Send this page to someone via email Niagara West MPP Sam Oosterhoff pledged on Thursday to make abortion “unthinkable in our lifetime.” The comment was made after Oosterhoff left question period to attend an anti-abortion rally on the front lawn of Queen’s Park. Oosterhoff attended the rally with fellow PC MPPs Christina Mitas (Scarborough Centre) and Will Bouma (Brantford-Brant). When the MPPs returned to question period, the issue was brought up in the house with the NDP asking Premier Doug Ford if he supports a woman’s right to choose. Ford was also asked if he supported the views of the three MPPs. Ford did not answer the question and referred it to Energy Minister Greg Rickford. Rickford avoided addressing questions, instead pivoting to a number of talking points including fighting the federal carbon tax. Story continues below advertisement When asked after question period about referring the question to Rickford, interim Liberal leader John Fraser told Global News it was “totally unacceptable.” “It was an insult to the member and all women in this province,” he said. NDP Leader Andrea Horwath released a statement in response to the issue. READ MORE: Tory MPPs sing ‘Monster Mash’ parody over cancellation of cap-and-trade “We are horrified that Doug Ford continues to refuse to denounce his MPPs’ dangerous, anti-choice and anti-women position,” she said. “Every woman has the right to make decisions about her health care, her family and her body, including the decision to seek a safe medical abortion. Sam Oosterhoff and Doug Ford have no right to attack that.” Oosterhoff tried to duck reporters by hiding in an elevator after question period, but eventually spoke with reporters. “To quote Dr. Seuss, a person is a person no matter how small,” he said. Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "To quote Dr. Seuss, a person is a person no matter how small," he said. “I have always said I am pro-life I will always speak for children that cannot speak for themselves who have no voice—I will always be a voice for the voiceless.” Premier Ford released a statement after Global News asked for answers regarding the questions that were raised in the legislature. However, he didn’t directly respond. Story continues below advertisement “The Ontario PC Party is a big tent. We welcome members from a wide variety of backgrounds and beliefs,” Ford said. “Our government is focused on protecting what matters most, cleaning up a fiscal mess left behind by the Liberals, making Ontario open for business and open for jobs, and lowering taxes for families. The Government will not re-open the abortion debate.”<doc-sep>“Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen, nobody knows my sorrow,” eccentric Ontario MPP Sam Oosterhoff once sang to host Steve Paikin while being interviewed on TVO, and that’s the trouble with Sam Oosterhoff right there. The man cannot read an audience. Also, he can sing loudly but not well, which works in church but nowhere else. And he calls the cops on nice library-loving seniors, but we’ll get to that. Oosterhoff later performed a “Monster Mash” parody in the legislature. “We stopped the carbon tax,” he half-sang, swapping “tax” for “mash,” and “carbon” for “monster” while his shy colleagues attempted backing vocals and failed. It brought back memories of prime minister Stephen Harper singing “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” while playing the electric piano — “I was raised by a toothless, bearded hag” — as groovy Conservatives jived. Voters like politicians with a personality — Brits insist on it — but they generally prefer a pleasant one, or even a comic caricature like Angry Pyjamas Conservative MP Peter Kent shouting at clouds. Oosterhoff, in 2016 the youngest MPP ever elected to the Ontario legislature — he was 19 and still in his first year at university — is a different creature. Successful politicians like people, or are at least relaxed in their presence. Every constituent, from dim-wit to drone, from city to village, gets a chat, a handshake and a smile. Good politicians don’t take things personally. Insults run off their back. Read more: Ford says his government ‘will not re-open the abortion debate’ A look at Sam Oosterhoff, Ontario’s newest and youngest MPP Niagara MPP Sam Oosterhoff’s office called cops on seniors staging a ‘read-in’ over library funding cuts And whether female or male, all successful politicians are affable. That is not Oosterhoff’s vibe. He is awkward. He is manic. Oosterhoff is a socially conservative Christian who has no business singing an African-American spiritual sung by slaves as they picked cotton. As far as I can tell, no white man has sung it seriously since Bing Crosby in 1961 in an album that included “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho” and “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.” Oosterhoff, who represents Niagara West, was home-schooled, which may partly explain it. Even with seven siblings present, home-schooling means you might learn but still miss out on the social norms of a classroom not entirely filled with Oosterhoffs. Also, is a home-schooled MPP qualified to be parliamentary assistant to the education minister? He’s night-schooling and summer-coursing at Brock University so he can keep his day job. He opposes sex-ed, but I’m not sure the home-schooling curriculum covered that. As the satirical The Beaverton put it, “he was sick of all these ‘cocky’ pre-teens knowing so much more than him about how babies are made.” Equally, when Oosterhoff campaigns against abortion rights outside Queen’s Park by quoting from Dr. Seuss’s Horton Hears a Who!