By Augustin Hamilton (Quebec Life Coalition) - Photo: Georges Buscemi

It was an epic and wet march!

This year, once again, we held the Quebec City March for Life despite all the obstacles that were thrown in our path and despite the rain.

Around 500 to 600 pro-lifers answered the call from Quebec Life Coalition and marched for the lives of unborn children through the streets of Quebec City on May 31th 2025.

Photo: Augustin Hamilton

The theme of the march was "Every human being has the right to life". This is a quote from the Quebec Charter, the 50th anniversary of which is being celebrated this year.

Photo: AH

By Brian Jenkins (Quebec Life Coalition)

40 Days for Life

The 40-day prayer vigil to end of abortion ended this past Sunday, April 13. Between ten and twelve people showed up for the 3 p.m. conclusion. At that time, we prayed the Chaplet of Divine Mercy on the streets of Montreal. The group then moved to the chapel across the street where we spent thirty minutes in Eucharistic Adoration before closing with a time of fraternity at a local restaurant.

A few of the vigil highlights include: an increase in volunteers to pray at the vigil downtown location, more occurrences in pro-life apologetics, and meeting with men and women grieving a past abortion or miscarriage.

Enceinte? Inquiète?

In 2024, we were blessed to help between four and five women carry their child to term. Now in 2025, they are celebrating the one-year anniversary of these children. I’ve been invited to two birthday parties. Two of the women we've helped gave birth to twins, one set is pictured below.

Photo: Freepik

As the 2025 Canadian federal elections approach, voters who care deeply about promoting a Culture of Life often wonder how they should cast their votes. The decision depends not only on the individual positions of the candidates but also on those of their parties and their leaders. Quebec Life Coalition offers here an overview of the parties and their leaders regarding key issues related to faith, family, and life, as well as some general recommendations on voting strategies.

Positions of Main Federal Parties and Leaders

Liberal Party of Canada (Mark Carney)

Under the leadership of Mark Carney, the Liberal Party actively promotes abortion, which Carney has called a "fundamental right." The Liberal Party also supports euthanasia and strongly promotes LGBT ideology, including gender ideology. The party systematically excludes all pro-life candidates and regularly opposes freedom of conscience and religion, notably through restrictive legislation on freedom of speech.

Conservative Party of Canada (Pierre Poilievre)

Under Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative Party tolerates the presence of pro-life candidates, though its leader has stated he does not intend to introduce legislation against abortion. However, the party remains the only major party to allow its MPs free votes on moral issues, which, in theory, makes possible the adoption of pro-life and pro-family measures. Poilievre holds a moderate stance on euthanasia and opposes certain extreme manifestations of gender ideology, especially as they affect children.

Last week, I was in London, England to take part in the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference. This is a part 2 for my blog on this subject. 

I met and spoke to well over a hundred people over the three days conference. Most times, I was able to share about the reality we face here in Canada, since, as you know, Canada is the worse place in the world where in comes to abortion laws, and it is also the worse place in the world when it comes to euthanasia. Our Canadian reality can definitely bring some insight to the pro-life struggle in other countries. I was also able to soak in what is happening in other countries, and learn about pro-life struggles in Scottland, Slovenia, Hungary, Poland, Honduras, Bulgaria, Nigeria, Uganda, Australia, North Korea, and several more. 

Here are a few interactions that I had. This is, of course, a non-extensive list.

The first Prime Minister of Slovenia, Lojze Peterle, expressed a strong pro-life position and vision at our Sunday pro-life gathering. At a later event, he followed up a speech by Katalin Novak (former president of Hungary) by playing for us his harmonica.

Photo: Arpad. Arpad with Lojze Peterle at ARC2025

Katalin Novak, the former president of Hungary was one of more important presenters for me. She spoke to the whole crowd of 4000 on several occasions and gave several speeches at some side events. Her story is very interesting. After implementing inspiring and impactful family policies in Hungary, she became the president of Hungary. After a controversial departure from the presidency, Novak went back to doing groundbreaking work for families, but this time, worldwide. The organization she founded with filmmaker Stephen Shaw (X-Y worldwide) is now exposing the radical fall in birthrates worldwide. 

Photo: Arpad. Arpad with Katalin Novak at ARC2025

I got to meet Konstantin Kisin, author, comedian and host of Triggernometry podcast. He gave a good presentation on why we shouldn’t forget our roots and we should face the future.

Photo: Arpad. Arpad with Konstantin Kisin at ARC2025

I attended a side event called Them Before Us: Rebuilding a Child-Centric Society. The polish panelist (who is speaking in the picture below) gave some practical insight in what worked in Poland, but also on what did not work. She provided a realistic view on what can be done to promote families through public policy. 

Photo: Arpad. Panel discussion at ARC2025

There were many exhibition booths at the conference. Here is one of the only French ones! I connected with Brice who is involved with several conservative political organizations in France. (He also in an elected politician in their government). We spoke about several issues, including sovereignty, conservative values, the pro-life world view and societal reform. He connected me with some other francophones at the conference, including a researcher who does work on the issue of demographics in France. 

