I must admit that it is with great trepidation that I took on the post as president of LifeCanada. This is not because I have misgivings about the organization. In fact, I am truly impressed and inspired by what has been accomplished over the past four years. This is an organization that has accomplished much in its short life.

My nervousness about the presidency falls into the category of “tough acts to follow.” My immediate predecessor, Jakki Jeffs, is a human dynamo who did a superb job in setting up and staffing our national office in Ottawa and spearheading the projects that we have undertaken over the past two years. Her predecessor, Peter Ryan had an even tougher task. Peter took on the job of recreating a national educational organization from the remnants of Alliance for Life and spent two years working with a board and part-time office manager to build a cohesive, active group. We all owe these two a huge debt of gratitude for their ongoing and successful efforts on behalf of LifeCanada.

In case anyone has forgotten or doesn’t know, these are what I consider the highlights of LifeCanada’s activities over the past four years. Our annual poll of Canadian attitudes on life issues has been one of the most useful, positive, educational and encouraging activities I have seen in years. We have shown that Canadians are far closer to our views on protection of life, consent for abortion (informed and parental consent), and on de-insuring abortion than our media and politicians pretend. Aside from its usefulness in debates, these facts are such a boost to everyone engaged in pro-life work. It seems we struggle day after day and year after year with little to show for our efforts. These polls demonstrate that our work and prayers do and have produced results.

Our LifeCanada News has been praised for its well-researched, news-breaking stories on late-term abortions in Canada, the scandalous support by the federal health department for Planned Parenthood and its pro-abortion agenda and a host of other articles.

Our website, www.lifecanada.org, is an achievement. As a national organization with an office in Ottawa, the website serves as our contact point for people and groups across this country. Our poll results, our newsletters, relevant articles and research are there for public consumption. You can go to the site and sign up for our new monthly email news service, apply for our Mosaik Mastercard, download poll results for your local group and do a host of other things.

Last May we ran a full-page ad in the National Post newspaper to educate Canadians about tax-funded abortions. This was probably the first time the thousands of readers of that newspaper ever heard that over 106,000 abortions are performed annually in Canada and that they, as taxpayers, pay for most of them. We received over 2,000 email responses to the ad and those 2,000 people sent thousands of letters to their provincial and federal politicians asking them to de-insure abortions.

This is just a short list of our achievements. We will continue the annual polling with the help of provincial pro-life groups. We are coordinating a national billboard campaign later this year in conjunction with provincial and local groups.

All of this has been exciting, interesting and positive. One of the more challenging truths, however, is that our financial base has not kept pace with our activities. LifeCanada does not have a charitable tax number. Our work is educational but charitable tax numbers are hard to come by for pro-life groups. Not only that, charitable status does place restrictions on what activities can be carried out.

My immediate and most pressing task is to establish a solid, stable source of funding for LifeCanada. Our work must continue but that will only happen if we can pay our staff and our bills. To that end, we have launched Partners for Life, a program that invites businesses, groups and individuals to buy sponsorships for our website and/or our newsletter, LifeCanada News. The web sponsorship is $500 a year and the newsletter one is $125 per issue or $600 a year for all six issues. The details are available on our website.

We also want to initiate a program of monthly donors to LifeCanada. Monthly donors, whose contributions are automatically debited either from your bank account or by your LifeCanada Mosaik Mastercard (don’t forget with our card, you can still collect AirMiles), can provide a long-term and stable source of funding. This enables us to better plan our activities and significantly reduces our cost of mailing out invoices and reminders for membership renewals. For as little as $10 a month, you can sign on to help us do our work.

If you believe, as I fervently do, that LifeCanada is an important arm of the pro-life movement in Canada, and that our work to date has been useful, educational and has advanced the cause of life issues in Canada, please consider supporting us with a monthly donation or sponsorship.

Our need right now is critical. We have a strong board of directors, imaginative plans for educational media campaigns (no one else will get our message out), and a strong commitment to supporting the growing pro-life youth component across the country. None of these plans will proceed if we cannot raise the money needed to implement them. Can you help? Will you join with us as a Partner for Life or a monthly donor?

My forte, if indeed I have one, is definitely not fundraising. I prefer writing, speaking and working on projects like the polling and the media campaigns. I understand, however, that right now, my most pressing job as president is to ensure that we have the money to proceed with all those things I love to do. I need your help to do that. Please consider making a donation to LifeCanada so that, together, we can make all these projects happen.

Joanne Byfield is the President of LifeCanada.