The CSIS probe unearths more speculation that the Toronto fire-bombing wasn't by pro-lifers
There was a federal report last month on the shadowy activities of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). The published conclusions of the Security and Intelligence Review Committee, which is still dominated by Tory appointees, was excoriated by critics in the Reform Party as a blatantly partisan cover-up (see accompanying story).
One detail of interest to pro-lifers, however, received scant attention from anyone, including the RPC. A CSIS source, widely presumed to be out-of-control agent Grant Bristow, had told CSIS that the person who fire-bombed Henry Morgentaler's Toronto abortuary in 1992 was not a pro-lifer. Although media like Maclean's (November 21, 1994) have cited the explosion as a "confirmed" example of "anti-abortion violence," police still haven't said who they think did it, and Mr. Bristow linked the crime to an unnamed "left-wing activist" seeking to goad the Ontario government into suppressing pro-life activity.
Although the suspicions of a substance-abusing former strip club bouncer like Mr. Bristow are not conclusive, many pro-lifers have suspected a frame-up. Says Torontonian Jim Hughes, national president of the Campaign Life Coalition, "At the time, Dr. Morgentaler wanted to move to larger quarters--information he passed on to police and news media."
The oft-picketed Harbord Street facility was blown to smithereens by a gasoline explosion at 3:24 a.m. on Victoria Day, 1992. It did not find the country's most outspoken abortionist long at a loss for words. Within hours he had announced a damage estimate of some $500, 000. And as Ontarians returned to work the following morning, he was ready with a full-scale press conference.
He had been trying for some time in Toronto's moribund property market to quit the low-rent environs of Harbord Street and move east of Spadina to the more upscale area north of Bloor. He explained at the time that the $300,000 he would now get in fire damage would not cover the estimated $500,000 cost of developing better real estate. The NDP's then-health minister Frances Larkin had a solution: taxpayers would contribute the difference. In addition, they would give $420, 000 to abortion operators to defray ongoing legal costs and improve security.
Security and fire-bombing had been a problem for Dr. Morgentaler almost since he started providing his services illegally at Harbord. At first he occupied only the upper floor of his drab little walk-up, and leased the ground floor to a feminist bookstore. When business boomed he wanted the ground floor too, but the feminists were reluctant to move. Fate, however, intervened. A fire bomb went off in the bookstore on July 30, 1983--apparently in an attempt to obstruct the facility upstairs. The feminists relocated down the street, and Dr. Morgentaler expanded his business.
Again in 1989 he brushed against the chilling factor of terrorism. In seeking an injunction against pro-life demonstrations, he testified under oath that four months earlier, in January, someone had attempted unsuccessfully to burn down his clinic by spraying gasoline through a hole drilled through the roof. He did not, however, think to notify the police or the fire marshall.
But according to police, the May explosion was definitely a gasoline incendiary, powerful enough to blast the big door, steel plated on both sides, clear across a wide street and into the display window of a facing shop. Drilled through the door they found a pencil-width hole, although the drilling didn't trigger the facility's extensive security alarm system. Equally mysterious is how so small a hole could admit enough gasoline aerosol to create such a vast explosion--not at least without a large and noisy compressor. Also unexplained was the police release of a black and white photo of the suspected culprit, taken from an outside video security camera; police never did say why they blacked out the back of the fleeing suspect's head. Nobody was ever arrested.
Morgentaler supposed at his post-explosion press conference that it was the work of pro-life extremists from the U.S. Up until that date there had been over 250 bombings and arsons at neighbourhood abortuaries, although no casualties.
The CLC's Hughes says he thinks the police have a good idea who did it but lack sufficient evidence to lay a charge. He adds that given its obvious "propaganda value" to the pro-choice cause, people should be slow to presume pro-lifers wounded Vancouver abortionist Garson Romalis in November.
~~~~~~~~ By Joe Woodard and Jerry Collins
----------------------------| Inset Article |--------------------- -------
STILL SEETHING ABOUT CSIS -------------------------
Last month's report of the Tory-dominated Security and Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC) didn't placate the Reform Party of Canada with regard to the not-so-secret activities of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). Reform MP Val Meredith of B.C. says the party will push the Liberal-controlled parliamentary subcommittee on national security in coming months to answer questions SIRC did not adequately address:
On these points and others, says Ms. Meredith, SIRC relied far too heavily on the questionable testimony of Mr. Bristow, and didn't demonstrate whether or not the Reform Party was allowed to run an "unhindered election campaign" in Ontario.
~~~~~~~~ By Jerry Collins
Copyright 1995 by United Western Communications Ltd. Text may not be copied without the express written permission of United Western Communications Ltd.
Woodard, Joe-Collins, Jerry, A blast from Morgentaler's past.., Vol. 22, Alberta Report / Western Report, 01-09-1995, pp 8.
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