Photo: Arpad. Arpad with Brice at ARC2025

Among the many people I randomly started a conversation with, Thomas Straub was a member of the German parliament, running for re-election. We had a good conversation about Christian values in society. 

Photo: Arpad. Arpad with Thomas Straub at ARC2025

I finally met with some of the staff of the Danube Institute in Budapest. The Danube institute does research related to our issues, and I am interested in how their ideas in Europe can translate to here in Quebec. 

Photo: Arpad. Arpad with three staff from the Danube Institute at ARC2025

Among the notable presenters at this conference there are the founders of ARC, Jordan Peterson and Philippa Stroud. Some other notable speaker are Bishop Barron, Vivek Ramaswamy, Tony Abbott, Os Guinness, Nigel Farage, the current US speaker of the House Mike Johnson, Mary Harrington, Leslyn Lewis, Jonathan Pageau (from here in Quebec), Jason Kenny, Erica Komisar, Coptic Archbishop Angaelos and many more. All of the speakers addressed world issues in regard to their respective fields of expertise.

From the pro-life point of view, one thing unites all of these presenters: the world that they want to create is one that is conducive to the respect of life. In our current world, everything constantly attacks the sanctity of life. ARC, on the other hand, is proposing a worldview where family is at the core of society, where there is an emphasis on moral responsibility and traditional values, where protecting human dignity is of primal importance and where a sense of cultural and societal responsibility is promoted.

As pro-life individuals, we do want to create a society where life is honored and protected from the very beginning till the very end, and moving forward, ARC participants can be key in working towards our goal. 

By Brian Jenkins (Quebec Life Coalition) - Photo: gpointstudio/Freepik

Building a culture of life is a top-down exercise. God, our creator, is atop and we, his creatures, below, conforming to his precepts, acting in accord, in one heart, with him.

An example of this happened past week. Jennifer, a woman with whom I work closely, received a phone call. It was from a mother that she and I had helped some time ago. This mother was calling on behalf of another mother whose child had outgrown his clothes and so the mother wondered whether another needy mother could benefit from a gift of these clothes, two boxes full. She contacted her friend who remembered Jennifer. Jennifer called me to ask if Daniella, who had twins three weeks ago, would be interested. As I later found out, she was. So began a chain of events to deliver the clothes.

Barbara Bonner (left) taking part in the Vigil 365, October 2022.

By Brian Jenkins (Quebec Life Coalition)

This past Thanksgiving Monday, one of the Quebec Life Coalition more enthousiastic supporters was called home to our Heavenly Father. Barbara Bonner died peacefully surrounded by family at the Saint Gabriel Palliative care centre in Montreal.

Over the twelve or so years I have been part of Montreal’s pro-life movement, Barbara was present at various and numerous occasions. She played an integral part of the annual corn-on-the-cob event at our offices, coordinating the preparation of the corn. She participated regularly in the outdoor prayer vigils for the end of abortion, from the initial moments when we prayed on St. Joseph Blvd in 2009 and then moving with us to the Berri and St. Catherine Streets site. And she did exemplary work replacing me a year ago to coordinate the 40 Days for Life prayer vigil while I did likewise in Sherbrooke.

The following personal testimony from Denis Beaudoin, another volunteer with QLC, aptly describes how we all felt about Barbara.

A Eulogy for Barbara Bonner, by Denis Beaudoin

Barbara, a devout Catholic and deeply involved volunteer in the Pro-Life cause, passed away this past Thanksgiving Monday. Barbara was a genuinely nice person, and I loved her very much. Always smiling, with her great interpersonal skills, she sometimes led us into interesting discussions on spiritual matters and the lives of the saints. She took on the responsibility of making the calls to ensure a presence of praying volunteers at the 40 Days for Life in Montreal last fall (2023), Brian being at the 40 Days for Life Vigil in Sherbrooke. I am going to miss seeing her. I am going to miss those discussions at the Second Cup on Saint-Denis Street after prayer time. Many people knew her better than I did, and appreciated this simple, pious woman of faith. Let us pray for her, her family, and her friends. Directly to Heaven? - Here's a text message I received: “While she (Barbara’s sister) was praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet, at the end Barbara passed silently away!” According to St. Faustina Kowalska's diary, when the Divine Mercy Chaplet is recited at the bedside of a dying person, the soul goes straight to Heaven, without Judgment and without passing through Purgatory.

Protests at the Supreme Court of the United States on the day Roe vs Wade was overturned.
"2022.06.24 Roe v Wade Overturned – SCOTUS, Washington, DC USA 175 143227" by Ted Eytan is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

By Georges Buscemi, President of Campagne Québec-Vie

Last year’s reversal of the Roe vs. Wade decision in the U.S. may have prompted some to believe that a tectonic shift was underway in favour of the protection of unborn life in the U.S. and around the world. However, this stunning pro-life victory, which abolishes any so-called “right” to abortion in the U.S. and grants states the right to limit—or liberalize—abortion as they see fit, as epochal as it may be, should motivate pro-lifers to deepen their view of the battle against abortion, if they wish to make any long-term progress. For, as I have argued elsewhere, the fight over abortion is symptomatic of a deeper cultural battle between two opposing worldviews: the first an a-religious “liberal” worldview, and the second a non-liberal, religious worldview. While the fall of Roe is good news for the pro-life side, the ultimate defeat of abortion will depend on each country’s success, on both an individual and societal level, at rejecting the “pro-choice” or liberal worldview and adopting the religious one.

