Borowski: a Canadian Paradox.

Lianne Laurence Published by: The Interim Publishing Company and Life Ethics Centre, 104 Bond Street Toronto, Ontario, M5B 1X9, 2004 pp.400 ISBN 0-9692988-8-9. $24.95 PAPERBACK $39.95 HARDCOVER.

This book tells the story of Joe Borowski and his fellow Canadians through three tumultuous decades. A typical biography, albeit of a very untypical Canadian, it also documents the history of a nation on the path to self-destruction and Borowski's monumental efforts to stop it. Although many unsung Canadian heroes contributed to that same effort, Borowski's manner of shouting injustice from the rooftops would not allow him to go unnoticed.

The son of Polish immigrants to Saskatchewan, Borowski set out on his own at the age of fourteen, supporting himself by almost any jobs that presented themselves: ranch hand, vacuum cleaner salesman, cook, to mention only a few. By age 19 he was married and had started a family.

In 1958 he found steady work in the nickel mines of Thompson, Manitoba and by 1965 he had begun a career of flamboyant protest. Twice he occupied the steps of the Manitoba Legislature: once to draw attention to Thompson's lack of self-government and again to protest a pay hike for cabinet ministers while minimum wage remained stagnant. For non-compliance in collecting an arbitrarily imposed provincial sales tax he endured imprisonment three times.

Recruited by the NDP, he won the riding of Churchill in 1969 and found himself a cabinet minister (Transportation and Public Works) at the age of 37. Becoming a member of the political establishment interfered not at all with his natural perspicacity and temerity.

An episode during his stint as cabinet minister when he threatened to "defrock and debar" a judge illustrates the apparently cozy relationship between politicians and judges in Canada. Borowski's threat, though unusual, was within his authority as a minister of the Crown, yet he must have hit a nerve because both the political and judicial establishment in Manitoba were outraged at the mention of it.

It was only to be expected that a person of Borowski's ideals and outspokenness would clash irrevocably with the status quo. Sept. 8, 1971, Borowski resigned his cabinet post when a furor, instigated by himself, erupted over provincial funds being used to pay for out of province abortions. This time his protest took the form of refusing to pay first his Medicare premiums, then his income tax. By 1973 he was no longer a sitting member of the Legislature.

He turned to selling life insurance to earn a living, then set up a health food store. During this time between 1973 and 1978 when he finally resorted to the courts, he applied every means available to citizens in a free society to draw attention to protest Canada's liberal abortion law, including an 80-day fast in the spring of 1981 in an effort to draw attention to the lack of protection for the unborn in Trudeau's Charter of Rights and Freedom.

It was during this time that Trudeau sought cover from the Supreme Court for acting unilateraly to pass the Charter. Since it hardly required a panel of legal experts to rule that to violate an unwritten convention of democracy was "wrong," it's not clear why Trudeau needed it--except to lend a veneer of legitimacy to his unwarranted actions. Trudeau, according to one legal expert quoted in the book, "had every intention of using the Court ... to overrule legislation ..." and, "after the patriation of the new constitution, it could claim the Charter as its authority to nullify offensive statutes."

While Joe Borowski fasted, the opposing sides in the abortion debate wrangled over the meaning of "everyone" in the Charter. Neither side succeeded in amending the wording, but the widespread notion among Canadians that the Charter was neutral on abortion favoured the "pro-choice" side.

In Sept. 1978, Borowski's lawyer, Morris Shumiatcher, filed a statement of claim to the effect that the amendment to Section 251 of the Criminal Code which, in effect, allowed abortion on demand, violated the 1960 Canadian Bill of Rights which recognized the "right to life, liberty and security of the person." Also sought was a permanent injunction to prevent the Finance Minister of Canada from providing funds for abortion.

After years of jurisdictional squabbles, Borowski's statement of claim made it to trial in May 1983. Chapters 14 through 20 of the book we are reviewing cover two weeks of testimony from an all-star cast of expert witnesses, including Sir William Liley and Dr. Jerome Lejeune, Dr. Bernard Nathanson (former abortionist) Dr. Harley Smyth (neurosurgeon and ethicist), and others, who established the logical, scientific and ethical foundation for the protection of the unborn in law. Judge Matheson ruled that the Criminal Code did not contravene the Charter (which by now superseded the Bill of Rights) and referred the issue to Parliament.

Mingled with the bare facts of history comes the story of a man's increasing dedication to God, and a nation coming unhinged, not only from faith but from reason itself. The history of the efforts to protect the unborn presents a saga of valiant acts, however imperfectly pursued at times, alongside a story of casual disregard of the governed by the governors, justice delayed, abdication of authority, insolent defiance of authority coupled with intimidation tactics, jury manipulation, and judicial demagoguery.

A frustrating feature of Borowski's history and the pro-life battle in general is the apparent futility of political protest. On the witness stand in 1983, he testified, "... after years of agitating, advocating, writing and arm-twisting, there wasn't even a hint of any possibility of change either provincially or federally and that is why we are in court today...."

Twice the Borowski court challenge was delayed until the original motion was moot. Similarly the Mogentaler trials wended their leisurely way through the courts while the notion of "a woman's right to choose" abortion gained hold to such a degree that eventually the highest judges in the land dared not challenge it.

Repeatedly judges referred the matter of protection of the unborn back to Parliament, as in the original Borowski trial and its appeal. Parliament abdicated its authority.

After an acquittal on charges of conspiracy to procure an abortion, Morgentaler brazenly sat in the visitors' gallery of Queen's Park staring down at Roy McMurtry, Attorney General under the Davis Tories, as he announced that the Crown would appeal. Apparently even with the law on his side, that was as far as McMurtry's courage could take him. Though he had the authority to close the Morgentaler clinic on Harbord St. while the case was before the courts, he chose instead to plead for compliance, thereby weakening his authority. He politely requested Morgentaler to "voluntarily" close his clinic until his court case was decided.

Quite naturally, his reticence made defiance of the law easy, and on the say-so of Judy Rebick, journalist and activist, who called the would-be enforcement of the law "veiled threats," the clinic remained open. Even after a higher court overturned Morgentaler's acquittal, Ian Scott, Attorney General under the Peterson Liberals, refused to shut down the clinic, sending the message that the rule of law no longer applied--to some.

In the jury selection proceedings for the same 1984 Morgentaler trial, jury manipulation went on under the nose of Judge Parker as potential jurors were carefully screened to weed out regular church-goers and housewives and others deemed likely to be sympathetic to the pro-life cause. Two American jury consultants were on hand to help Morris Manning, counsel for Morgentaler, and impudently refused to reveal their identity. They were outed by a Toronto Star journalist and proved to be biased in favour of the defendant, but not sent packing.

An appeal of this same trial presented the public with a new trend in judicial behaviour--demagoguery, as Morris Manning later exhorted justices of the Supreme Court to base their decision not on what the law said, but on what Canadians were already doing.

Bertha Wilson, a Supreme Court justice, who formed part of the 5-2 majority in the Court's decision to strike down Canada's abortion law in 1988 hectored the public in the language of feminist ideology that "it is probably impossible for a man to respond, even imaginatively ..." to the dilemma of an untimely, unwanted pregnancy.

Pitted against this moral turpitude were Canada's pro-life warriors and the prize-fighter Joe Borowski. What did he achieve? Not what he set out to do. But his example of vigilant citizenship and the all-star cast of witnesses convened at his behest in 1983 remain on the record--jewels in his heavenly crown and facts still to be reckoned with.

This record of his life and Canada's barely acknowledged revolution provides a new departure point for the pro-life movement, an opportunity to recollect and draw up new battle plans.