Josie Luetke:
On May 10, 2023, Campaign Life Coalition planned to display abortion victim photography during its National March for Life press conference, but the Parliamentary Protective Service (PPS) prohibited us from doing so. I was aghast—how could we be allowed to display the same signs on the city sidewalk, but not on Parliament Hill? Of all places to protest in the entire country, why did the front lawn of our federal legislature, where freedom of expression presumably ought to be maximized, have stricter rules than anywhere else?
Indeed, as I found out, the signs were deemed impermissible under both the 2018 and the recently implemented 2023 General Rules for the Use of Parliament Hill. The former prohibited “messages that are obscene, offensive and/or promote hatred,” and the latter prohibit “obscene messages or messages that promote hatred or violence,” as well as “signs or banners that display explicit graphic violence or blood.”
(This is ironic, considering that Parliament itself promotes the violence of abortion, and we were on Parliament Hill to condemn just that. Perhaps we should have clarified that the signs were not advertisements.)
With the help of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, Campaign Life Coalition commenced a roller coaster of a legal challenge that would span three years.
Counsel for the PPS argued that the signs promoted hatred against post-abortive women and abortionists and frankly claimed our speech to be “misleading, false, and discriminatory.”
Thankfully, Justice Calum MacLeod of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice was not as feverish. In a decision released on June 11, 2026, he ruled that the PPS unjustifiably breached our Charter right to freedom of expression, characterizing their actions as “unreasonable” and “disproportionate.” He rejected the “subjective” interpretation of “obscenity” that the PPS relied on instead of its Criminal Code definition. He also called it “a bit of a leap to categorize the images as promoting hate or violence” simply for “describe(ing) abortion as murder and those involved in abortion as murderers” (which, by the way, we did not explicitly do—this was an inference of PPS’ counsel).
Their counsel had accused us of “mislead(ing) the public” by identifying the “alleged fetuses” on the signs as “younger than they really are,” using imagery “that is manipulated and/or completely unrepresentative of Canadian abortion methods,” and “informing the public that abortion is akin to intentional killing — murder.” Much of my own cross-examination revolved around whether the signs were dated according to fetal age or gestational age.
Justice MacLeod was able to cut through the noise, recognizing this dispute as “not germane” to the questions at hand, namely the protection of our Charter rights. He commented, “Certainly, the outcome of this Application cannot turn on different methods of dating the age of a fetus.”
He demonstrated remarkable lucidity, more than most are seemingly capable of, in articulating the motivations for displaying abortion victim photography in the first place: “There is no doubt that the images were graphic, bloody, and disturbing. That is their point.” He added later, “The signs were described by one of the constables as ‘abhorrent’. That is undoubtedly true and is precisely the objective of communication designed to persuade members of the public that abortion itself is an abhorrent practice.”
What criticism can you launch at the signs that you do not also launch at abortion? What do you think abortion is, if not abhorrent? And if I haven’t lost you between Point A and Point B, does it perhaps also follow that it’s tone deaf to be policing images of abortion and not abortion itself?
Justice MacLeod also acknowledged that “there is active debate about the point where termination of pregnancy is ethical and should be legal.” (Tell that to Parliament.)
At the same time, his ignorance slipped through when he claimed, “There is no general acceptance of the idea that the rights of an unborn fetus should always take priority over the rights of the living.” The unborn are living, and it’s not that they take priority over anyone else—it’s that the right to life ought to take priority.
Most tragically, Justice MacLeod declined to strike down the Rules for the Hill themselves, as the rule-makers, the members of the Committee on the Use of Parliament Hill, were not party to the proceedings. The PPS, Justice MacLeod wrote, “should not be called upon to justify the rules it is told to enforce.” Conceivably, then, we could apply to hold another press conference, with the same signs, and because the 2023 Rules barring “signs or banners that display explicit graphic violence or blood” are still in place, having mostly been sidelined in this case, the PPS could invoke them to once again obstruct our efforts to expose the injustice of abortion. Our work remains unfinished.
All in all, it’s a victory, but not a total one—a beachhead, but with less traction than we’d hope for. Onto the next battle.
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