My diagnosis seems to have been at least partially confirmed by a recent Pew Research Center study on Global Attitudes to Abortion and Religion. Published on June 20, this international survey of 24 countries in the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia, first reveals a disturbing truth, that favourable attitudes towards legal abortion predominate in Europe and North America. In Canada, for example, over 75% of the population agrees that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, whereas 17% wishes it were illegal. In the UK, 84% of the population favours legal abortion and 14% opposes it, while in the U.S., 62% believe that abortion should remain legal in all or most cases, whereas 36% say the opposite. In certain European countries, the situation is far more dire: in Sweden, for example, an overwhelming 95% of the population thinks abortion should be legal in all or most cases, with a barely measurable remnant of 2 or 3 percent thinking otherwise.

But what I consider the most interesting part of this study is its demonstration that attitudes to abortion are very closely related to attitudes towards religion. This study shows that in country after country, with very few exceptions, religious adherence (or lack thereof) precisely predicts whether the country will be disposed or not to legalizing abortion. In Indonesia, for example, where 97% of the country’s 274 million people deem religion to be “very” important, fully 83% think that abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. Conversely, in the land of Ikea (Sweden) where 95% agree that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, a corresponding 74% believe religion to be not at all or not too important to them. In other words, the more religious, the more pro-life and conversely, the more a-religious, the more “pro-choice” or favourable to legal abortion.

William after his healing, pictured at St. Joseph's Oratory —Photo: Catherine Lavoie

By Joanne of Arc (Quebec Life Coalition)

Catherine Lavoie experienced a conversion to the Catholic faith in 2012. Today, she is a mother of seven children and they all live in Valleyfield with her husband. Catherine has contacted us because she wanted to share her personal story on abortion with Quebec Life Coalition.

Catherine told us the story of William, her son who is now 16 years old, but who could have been aborted when Catherine was a teenager. When she was pregnant with William, at the 20-week ultrasound, doctors discovered abnormalities and transferred her to Sainte-Justine Hospital for more tests. Then, at almost 30 weeks of pregnancy, she was offered a late-term abortion.

This was in 2006 and Catherine was only 16 years old. The following is Ms. Lavoie's testimony.

Catherine Lavoie: It happened at Sainte-Justine Hospital. I know I'm not the only one who was asked to terminate a viable pregnancy (...) I have a friend whose baby was followed at Sainte-Justine Hospital, because he had malformations and the couple decided to do the procedure...

By Joanne of Arc for Quebec Life Coalition - Photo: Joanne of Arc

This fall, hundreds of communities across North America and several Canadian cities simultaneously organized a 40 Days for Life campaign from September 28 to November 6, 2022.

The 40 Days for Life is a focused pro-life effort that consists of:

• 40 days of prayer and fasting to end abortion
• 40 days of peaceful vigil
• 40 days of community awareness

I was present in Sherbrooke on the 31st day to report on this event. Brian Jenkins, who is the leader of the team, was on place to give me a warm welcome. This man spends 12 hours a day outside, from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. during the 40 days, as an advocate for life. He takes a break at noon, during which Mr. Gerard replaces him, for the entire length of the 40-day vigil. The vigil participants vary from day to day, but Brian and Gerard are present daily.

By law, Brian and the other participants must not be within 50 meters of a facility where abortions take place, in this case the CLSC Belvédère (Local Community Services Center). So far, there have been no counter-demonstrators, whereas last year a pro-choice group of 100 people gathered against 3-4 people who were doing the vigil. Gerard shares with me that the Sherbrooke police supported the vigil participants last year, and since then they have been supported by the Sherbrooke authorities. Brian has a working relationship with the police of Sherbrooke and can count on them for their help to maintain their safety.

CLSC Belvédère in Sherbrooke - Photo: Joanne of Arc

The Life Chain, a pro-life demonstration organized in Montreal on Sunday, October 2nd near the Namur metro station.

By Joanne of Arc (Quebec Life Coalition) - Photo: Joanne of Arc

On Sunday afternoon, October 2nd, Quebec Life Coalition organized an annual event called the Life Chain.

Each year, on the first Sunday of October, pro-life activists gather to form anti-abortion prayer chains in Canada and the United States. Their goal is to share a message in support of the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death. In Montreal, the Life Chain has been organized since 1991, while in the United States it began in 1987. In 1990, Campaign Life Coalition began this activity in Canada.

Sunday's demonstration in Montreal took place near the Namur metro station, at the corner of Décarie Boulevard and Jean-Talon Street. On that sunny day, the group numbered about 20 people, both men and women, holding signs with messages in French and English such as:

• "Abortion kills children"
• "Yes to adoption"
• "Jesus forgives and heals"
• "Pray for an end to abortion"