Alissa Golob is quickly making a name for herself as Canada's pre-eminent millennial pro-life activist.
She was a key player in the nomination and eventual election of Sam Oosterhoff, the homeschooled 19-year old who replaced Tim Hudak as Ontario MPP for Niagara West Glanbrook, and is a prominent organizer for CPC leadership candidate Andrew Scheer.
Before launching RightNow, an organization that "exists to nominate and elect pro-life politicians", Golob was the public face and youth organizer of the Campaign Life Coalition (CLC), the longtime "political arm of the pro-life movement".
In a revealing blogpost on her personal website, Golob describes an emerging divide in Canada's pro-life movement, between the old guard at the CLC, who supports Brad Trost for leader of the CPC, and her organization.
She details how the CLC has failed to deliver for the pro-life cause, how they get distracted by side issues such as the sex-ed curriculum in Ontario, and how they tried to serve her with a lawsuit when she tried to go her own way.
This particular post is noteworthy in that it is a response to an email sent out by Maurice Vellacott, former chair of the Parliamentary Pro-Life caucus and a Brad Trost supporter. Vellacott's email- which named her personally- features what Golob identifies as CLC talking points throughout.
A power struggle over who speaks for pro-lifers in Canada is mildly entertaining and diverting, but ultimately pointless.
Neither Scheer nor Trost have a hope in hell of becoming leader of the CPC, and Oosterhoff is likely to be yet another millstone around the neck of Patrick Brown and the PC Party of Ontario as they go into the next election.
Moose will fly before any sort of pro-life constituency enjoys any real credibility in Canada.
However, if you consider yourself a conservative activist in Canada, or indeed a Canadian activist of any sort, Golob's post has immense practical value.
Importantly, Golob is an activist that openly and deliberately focuses on a single issue and uses it as part of her personal brand, as opposed to being the one young person in a group of old-timey lifers who have contented themselves with merely existing.
Golob's struggle is the struggle politically active millennials face in Canada.
When she says, "For the last two years of my employment, while I was trying to change and focus the organization, I was consistently told that regardless of what plans or strategies I put forward, "we have to do what we've always done and let God take care of the rest"," I felt more of an emotional response to that than anything she or any other pro-lifer has said about the so-called "rights of the unborn."
Her response- to focus on a single issue and goal to the exclusion of all others, without worrying if her approach is "inclusive" or "team-based" enough is radical enough in Canada, but to build the issue into her personal brand is likely unprecedented. Calling out the CLC as she does, without the usual worry that doing so will hurt the cause as a whole or make either organization look bad is something more than gutsy and is definitely admirable.
Does Golob's new approach represent a change in how "activists" see themselves in Canada? Will we see more young Canadians casting themselves as the face of their own single-issue struggles? It depends.
Andrew Scheer will not be the next CPC leader, but he will likely do very well. His level of influence after this scrimmage of a leadership race and his ability to push the issues that matter to Golob's supporters will determine whether her efforts were worth the cost.
It's also likely that Golob herself will come under more sustained fire from the Canadian left as her profile increases. Can she hold up under the strain? If she does, she'd be the first.
But the biggest test of Golob's mettle and the viability of her approach is whether Sam Oosterhoff can withstand the inhospitable environment of an Ontario general election. The Ontario Liberals will be looking for any opportunity to cast Patrick Brown as an extremist, as it's their only hope for survival.
Will the PC's sink So-Con Sam to save their chance at power? They haven't stood in the way of a nomination rematch between Oosterhoff and challenger Tony Quirk, which Oosterhoff won. Will they go further, possibly finding one of their famous loopholes to block him from running?
Golob may need more than faith alone to withstand the coming tests ahead. Ontarians, and activists young and old across the country, will be watching her closely.
Photo Credit: CBC News
Written Josh Lieblein
