Sawmill museum won't open its doors this year due to abortion clause

A small Nova Scotia museum says it won't open its doors this year.

The Bangor Sawmill Museum in Meteghan River, N.S., is one of the last water-powered mills still operating in Canada and has been open to the public for more than 20 years.

For the past decade, money from a federal program has been used to hire high school students to run tours.

But this year, there was a change to the Canada Summer Jobs program. That change saw a new clause added to the application, which the museum's directors say they couldn't support.

The clause in question was an affirmation that any group receiving funding support individual rights, including the right to be free from discrimination on the basis of sex, religion or race as laid out in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Abortion clause

And it also includes information about reproductive rights. It's being called the abortion clause.

Gerald Comeau, a former Progressive Conservative MP and a retired senator, is a member of the board that runs the Bangor Sawmill Museum. He has been volunteering with the museum before it even opened its doors.

In order to get the grant money required to keep the museum open this year, the museum board needed to agree to the clause.

Comeau says that "the museum takes absolutely no position whatsoever on abortion."

Colin Fraser, the member of Parliament for West Nova, agreed with Comeau that the museum has nothing to do with "those types of activities."

But he said that the purpose of the government's change was to ensure funding was not going to jobs or organizations that purposefully undermine people's rights.

"Previous groups had received federal funding despite specifically refusing to hire LGBTQ2 students," said Fraser, "or in another instance a job entailed making and displaying graphic abortion materials at a clinic in order to intimidate."

'It should not have anything to do with politics'

As the change was made under the Liberal Government, CBC's Maritime Noon asked Comeau about the politics of the decision not to sign. He said there are no politics involved in it because, to him, abortion is an individual decision.

"If you support abortion, or don't support abortion, that's your opinion. It should not have anything to do with politics."

In an emailed statement, Fraser said he has spoken to Comeau a couple of times during the application process.

Fraser said he explained to Comeau that the "attestation in the application was about confirming the job description and the primary activities (or core mandate) of the applicant respect the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms," he said. "It has nothing to do with the organization's, or anyone's, beliefs or values."

Comeau said that if the government wishes to target anti-abortion groups, it should do it by targeting those groups specifically.

He worries it will send a message to volunteers that they have to "sacrifice their principles in order to get funding from the government."

In an email, he called the museum a historical treasure that deserves to be saved.

The museum will not be opening this summer at a minimum.