Canada’s pro-life community is expressing trepidation about the fate of preborn children and end-of-life care under a Mark Carney Liberal government, but is also consoled by the electoral gains made in the April 28 federal election.

RightNow, a Winnipeg-based non-profit that endorses and strives to elect pro-life politicians, declared its 1,100 volunteers across the country helped to elect 90 pro-life Members of Parliament, the largest number in the last several election cycles.

Scott Hayward, RightNow’s co-founder and president, said his group looks forward to these members “utilizing their important voices on the issues of abortion and assisted suicide, regardless of who the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada may be during this upcoming parliament.”

Campaign Life Coalition, the political arm of the Canadian pro-life movement, congratulated 42 victorious pro-life Canadians green-lit by the organization, an increase over the 36 endorsed politicians that prevailed in the 2021 federal election.

Jack Fonseca, Campaign Life’s director of political operations, told The Catholic Register the returns are a “strong statement contrary to the narrative of the red Tory consultants who are always trying to suppress social conservatives in the party: being pro-life does not hurt you. Being pro-life can definitely be an asset.”

While this election spawned blessings, Campaign Life president Jeff Gunnarson sees difficult years to come under Carney’s 169-seat minority government.

“(He) has promised to expand the Liberal Party’s ungodly policies that have turned Canada into a death machine destroying countless victims — not only the preborn but also the sick, elderly, disabled and others who have been let down by the social system and continue to be killed by euthanasia,” said Gunnarson.

A release from the Canadian Institute of Health Information (CIHI) on March 20 said 101,553 preborn children were aborted in 2023, the highest number in over a decade. Health Canada declared that 2023 assisted suicide deaths –— 15,343 — accounted for nearly five per cent of all Canadian fatalities (326,571)  

Nicole Scheidl, executive director of Canadian Physicians for Life, noticed how neither the Carney Liberals nor Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives mentioned medical assistance in dying (MAiD) in their respective policy platforms. She deemed it a “missed opportunity.”

"During the election campaign, the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities issued a report asking Canada to revoke Track 2 MAiD. Unfortunately, the Conservative campaign did not take that opportunity to comment on the report, which I think was a major miss for them," she said.

“Either party could have spoken to the problems of the euthanasia regime in Canada, within their own framework. For the Liberals, ‘when Canada is strong, it protects the weak’ and for the Conservatives, ‘when euthanasia is the answer to suffering, Canada is indeed broken.’ ”

While the Conservatives' published platform did not mention MAiD, Poilievre did pledge publicly in March 2023 his party would stop the expansion of euthanasia access to individuals solely living with a mental illness.

Scheidl was encouraged by the 90 new pro-life MPs as this new dynamic could provide “a lot of room to increase the visibility of life issues in our culture.” She said abortion, euthanasia and the burgeoning mental health, addiction and food insecurity crises have resulted in Canadians “experiencing a culture of callousness.”

Larry Worthen, executive director of the Christian Medical and Dental Association (CMDA) of Canada, believes the Conservatives prevailing could have provided “a reasonable shot at limiting MAiD.” 

Worthen, a deacon in the Archdiocese of Halifax-Yarmouth, suggested “Pierre Poilievre took a chance to signal to Canadians that the Conservatives might take action to protect vulnerable people from these reckless laws. In doing so he antagonized the powerful Dying with Dignity lobby. Many Catholics I know didn’t reward the risk with a vote. They will be partially responsible when the (new) law takes effect in 2027.”

March 17, 2027, is poised as the date when individuals solely experiencing a mental health issue can request a medical-killing procedure. In addition, Worthen suggested this change will result in “no protections for doctors of conscience who don’t want to recommend MAiD for their mentally ill patients.”