To keep Canada off Trump’s authoritarian path, we must reject pronatalism and protect women’s rights
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s recent talking point commiserating with couples in their late 30s whose fertility window is closing and who can’t afford to start families touched a nerve. While it’s true that some couples are starting families later or having fewer children, and Canada’s fertility rate is declining, Poilievre’s rhetoric about women’s biological clocks running out is offensive. Liberals and the NDP rightly condemned it.
While he meant to sound sympathetic, Poilievre calling women’s wombs into service as a means towards political ends should be seen for what it is: Canada’s own brand of pronatalism — societal and institutional pressures on women (mostly from men) to have children. It mirrors U.S President Donald Trump, the self-professed “fertilization president” who uses pronatalism as a cover for rolling back reproductive rights and gender equality.
Where does the Star find these extremist loons?
How Did Having Babies Become Right-Wing?
