The event was one of several taking place in provincial capitals across the country this week in conjunction with the National March for Life. It preceded the national march which is taking place in Ottawa May 10 and expected to draw a crowd of upwards of 20,000 to Parliament Hill. 

The numbers paled in comparison on a sunny afternoon in Regina, but the passion was evident from the several hundred gathered in front of the provincial legislature. Ranging in age from newborn to seniors, the crowd marched, signs aloft, from Christ the King Parish, where it had celebrated a noon-hour prayer and worship service, through the streets of the neighbourhood and down Albert Street to the legislature.

Lia Mills, a 22-year-old pro-life feminist and human rights activist from Toronto, told the crowd of her pro-life passion and encouraged those gathered to be “All In” as supporters of the pro-life cause. “All In” is the theme for this year’s march.

“We need to be 100 per cent pro-life and consistent in our beliefs,” she said, adding that a “society that devalues life at the beginning” will also “devalue life at the end,” as we are seeing with the passage of medical aid in dying legislation in Canada. 

The challenge, Mills said, is to live a true pro-life lifestyle at all times, because “if we do nothing, evil will prevail.”

“But if we do something, then evil will not prevail,” she said.

While it may seem difficult to see that you are making a difference, Mills said “you can make a difference every time an opportunity arises.”

“If we all say yes, we can together create a momentum” to swing the pendulum to the pro-life way.

A number of MPs who were not able to attend the Regina rally sent greetings and offered encouragement, including Cathay Wagantall of Yorkton-Melville who last year introduced a private member’s bill in the House of Commons to amend the Criminal Code to permit charges against someone who harmed an unborn child while assaulting a woman they knew to be pregnant. In her letter, Wagantall assured the crowd that “I am all in” and will continue to work for life, from conception to natural end, in Ottawa.

Also sending greetings were David Anderson (Cypress Hills-Grasslands), who said “by being here today you are telling lawmakers we need a law,” and Rosemarie Falk of Battlefords-Lloydminster, who thanked the marchers for “being a champion of life.”

The marchers were greeted by country and Gospel singer Troy MacNaughton, who welcomed them in song before later playing a couple of his pro-life songs. He was also selling CDs, with a quarter of the proceeds to be donated to the Saskatchewan Pro-life Association.

(Conlon is a writer in Regina.)