Man facing charges for violating pro-life censorship law passes away

13 Mar 2018 Man facing charges for violating pro-life censorship law passes away

Cyril Winter

Cyril Winter

One of the most recognizable pro-life activists in Ottawa has passed away.

For much of the past seven years, Cyril Winter had been fixture outside the Morgentaler Clinic on Bank Street, holding various signs, with messages such as “Potential Life Destroyed” or “Choose God’s Love, Not Murder”, and often with images of aborted babies.

Last month, Winter became the first person charged under Ontario’s “Safe Access to Abortion Services Act”, more colloquially known at the “Bubble Zone Law.”

Winter was 70 years old. In what was likely his last media interview earlier this month, he told Lighthouse News host Al Siebring that his arrest on February 7th was a case of betrayal by police. “I was surprised and shocked that they came after me, because (two police officers) had interviewed me on the Friday before and basically okayed the sign that I was carrying.” That sign, Winter said, had nothing to do with abortion. Instead, it read: “Freedom of Expression and Religion; No Censorship.”

Winter says when he read the actual charges against him, it was clear that they weren’t referencing the sign, but that authorities instead had made up “a series of lies, pretending that I was doing things like ‘photographing clients, land, or staff’, and ‘observing for purposes of persuading’”. Winter said in the interview that actual security video from the clinic’s own security cameras would prove that the charges were groundless.

The Lighthouse News interview was done from a hospital bed at the Ottawa Heart Institute, where Winter had been admitted for stenting of several coronary arteries. The surgery took place on Friday, March 9th. On Tuesday, his brother Chris posted to Facebook that Cyril had passed away shortly after the surgery.

He was due to appear in court on the charges on March 23rd.


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2 Comments
  • Joan Kottelenberg
    Posted at 20:40h, 14 March

    As Christians we all should be standing up for people like Mr. Winter. Especially when we see injustice by authorities. I presume it was Mr. Winters Christian principles that made him stand up for the preborn. The sign he was carrying however was about freedoms of expression
    and religion. Again we see the hatred for God and His gospel. We should activate peacefully for the good of our country and the lost in it. May his family be comforted with his passing in the knowledge he was doing it for His Saviour
    J. Kottelenberg

  • Francis J. Barrett
    Posted at 20:55h, 17 March

    Christians are under fire ,we must all stand up and fight for our RIGHTS . Cyril Winter was standing up for the Unborn he was doing nothing wrong breaking no laws .he was on the side of truth. However he was interfering with Planned Parenthood making big money killing babies .so they started to lie and make up stories about him harassing him by phony calls to the police .The Ottawa police got so tired of these calls that they in turn started harassing him also and bulling him with threat’s of arrest after the start of Bubble zone was made up from lies even the Ottawa Police admitted they had no proof or charges again him
    But Politics took over and brought in the Bad law of the Bubble Zone which takes away our freedom of Speech and opinion
    to shut down the TRUTH Canadian had better wake up we losing our Country to EVIL people

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