Hamilton

Sam Oosterhoff cancels visit to school where students protested his abortion comments

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Oosterhoff had a scheduling conflict, his office says

Jessie Hendriks, Mickaël Girouard and Benoit St-Aubin, students at Jean-Vanier in Welland, used social media to protest a visit from MPP Sam Oosterhoff, citing Oosterhoff's stance on abortion. (Colin Côté-Paulette/CBC)

Three students at a Welland French Catholic school protested a scheduled visit from Sam Oosterhoff this week after the Niagara West MPP took the stage at Queen's Park to speak against abortion.

Oosterhoff ended up not coming, but his office said it was a scheduling conflict.

Jessie Hendriks, Mickaël Girouard and Benoit St-Aubin say Oosterhoff was scheduled to visit Jean-Vanier school Wednesday to see what impact provincial education cuts would have there. The students, all 18, launched a social media campaign to discourage Oosterhoff's visit, and used the hashtag #PasMonÉcole, or "not my school."

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Oosterhoff cancelled because of scheduling conflicts, the MPP's office said. But St-Aubin hopes their protest was a factor too.

"We like to think we had a little part to play in that," he said, "but we had no way to confirm that."

Oosterhoff has made the news with a couple of high-profile incidents lately. On May 9, he took the stage at an anti-abortion rally happening outside Queen's Park.

"We have survived 50 years of abortion in Canada," he said then, "and we pledge to fight to make abortion unthinkable in our lifetime."

Sam Oosterhoff, Niagara West MPP, was supposed to visit a French Catholic school in Welland. Some students protested because of his recent public stance on abortion. (escjeanvanier_saysno/Instagram)

That same week, Oosterhoff's office staff called police on a group of seniors who planned to read at the constituency office to protest cuts to interlibrary loan.

It's the abortion comments, though, that bothered the Jean-Vanier students, who learned late on May 21 that Oosterhoff wasn't coming after all.

It wasn't just the three of them, Girouard said. "Our school went crazy with support."

Oosterhoff's office said the MPP "will continue to regularly visit both French and English schools across Ontario as he has been since taking on the role of parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Education."

Eve-Amélie Towner-Sarault, spokesperson for Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir, said the board respects the freedom of students to express themselves.

The school planned to show Oosterhoff its achievements and successes, she said, as well as the realities of French Catholic schools.

With files from Colin Côté-Paulette