy with the level of satisfaction expressed by churches and religious groups, so they asked us not to bring more attention to the program. We will revisit if negative coverage starts up again.

ARCC plans to apply for a CSJ grant this year. We have a potential student interested in doing projects for us, including the CPC disclosure bylaw project, and building a database of incidents of anti-choice harassment and violence in Canada.

Advertising Code project – Joyce worked with volunteer Zain Abdulla on a project to persuade cities and municipalities to cite the Canadian Code of Advertising Standards in their policies and bylaws, as a way to stop inaccurate or offensive anti-choice messaging, in particular the graphic signs and flyers of aborted fetuses that the extremist group CCBR shows and distributes. As they did in past years, CCBR was in many cities in 2018 showing these images and delivering flyers to residential mailboxes. ARCC is also targeting messaging for city-approved flags, proclamations, banners, and events that seek to undermine human rights. Since May, we have contacted over 70 cities and municipalities across Canada with our proposal. A significant number have expressed interest, and some are reviewing their bylaws/policies in light of our proposal, or actively assessing options to regulate the imagery. For example, Oakville passed a resolution to deal with it, and it looks like Sudbury will soon pass a motion to make more use of the Advertising Code. We also worked a lot with Toronto last year, which has been doing the most to address the graphic imagery, including allowing residents to use the Trespassing Act against the CCBR. In fact, any Ontario resident can do this.

Charity status of anti-choice groups – In November, we sent a detailed complaint to the Canada Revenue Agency and the Minister of National Revenue Diane Lebouthillier, regarding the Saskatchewan Pro-Life Association and their charitable “Educational Trust Foundation”. The Saskatchewan Pro-Life Association is a partisan political group and their two divisions appear indistinguishable and do not operate at arms length. So we raised the question of whether the political group is being funded by donations to its charitable Trust Foundation, which has no web presence and no activities as far as we could ascertain. We had also previously reported 44 charities over 2017 and 2018 but still have not heard anything back. None has had their status revoked yet as far as we know.

LEAF case –ARCC joined a LEAF-led committee (Legal Education and Action Fund) last fall to help with LEAF’s intervention in the case between Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons, and three Christian anti-choice medical groups plus five individual doctors. It’s against the College’s requirement for “effective referral” in cases where a healthcare provider objects to a treatment for personal or religious reasons. Our committee helped write an application to intervene, and once we were granted that, we helped to write the factum. Our arguments focus on women’s equality and reproductive healthcare, in that the College’s policy is necessary to protect women’s right to equitable access to care. Most other intervenors are focused on the Medical assistance in dying aspect. Not sure when the case will be heard, presumably in the spring.

CAP-Net pro-choice coalition –ARCC took the lead in 2017 at forming an adhoc coalition of pro-choice groups across Canada to have semi-regular teleconference calls 2 or 3 times 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’ve successfully had about 4 calls now, and while not all groups participate, those that do find it valuable. It’s serving as a useful way to connect with each other and support each other.

Protecting Ontario’s Safe Access Zone – ARCC was instrumental in getting a safe access zone passed in Ontario in 2017, but we fear it may be in danger of being repealed under the Doug Ford government. Joyce has re-connected the coalition of pro-choice groups and other stakeholders in Ontario that we put together at the time, in order to try and protect the law in case Ford decides to move on it. We hope he won’t, but we’ll be prepared with evidence that the law is working to keep clinics and patients safe. The first person arrested under the Act, Tony Van Hee of Ottawa, is in court Jan 24, so we’ll see if the gov’t chooses to defend the law.

Proclamations/flags in Yorkton and Saskatoon – ARCC continued its campaign of complaining to cities that permit anti-choice flags or proclamations. We recently letters to Yorkton and Saskatoon, asking them to rescind permission and to refrain from allowing it again.

CCBR bus ads – The controversy with the CCBR bus ads appears to be finally over. These ads appeared in Peterborough in April 2017, after the city caved into the CCBR (Canadian Centre for Bio-ethical Reform) because of a lawsuit threat. About a dozen other cities had refused to run the ads, and CCBR sued Grande Prairie Alberta and Translink in Vancouver. ARCC was heavily involved in this issue, helping cities and activists fight back. In December, the CCBR abandoned its Grande Prairie appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, having lost at two levels in Alberta. Both those decisions were very strong for our side, and now stand as precedent. Both decisions also supported cities’ use of the Canadian Code of Advertising Standards as a reasonable guide to approve or reject ads. In the Translink case, the BC Court of Appeal sent the matter back to Translink to review again, essentially giving them a second chance to reject the ad using better evidence, which they had not been allowed to introduce in the lower court decision. Oddly enough, CCBR called this a “big win” for them, even though it was more like a loss – no Charter issues were decided.

