Quebec Life Coalition

Dearest friends of Life,

I hope you’ve found some time this summer to pray, to reflect, and to spend time with family and friends. We at QLC have taken this so-called “down time” to build up our infrastructure to better weather the storm of activity coming up in the fall.

The fall activities?

• The 40 Days for Life, which begin on September 23 and end on November 1, are still something we really want to do; we just have to find the people who will be willing to share some of the organizational and day-to-day tasks.

• Silent No More: we are continuing, along with Montreal for Life—a recently founded coalition of Montreal pro-life groups and individuals—to work with Silent No More, an organization dedicated to post-abortion healing, to get a Montreal franchise up and running.

• Campus Outreach: we want to continue our campus outreach, and will be continuing our support of students who want to start and maintain university and CÉGEP pro-life clubs.

• A possible federal election is looming in the fall; if and when the writ is dropped, we’ll be calling our volunteers across the province to press their local candidates to state their opinions on pro-life issues. We’re also looking at what we can do for life during the municipal elections.

• The Action Democratique du Québec is choosing its new leader in the fall, too. We’ve sent a questionnaire to all four candidates and have so far received a quite satisfactory reply from Jean-François Plante, to be posted soon on the website.

The infrastructure work?

• The main thing we’ve been working on to back us up in the office is the new website and database for QLC. We’re hoping the website will be done for the beginning of August. This new technology will allow us to better keep track of our documentation and also stay in touch with our volunteers across the province. It will also be an effective means of communicating our message to the media and the world at large. Finally, it will be a great recruiting tool, given the site’s links to networking sites on the internet.

• In anticipation of the federal election, we’ve sent questionnaires to all the MPs whose stance on life was unknown to us.

• In anticipation of the fall we are also writing and designing new flyers to introduce our work to others (again, helpful for recruiting), and building our body of literature (letters to pastors, press releases, etc.) for our outreach for the 40 Days and other events.

The topic of euthanasia is making the news, especially since the Globe and Mail published on July 16 an article reporting that the Quebec Collège des Médecins was studying the possibility of calling for the legalization of euthanasia.

Also, the bishops responsible for reporting on the Development and Peace abortion scandal have submitted their report, effectively whitewashing Development and Peace, though making some recommendations on how D&P should review some of its funding practices. But the fight to reform Development and Peace isn’t over, as you’ll see from our article.

Finally, I wanted to relate to you an event that for me symbolized the plight of the unborn and the vulnerable. I was at church, and during the offertory, when the bread and the wine were being brought up to the alter, I watched a little boy, who was part of the alter-bound procession, walk ever so gingerly with his little votive candle cupped in his hands. He was lagging behind the procession because he wanted so much to keep the flame from being snuffed out. To me that boy became the child in the womb, his little hands curled around his life’s flame, as it were, his heart and mind set trustingly towards a life of service to God… How many of those little boys and girls, who only want to continue along that procession of life with their little candles lit, are snuffed out every day!

Help us shelter these little lives’ flames from the cold winds of indifference and selfishness that blow in our province of Quebec! Please remember to give generously to our effort to awaken consciences to the tragedy of abortion in our land. We thank you for your generous financial help.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Georges Buscemi
Secretary General Quebec Life Coalition