BY PATRICK B. CRAINE
Thu Mar 14, 2013 10:38 EST
WATERLOO, Ontario, March 14, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Canadian MP was forced to cancel a talk at the University of Waterloo on Wednesday night as pro-abortion advocates shouted him down.
Pro-life MP Stephen Woodworth delivered the first third of his presentation at the event, organized by Waterloo Students for Life, before the protesters – one dressed up as female genitalia – got up and occupied his platform.
MP Stephen Woodworth speaks to a [FASCIST] protester dressed up as female genitalia
“Who do you think you are, trying to impose your bigotry, your views, on society?” shouted the costumed heckler as she prevented Woodworth from speaking.
Although campus security was present, the pro-life organizers say they failed to take any kind of action to allow Mr. Woodworth to continue his presentation. When asked to intervene, say the organizers, security said they would not unless the protesters became violent.
Campus security said they “couldn’t do anything because [the protesters] had the right to free speech as much as Mr. Woodworth did,” explained Clarissa Luluquisin, Central Campus Coordinator of theNational Campus Life Network, who attended the event.
Luluquisin said Students for Life is an approved club and they had booked the space properly.
“I asked, what if this were a lecture and the students were talking while the professor was teaching? And the officer said, no that’s a different context,” she said.
Contacted for comment, the University of Waterloo’s media relations officer, Pamela Smyth, told LifeSiteNews.com she was unaware of the incident but would look into it and respond.
Woodworth, a Conservative MP for the Kitchener Centre riding, brought forward Motion 312 at the House of Commons last year, calling for a re-examination of the 400 year-old definition of a human being in section 223(1) of Canada’s Criminal Code. His presentation on Wednesday was to address that topic as well as to take questions from the audience.
"The conduct of these protesters suggests they may consider the philosophy of hatred and disrespect for others to be a virtue rather than the self-limiting prison it really is,” Woodworth told LifeSiteNews. “Above all, their conduct reveals why it is so dangerous that subsection 223(1) legitimizes a power for the State to designate someone as non-human without the slightest regard for their actual nature as a human being.”
“In everything we do, thinking Canadians must model and teach that love and respect for others are a better standard,” he added.
“We understand that there are strong opinions when it comes to an issue like abortion. But we expected better from our peers at the university,” said Hannah Bailey, president of Waterloo Students for Life. “Their behaviour was an embarrassment to the entire university community.”
“This is an elected member of our government speaking at an institution that is supposed to have a high value for free speech,” said Luluquisin. “Instead of respectfully listening and then asking questions, we see that the protestors preferred to cling to a few pieces of rhetoric rather than listening to anything Mr. Woodworth might say.”
Video of the protest is available at the National Campus Life Network's website.
Contact info:
Feridun Hamdullahpur, President of the University of Waterloo
president@uwaterloo.ca
Ottawa cop takes camera from pro-lifer filming arrest-threat, deletes all files
BY PETER BAKLINSKI
Thu Mar 14, 2013 16:09 EST
OTTAWA, March 14, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – An Ottawa pro-lifer filming police threatening a peaceful pro-life activist with arrest is not happy after a city constable allegedly demanded that he hand over his camera and then proceeded to delete all his files.
Bruneau was across the street from the Morgentaler Clinic on Bank Street Thursday afternoon. He was filming police who were threatening to arrest pro-life activist Cyril Winter for standing directly in front of the clinic with pro-life signs, one of which displayed the name of abortionist Kathryn Treehuba who works at the clinic.
Bruneau said that he was filming the police activity for about half an hour — from a safe distance — when a constable with the last name Clark exited a police vehicle and made his way across the street to where Bruneau was filming.
“When the constable saw me videotaping, he crossed the street, came over and insisted on having my camera,” said Donald Bruneau to LifeSiteNews.com.
“He came right over to me, and asked for my camera,” he stated. “I said, ‘That's my personal property. I’m not doing anything wrong. By what law can you insist on me handing over my camera?’”
“He could not give me a law and insisted I hand the camera and my identification over to him,” he said. Bruneau said that he handed the camera and ID over since he did not want to be charged with “failing to comply”.
A photo taken of Donald Bruneau after his camera was returned.
He saw the constable cross the street and enter the abortion clinic. The constable then returned less then an hour later with Bruneau's camera and driver's license. The constable then allegedly proceeded to tell Bruneau that it was not right for him to be filming police activity.
When Bruneau checked his camera, everything, including his own personal files, had been erased.
“All of my photos and the videos I had taken were erased. I had hundreds of precious photos destroyed by his deletion of my files,” he said.
LifeSiteNews.com contacted the Professional Standards section of Ottawa’s police department and asked if it was proper protocol for a constable to confiscate a camera used to film police activity and destroy the digital property within.
Staff Sergeant Carl Cartright, who heads the Professional Standards department, replied: “You just asked me a question if police officers are allowed to destroy property, so obviously I don’t even have to answer that…Are we allowed to go haphazardly destroying things? No, of course we’re not.”
Bruneau said that he will file a complaint against the constable who destroyed his property.
“I find this to be police bullying,” he said. “He destroyed my personal property. It’s not right.”
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