On June 9, 2026, the municipal council of Terrasse-Vaudreuil, Quebec, unanimously adopted a resolution recognizing the tree as a living being and granting it the right to live, to grow and to regenerate.
The town thereby became the first in Quebec and in Canada to adhere to the Universal Declaration of the Rights of the Tree. We do not hold that against it. A tree deserves protection. A forest is worth more than a parking lot, and a canopy is worth more than a heat island.
But a country that grants a tree the right to grow and to regenerate denies that same right to the child growing in his mother's womb.
In Canada, the preborn child has no legal protection whatsoever. Since the 1988 Morgentaler decision, Parliament has passed no law governing abortion. There is no stage of pregnancy at which the life of a preborn child is protected by the Criminal Code. Canada remains one of the only democracies in the world in this position.
In other words: in this country a tree can be publicly recognized as having the right to live, while a preborn child can be killed by an abortion committed at any moment, up to the day before birth.
"Irony" is too mild a word. This is a moral contradiction, and it is sickening.
The preborn child is a living human being. He lives, he grows, he develops, he possesses from the first day a genetic code that is his alone, and he has ahead of him a future that is his alone. Everything this resolution recognizes in the tree belongs first, and far more fully, to him.
Yes to the protection of trees, plants and animals. But humans must come before trees. If Canada can recognize the value of a tree, it can recognize the humanity of a child, his own worth, and his right to live.
We, the undersigned, call on the Parliament of Canada to enact a law protecting the lives of preborn children.