VANCOUVER—British Columbia’s former deputy premier and BC Liberal leader Rich Coleman is facing criticism once more after speaking at an anti-abortion protest Thursday — at which one of his fellow speakers compared the procedure to the Holocaust.

His BC Liberal party, which he led before Andrew Wilkinson took over, said it remains pro-choice — even as Coleman insisted later he “did not refer to abortion” when he said “to do things with the right to life … at the beginning of life is totally, totally wrong.”

Just last week, the Langley East MLA landed in hot water for comparing NDP farm reforms to Nazis’ treatment of Jews, for which he later apologized. But he claimed on Twitter that endorsing the “National March for Life” event was not abortion-related.

“I did not refer to abortion,” Coleman said on Twitter. “I do not judge. I’m entitled, as any person, is to my faith.”

“We have to value life at all ages, from birth to its natural end,” Coleman told a Victoria crowd gathered as part of annual cross-Canada rallies, including a large one at Parliament Hill in Ottawa. “The fact that somebody wants to do things with the right to life at the end of life, or the right to life at the beginning of life, is totally, totally wrong for me.”

Coleman was joined on the legislature steps by Throness, the BC Liberals’ appointed critic for children and families, who told the anti-abortion crowd “don’t back down and don’t apologize.”

Throness was parliamentary secretary for public safety until 2017; Coleman served as B.C.’s public safety minister in the early 2000s.

Requests for comment from Coleman and Throness were not successful, but a party spokesperson told the Star Vancouver “they attended the rally on their own time.”

Wilkinson, the BC Liberals’ leader, tweeted that “while we are a big-tent party that includes many views and faiths, our position as a party has not changed in that we support a woman’s right to choose.”

That explanation didn’t cut if for Joyce Arthur, executive director for the Vancouver-based Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada. She said it’s “meaningless” to say the MLAs’ speeches were on their on time since they are on taxpayer salaries and have official roles in the government Opposition.

“They’re public figures, people see them speaking and assume they’re there in an official capacity,” Arthur argued. “You can’t say ‘everyone in our party can have diverse views,’ because they’re talking about subordinating women to their fetuses by law — which would cost women their lives.

“Making abortion illegal, as these rallies want to do, means enforced birth … It’s completely inappropriate for an elected representative to publicly oppose the Charter rights of women.”

She suggested the BC Liberals look to federal Liberal leader Justin Trudeau for an example of taking a “harder line” when it comes to balancing individual views with the parties’ public commitments — and publicly distancing themselves from them.

“It’s OK if you want to be a so-called pro-life politician, but you can’t act on that in your capacity in the government,” Arthur said.

The annual cross-country protests denounced the lack of abortion laws in the country — ever since the Supreme Court of Canada struck down a law forcing women to get permission from a hospital medical committee, at the time made up mostly of male doctors, if they wanted to end their pregnancies.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Those committees could only permit an abortion if continuing the pregnancy would endanger the “life or health” of the woman, the court said at the time, and anyone who did not comply faced “potential criminal liability of both the applicant and the physician who performs the operation.”

The judges concluded the previous reproductive laws led to the “deprivation of a pregnant woman’s right to security of the person.”

New Democrat MLA Shane Simpson blasted Coleman and Throness on Twitter, saying they “have a right to their faith” but not the “right to impose that faith on a woman’s reproductive rights including choice. That is what they are calling for.”

Last week, Coleman was criticized for comparing to the Holocaust an NDP government bill changing the way landowners can ask to remove farmland preservation status from their properties — the comment made in the Legislature on Yom Hashoah, international Holocaust Remembrance Day. (He subsequently apologized on Twitter, and his party distanced itself from his remarks as unacceptable, though without naming who had made them.)

B.C. law protects citizens’ right to speak their views on issues such as reproductive health, with the exception of within a 50-metre “bubble zone” near a health clinic providing abortion services.

Students for Life spokesperson Autumn Lindsay was one of Coleman and Throness’ fellow speakers on the stage Friday. She compared abortions to the Holocaust.

“During the time of the Holocaust, people were sent off to the concentration camps … Today we face a similar problem,” she told the crowd, who applauded. “People are being devalued and they are being killed because of it … We have abortion facilities behind our homes, our grocery stores and our schools.

“We have to take action and do something; we have to disrupt the cycle.”

Neither Coleman nor Throness commented on the comparison at the time, nor condemned it since.n.”

Update, May 11, 2019: This article has been amended from an earlier version.

Read more:

‘Sickening to the bone’ to hear B.C. farm law compared to Holocaust, Jewish farmer says

March for Life brings tense topic of abortion rights to steps of Legislature

Alberta anti-choice advocates secretly supporting UCP candidates to influence legislation

Read more about: