Quebec Minister’s Cancellation of Event Citing ‘Anti-Abortion’ Stance Is Discriminatory: Christian Group

Quebec Tourism Minister Caroline Proulx speaks at the legislature in Quebec City on May 9, 2023. The Canadian Press/Jacques Boissinot

A Christian organization is threatening legal action against Quebec Tourism Minister Caroline Proulx for cancelling an event it had organized, deeming it as being against abortion and not in line with Quebec’s principles.

B.C.-based Harvest Ministries International says the event it had planned to hold at the Quebec City Convention Centre does not have a pro-life theme and is an overall religious, cultural, and artistic event.

“You attached the label ‘anti-abortion’ to an event that was nothing of the sort,” said a letter the organization’s lawyers sent to Proulx on June 5.

“Even if the theme of the Rally were ‘anti-abortion’ (we deny it), your decision to ban my client from the Convention Centre—and from all similar provincial Crown properties—would be abusive, discriminatory and an attack on the fundamental freedoms of expression and religion, without a shred of reasonable justification.”

Harvest Ministries is threatening legal action if the minister does not reinstate, by June 8, the contract she told the Quebec City Convention Centre to cancel. The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) is providing the organization’s legal representation.

Neither Proulx nor the convention centre replied to Epoch Times inquiries as of publication time.

“Our government is resolutely pro-choice, and it is a subject that has a broad consensus in Quebec,” Proulx told Radio Canada in French.

Convention centre CEO Pierre-Michel Bouchard told Radio Canada that “freedom of expression is the rule. In this case, as a Crown corporation, we think it is our role to adhere to certain values ​​that the government promotes.”

He said contracts have been cancelled at the centre in two other instances. In one case, the client refused to translate documents into French. In the other, the event was related to cannabis.

JCCF said in a June 7 press release that Proulx had instructed Bouchard on or about June 2 to cancel the rental arranged in February by Harvest Ministries. The event,  marketed under the banner “Battle for Canada” and titled “Prepare the Way,” was scheduled for June 23 to July 2.

JCCF said no anti-abortion speeches, performances, screenings or themes were planned for the event. The Harvest Ministries website does have a link to another website titled Canadian Firewall 3.0 that mentions abortion under its “prayer targets.”

It says that since there are no restrictions on abortions in Canadian law, “the mother’s womb [is] the most unsafe place for a child in Canada. We need to pray for the sanctity of life.”

Pastor Art Lucier, leader of Harvest Ministries, said in the JCCF release that the government’s actions violate freedom of expression and belief.

“Everyone has the right to express their convictions and deeply held values, even if they are in the minority or unpopular. In Québec, as in the rest of Canada, state arbitrariness, censorship and discrimination have no place,” he said.

Lucier estimates the financial losses from cancelling the event at about $450,000.

“If the Québec government does not reverse its decision, we will quickly go to court and seek not only damages, but also punitive damages and constitutional redress,” he said.