Ontario Community Newspapers

Oakville Beaver, 13 Aug 2015, p. 12

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www.insideHALTON.com | OAKVILLE BEAVER | Thursday, August 13, 2015 | 12 Different group behind protest than delivered flyers by David Lea Oakville Beaver Staff Oakville residents were protesting again this week -- after seeing graphic anti-abortion imagery on handheld, billboard-style placards -- during a prolife group's demonstration at Trafalgar and Upper Middle roads Tuesday morning. It came on the heels of the delivery of graphic flyers at local homes, but two different groups are responsible for the recent blitzes. Residents reported a group of 10 to 20 protesters stood in lines at the intersection, holding placards featuring images said to be fetuses, aborted at various stages of development. "It was disgusting," one resident told the Oakville Beaver. "There's a lot of them and they are standing six to eight feet apart holding these signs so there is no way you can shield anyone from seeing them. I've never seen anything this graphic, other than a flyer I got in my mailbox recently." While demonstrators have not been successfully reached for comment yet, the protest appears to hail from the prolife organization, Show the Truth. According to the group's website, the Ontario-based organization has more than moving sale S O u t h O a k v i l l e C e n t Re Skyway Jewellers % 100 dedicated volunteers across Canada. Show the Truth says its goal is to ultimately end abortion in Canada by showing the Canadian public graphic abortion imagery. "Our strategy is to show the images of aborted children to the public in the form of large signs depicting first and second trimester abortions," reads an excerpt on www.showthetruth.ca. "We focus on vehicular and pedestrian traffic, and frequently show the signs outside of high schools." A message posted on the group's Facebook page Tuesday thanked their supporters in Oakville for all their help in making their presentation possible. 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Maid Right and JAN-PRO International are subsidiaries of Premium Franchise Brands LLC. minds of those who drove or walked past our signs today." The group is currently engaged in a `Truth Tour,' which will see it bring its anti-abortion message to several Canadian cities. A group practising the same tactics visited Burlington Wednesday morning, protesting at the intersection of Brant Street and North Service Road. The Town of Oakville and Halton police received multiple complaints about the Oakville demonstration. Halton police spokesperson Sgt. Chantal Corner said that as long as the protest remains peaceful and the demonstrators do not block traffic or the sidewalks, there is nothing police can do. "We have no teeth when it comes to stuff like that," she said. In July, police did act when Show the Truth demonstrated in Kingston, arresting a man who allegedly vandalized one of the group's signs with paint. While the protest did take place on public property, representatives of the Town of Oakville admitted their hands are similarly tied. Town staff noted demonstrations or protests on public property are protected by the right to freedom of peaceful assembly as well as the right to freedom of expression, which are guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Some Oakville residents however feel their own rights are being violated by the group's actions. "You can have whatever beliefs you have about abortion, but I don't think they have the right to violate people's rights not to see very upsetting things," said one resident. "These are public roads. You are taking kids, who are very young on these roads and these are very, very graphic images. I don't think they have a right to show these to little kids and everybody... "My son has autism and he gets severely affected by images like these. I'm thankful he didn't see these because it would have meant many weeks of meltdowns and tantrums. So I don't think these people have the right to subject people to things like that." It is not known whether more Show the Truth demonstrations are planned for Oakville. The Show the Truth tour reached Oakville as another pro-life campaign using graphic anti-abortion imagery wraps up. Throughout the summer the #NO2Trudeau Campaign, carried out by the national pro-life groups the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform (CCBR) and the Campaign Life Coalition, saw graphic anti-abortion flyers placed in residents' mailboxes or on their door-steps. The flyers criticized Justin Trudeau's policy on abortion and featured a photograph of the Liberal leader along with an image of what the flyer claims to be an aborted 10-week-old fetus. Jonathon Van Maren, communications director for CCBR, previously said 40,000 of these flyers would be delivered to Oakville households as part of what he claimed was the biggest anti-abortion campaign in Canadian history. On Tuesday, Aug. 11, Van Maren said the entire Oakville riding had been completed, so there will be no more postcards delivered. It is not clear whether the campaign will continue in the Oakville-North Burlington riding. Van Maren also defended claims made by some residents that people delivering #NO2Trudeau flyers had put the material into the hands of children on some occasions. "We don't hand flyers to small children during our displays or our postcard distribution," he said in an email. "Either that would be a different group, or the person doing so would be reprimanded."

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