—“A person’s a person, no matter how small” — and swears he’ll make abortion “unthinkable in our lifetime,” he elides a certain small matter. Oosterhoff is engaged to be married. Without being indelicate, one does presume that the act of procreation or “doing it” is as yet unknown to him. And that doesn’t match with telling the rest of us that every sperm is sacred and a dot of cells is practically ready for kindergarten. It’s a matter of courtesy, if not taste. Who is he to lecture us? And then came the local mob. Almost entirely female, it comprised 15 retirees and seniors bearing library books. They were protesting the Conservative government killing the service that moves books among southern Ontario libraries on request. These gentle people showed up for eight minutes at Oosterhoff’s constituency office in Beamsville to hold a protest — a read-in, but a silent one — against the ruling. Former librarians, members of book clubs and devoted readers all, they were told to leave, which they did. Oosterhoff was not there, only shows up on Fridays and is booked months ahead for one-on-ones, they were told. Oosterhoff’s office had called the police. Three officers questioned the group but made no arrests. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Oosterhoff later defended calling the cops, tweeting that his staff couldn’t make the women leave and that he was trying to protect the privacy of his constituents. Sadly, he did not say, “A person’s a person, no matter how old.” He had previously called police when his parents’ home address was tweeted out by an angry voter. So there’s Oosterhoff finally getting something right. Never attack anyone’s family, never endanger anyone. If only Oosterhoff would stick with that. What he needs is the buddy system, another MPP to pal with him at the pool and make sure he doesn’t run out from between parked cars, as we learned in Grade 1. At 21, he’s about as smart as I was at that age, which flatters neither of us. Look, he’s a kid. He just needs a friend, preferably one with social skills. Correction – May 13, 2019: This column was edited from a previous version that misstated the words that Sam Oosterhoff said in performing a parody of Monster Mash. Read more about:<doc-sep>Coronavirus Young Indian Women Are Using Instagram To Tell The World How Bad ... “I am feeling anxious,” 30-year-old Mankiran Dhillon, who lives with her parents in Delhi, tells Refinery29. “Nobody was ready for this.<doc-sep>Tabatha Southey pens a Dr. Seuss-themed ode to MPP Sam Oosterhoff and his staff, whose instinct when met with senior citizens protesting library cuts was to call the police This week Sam Oosterhoff, the youngest Member of Provincial Parliament ever elected in Ontario—being then 19—made a political mistake so regrettable and avoidable that news of it quickly reached the corners of our large land. Gratifying as this is, it should not be the end of the story. Mr. Oosterhoff’s blunder is so spectacular that it deserves to be immortalized in Canada’s cultural imagination, and I think we all know that in order for this happen, there’s going to have to be a beloved rhyme. In the future, all Canadian children must grow up knowing that William Lyon Mackenzie King sat in the middle and played with string, Baby beluga in the deep blue sea swim so wild and you swim so free, and that Sam Oosterhoff called the cops. His constituency office staff called the police on a small assembly of senior citizens—some members of a classic book club that meets in Wainfleet—who had come by his office to protest drastic cuts the Ontario Conservative Government is making to the province’s library system. A less determined columnist would dash off a Green Eggs and Ham parody or, as Mr. Oosterhoff himself did, fall back on a Horton Hears a Non-sequitur because, apparently, the plan is that abortion care in Canada should be decided between a woman, a 21-year-old MPP and a cartoon elephant. Minus the woman, and the doctor. I could do a quick… Should I call the cops on gran? You should not call them, Sam-I-Am. You should not call the cops on gran. Should I call them on my nan? Should I call them from Doug’s van? You should not call them on your nan. You should not call them from Doug’s van. But that’s not my style. Instead, I present How the Grinch Took a Backseat to Ontario MPP For Niagara West, Sam Oosterhoff: Every Ontarian in Ontario liked grandparents a lot… But Sam Oosterhoff, MPP for Niagara West, did NOT! Sam hated grannies—their whole demographic, Now, please don’t ask why, he’s just not empathic. It could be his staff wasn’t trained up just right. It could be his his tie is just pulled too tight. But I think that the most likely reason of all May have been that he has the political instincts of a giant salamander. But whatever the reason, his staff or his youth, The cops got called in. Such a nark of a newt. “They’re bookmarking their pages!” he snarled with a sneer, “Tomorrow’s a ‘read-in,’ it’s practically here!” Then he growled with his elected representative fingers nervously drumming, “I MUST find some way to stop bookish seniors from coming!” For, tomorrow, he knew all these much-grown girls and boys, Will wake bright and early and rush for their Tolstoys! And then! Oh, the noise! Oh, the noise! Noise! Noise! Noise! That’s the one thing he hated! The NOISE! NOISE! NOISE! NOISE! Of his constituents expressing their legitimate grievances. And then those constituents, the white haired and the grey, would talk to his staff. And here’s what they’d say; They rely on their libraries for their literary feast. An issue Sam Oosterhoff doesn’t care about in the least! And