Health Canada website – In April, ARCC wrote to the federal Health Minister Ginette Petitpas-Taylor, asking her to beef up the Health Canada website with info on abortion – both medical and access info – so that this information is centralized on an accurate and reputable place, to help reduce the influence of anti-choice propaganda. We followed up in October, but have not heard anything. We do know that HC had shown interest in the idea when Don Davies raised it with them, and Action Canada has also been asking them to do something similar.

Anti-choice group list – We’ve extensively updated our comprehensive list of anti-choice groups. It now shows 313 anti-choice groups – 141 advocacy groups and 166 CPCs, and 6 abstinence education or adoption agencies. Of those, 72% have charitable tax status, including 88% of all CPCs. We also published a “Top 25” list of anti-choice groups by selecting what we believe are the largest, wealthiest, or worst groups in Canada (“worst” means most hateful or influential). We use this list to assist us with targeting anti-choice groups for revocation of gov’t funding or charitable tax status. 

List of Abortion Clinics – ARCC’s list of clinics (and some hospitals) now lists both surgical and medical abortion at clinics across Canada, as well as abortion doula and abortion support services (such as rides to clinics), and abortion fund information. We recently updated the Quebec section so it’s more complete, as well as in French. Many clinics contact us asking us to add or update their information, showing that our list is a much-used and trusted resource.

Canada Health Act amendment – We reported last year that ARCC was 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. But we’ve decided not to go ahead after getting advice that many abortion clinics are not accredited, and this could bring the risk of unwanted attention and more onerous and unnecessary requirements upon them.

International Conferences –

  • Joyce attended the National Abortion Federation conference in April in Seattle, but just the Canadian providers meeting. It was a great place to reconnect with folks across Canada and learn about their issues. Jill Doctoroff is the new Canadian director of NAF. ARCC was able to share some of the projects we’re working on, as well as contribute to a discussion of research needs.
  • Joyce attended the FIAPAC conference in Nantes France, where she gave a presentation on “conscientious commitment” of healthcare providers and activists who provide care and information on abortion in spite of restrictive laws. She also had two posters at the conference: one on the “Victims of conscientious objection” and one on the Canada Summer Jobs controversy. All were well received.
  • Joyce was invited to speak at a conference in Bangkok from Feb 19-22, called the International Congress on Women’s Health and Unsafe Abortion (IWAC). She will be delivering two talks, one on “conscientious commitment” and one “Victims of conscientious objection.”

Documentaries – Joyce is working with a local filmmaker, Adelina Suvagau, on a film series called “21st Century Abortion: the Underground Revolution”. It’s about the sea change in abortion provision through self-managed abortion by pills. The series will feature several groups who deliver pills to women in developing countries, including Women on Web and Women Help Women. The series will also feature ARCC and Joyce, and talk a bit about abortion care and politics in Canada. We are currently applying for funding to complete the series but have produced a 10-minute pilot.

Second, Joyce worked on a film called “Abandoned” featuring the stories of several women in western Europe who died or suffered serious injury after being refused an abortion on grounds of “conscience.” The film is finished and now being submitted to film festivals. A 30-minute version was shown at FIAPAC in France – where it was very well received – and will be shown at IWAC in Bangkok as well. Joyce is interviewed for the film, but also helped create the film, and set up and coordinated many of the interviews.

Position Papers – ARCC has now finished updating its several dozen position papers and added at least a dozen new ones. We’re currently in the process of getting the papers translated into French. (There’s still a few new papers we want to write, and two existing ones that we want to rewrite and combine into one – the two charity status papers).

Communications –ARCC continues to be highly active in disseminating information via its website, and through articles, our newsletter, media releases, our Facebook page, Twitter page, and speaking engagements. In 2018, we issued 3 press releases. Joyce and other ARCC spokespersons carried out many media interviews over the year. ARCC continues to operate two listservs for members only: Activist and News. Our website has been updated and will be moving to WordPress soon, with the help of ARCC member and volunteer Mary Linville.  

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