THEN They’d do something he liked least of all. Those fifteen or so seniors, the tall and the small, Would stand close together, with the letters they’d scrawl, They’d stand book-in-hand and the seniors would… Leave those polite messages expressing their concerns to the man supposedly elected to represent them and then go home without any fuss after about eight minutes. But those oldsters had powers he feared to confront, Some could make a cake in the shape of a bundt, They wield knowledge of date squares, crisp golden and chewy Of building community, And the decimal system of Dewey. There are those who’d make tea for them, think of things optic, But not our Sam Oosterhoff, whose staff called in the cops quick, And what happened then? Well, in West Niagara they guffaw, Young Sam learned what happens when you call in the law, When you call the cops on nice gran-ma and gran-pops, One thing that won’t come of it is good Oosterhoff photo-ops! Niagara’s finest arrived, the mature readers had departed, The fuzz entered the office to staffers coldhearted. “Pooh-pooh to book club,” they were staffishsly humming. “They’re finding out now that no bad press is coming!” “Their TVs are clicking on! We know just what they’ll do!” “Their mouths will hang open a minute or two.” “Then those library loving seniors will all cry BOO-HOO!’” “That’s a noise,” said the staffers, “That we simply MUST hear!” So they paused. And each put a hand to their ear. It started in low. Then it started to grow… “Ploink!” But the sound wasn’t weeping. Why, this sound sounded like beeping! The staff stared at Sandra Working social media alone, “Hey Sandy,” they called, “What’s up with your phone!” “We’re trending on Twitter,” she said with a cheer, “Someone tell Sam, he really must hear!” “We sent them all packing, those folks with their pensions,” “Um, Sandy,” said the intern, “I’d check our mentions…” They HADN’T stopped bad press from coming! IT CAME! Somehow or other, it came just the same! And MPP Sam with his smartphone, not quite in the know, Stood puzzling and puzzling: “How could it be so?” “It came without pressers, it came without ads, it came without oppo, or polling. It came with grandads, “And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore, Then Sam Oosterhoff thought of something he hadn’t before! “Maybe bad press,” he thought, “doesn’t come from the liberal elites and special interests galore.” “Maybe… perhaps…I could have done a little bit more… Actually nevermind, I’m pretty sure it’s the old people’s fault.” He cried,“Put out a statement!” It’ll go just like this, Now quick to the phones, staff! There’s no way we can miss!” “Say: ‘I’d love to have listened, To your whines and your moans,<doc-sep>
Niagara West MPP Sam Oosterhoff pledged at an anti-abortion rally in Toronto Thursday to make abortion "unthinkable." "I'm pro-life. I believe children should be allowed to live, no matter how small they are," said Oosterhoff. "We have survived 50 years of abortion in Canada and we pledge to fight to make abortion unthinkable in our lifetime." He made the comments at an anti-abortion rally in front of Queen's Park Thursday. Toronto's event comes alongside a similar rally Thursday at Parliament Hill in Ottawa. Oosterhoff told CBC News that he doesn't have a problem raising these issues at the provincial legislature, or anywhere else. "I have no problem talking about the importance respecting life no matter how small child is," said Oosterhoff. He thanked people for attending the rally, citing that it was the first March for Life in Toronto. "Thank you for being among the first. You are all trailblazers because you believe in the rights of mothers and children." Oosterhoff was one of three MPPs to take the stage at the rally. Christina Mitas, MPP for Scarborough Centre, and Will Bouma, MPP for Brantford-Brant, were alongside him. The comments came in time for the topic to be addressed during question period. NDP MPP for the riding of Nickel Belt, France Gélinas, asked Premier Doug Ford if he supports his MPPs who were at the rally. Ford deferred the question to Energy Minister Greg Rickford. Rickford addressed the legislature, touching on various topics including the carbon tax, but avoided the topic of the rally altogether. Sam Oosterhoff (PC, Niagara West), Christina Mitas (Scarborough Centre) and Will Bouma (Brantford-Brant) took the stage at an anti-abortion rally at Queen's Park Thursday. (Lisa Xing/CBC) Ford later issued a statement after Oosterhoff's comments saying abortion was not part of his agenda. "The Ontario PC Party is a big tent. We welcome members from a wide variety of backgrounds and beliefs," said Ford. "The government will not re-open the abortion debate." After Ford's statement, Oosterhoff was asked again by the media about his stance on abortion. "To quote Dr. Seuss, "A person's a person no matter how small," said Oosterhoff. Horwath says NDP are 'horrified' Andrea Horwath, leader of the official opposition NDP and Hamilton Centre MPP, has condemned the comments. "We are horrified that Doug Ford continues to refuse to denounce his MPP's dangerous, anti-choice and anti-women position," said Horwath. "Every woman has the right to make decisions about her health care, her family and her body, including the decision to seek a safe medical abortion. Sam Oosterhoff and Doug Ford have no right to attack that." This is the second time in days that Oosterhoff, 21, has been in the news. The anti-abortion comments come on the heels of the MPP's office staff called Niagara Regional Police to have a small group of seniors reading books removed from his Beamsville office Tuesday.