Eddy Quinn

When Eddy Quinn shares a song on stage, it’s like an old friend has dropped by for a chat.  The three-time male vocalist of the year sings of people and places rooted in his home province of Prince Edward Island, Canada.  Eddy has won eight P.E.I. Music Awards, including four of his own and four as lead singer with the roots-traditional band Fiddlers’ Sons.  In the summer, Eddy and Fiddlers’ Sons host the “Close to the Ground” music series. The ceilidh-type series, now approaching its eighth season, features Fiddlers’ Sons performing with special guests each week. Eddy and his bandmates draw much of their musical inspiration from life on Prince Edward Island. Their music celebrates the Island’s rich Celtic history, its landscape, and its people.  Eddy’s solo recording, “Outside of Sneakers Lounge,” won P.E.I. Country Recording of the Year and garnered an East Coast Music Award nomination. Fiddlers’ Sons have five albums, including the most recent, “This Is My Island.”  The band recently opened for Canadian Juno winners Rawlins Cross at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts national women’s curling championship. Fiddlers’ Sons has also received national play on CBC radio as part of Lorne Elliott’s “Madly Off In All Directions,” opened for The Irish Descendants, and headlined the summer festival of the College of Piping and Celtic Performing Arts.

Dr Debra Zeni, M.D

Dr Debra Zeni Board of Directors and Senior Researcher of The deVeber Institute for Bioethics and Social Research

Dr. Zeni is a family physician in Georgetown, Ontario who specializes in Obstetrics and Pediatrics. She has won the “2006 Mentorship Award” for The Rural Ontario Medicine Program, the “2004 Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons Award for Excellence in Community Medicine”, and was named the “Halton Community Physician of the Year” in 2004.  Dr. Zeni is a widely acclaimed speaker. She has spoken about women’s and children’s health and abortion to medical students, universities, and community groups while actively researching these topics with the deVeber Institute for Bioethics and Social Research. Dr Zeni will be speaking about “Women’s Health After Abortion”.

Angelina Steenstra

Angelina Steenstra, National Coordinator, Silent No More Awareness Campaign

The first Campaign event held outside the United States took place in Ottawa, Ontario Canada on Parliament Hill on May 13, 2004 in conjunction with the National March for Life.  Women and men told their stories of regret, raising awareness about the physical, spiritual and emotional harm caused by abortion.  Working with Regional Coordinators, she promotes the spread of the Campaign throughout the country, letting those who are hurting from abortion know that help is available. She is also to co-founder of Second Chance Post Abortion Healing in 1991.  Second Chance, an outreach ministry in the greater Toronto area, serves the spiritual needs of women and men suffering the aftermath of abortion through a weekly support group and personal one-on-one ministry. Angelina will speak on “Silent No More Awareness”

K.C McLean

K.C McLean, National Administrator for Canadian Physicians for Life

KC McLean is a pro-life advocate and proud adoptee. In her work with Canadian Physicians for Life, she works with physicians and medical students to promote a culture of life through education.  Earlier in 2013, KC walked with 24 other women from the Morgentaler clinic in Montreal to the Supreme Court in Ottawa to raise awareness about the legal vacuum on abortion in Canada, and the psychological and physical harm abortion causes to women.  She walked in honor of her birth family and her adoptive family.  Adopted as an infant in PEI, KC met her birthparents and siblings as an adult and has been enjoying the last 13 years of life with her expanded family.

Pearl Palmer

Pearl Palmer, Executive Director of Parent Finders PEI

Pearl Palmer is the mother of 6, including a daughter she lost to adoption, and then found again 25 years later. When she is not making her daily mail deliveries, Pearl helps others reunite with family members separated by adoption, or to cope with their experience of loss and grief. She is the only certified post-adoption counselor in the Maritimes. Together with KC, she will speak about “The Adoption Option”.

Andrea Mrozek

Andrea Mrozek, Executive Director, Institute of Marriage and Family Canada

Andrea writes and speaks about education, child care, women’s issues and how family life affects the economy, and vice versa. Since joining the Institute in 2006, she has authored a number of influential pieces including Private Choices, Public Costs: How Failing Families Cost Us All about the national public costs of family breakdown.  Outspoken on many issues of cultural and economic importance, her opinion pieces have appeared in the National Post, Globe and Mail, Vancouver Sun, Calgary Herald, Montreal Gazette, Toronto Sun and the Ottawa Citizen, among others, and she’s frequently on TV and radio stations across Canada.  In 2008, she launched the first exclusively female pro-life voice on the abortion issue in Canada with a team of bloggers at ProWomanProLife.org. The team includes an array of young, professional women, all of whom are passionately and proudly pro-woman and pro-life.  Andrea will speak about “Abortion and the Family”.

Dr Robert Walley

Dr Robert Walley, Founder of Matercare International

Dr Walley is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, a Fellow of the Royal College of Obstetrics & Gynaecologists of England, and has a Masters degree in Population, Maternal and International Health from the Harvard School of Public Health.  Dr Walley was a professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Memorial University of Newfoundland Medical School from 1973 – 2003.  In May 2009 Dr Walley was appointed the first Emeritus Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology by Memorial University of Newfoundland. He was appointed a Consultor to the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care (Vatican Ministry) by Pope John Paul II and served on the Council until 2002. Dr Walley has developed new approaches to the delivery of maternal health care in Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, East Timor and Haiti and is presently developing a similar project in Kenya.  He was asked to conduct maternal needs assessments of refugees in Albania during the Kosovo crisis and East Timor following the withdrawal of the occupying forces. On December 9^th, 2012, Dr Walley was presented with the award, Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice, by the Archbishop of St John’s on behalf of Pope Benedict XVI in recognition for his work in developing countries.  This is the highest award given to a lay Catholic.   Dr Walley will speak about “Matercare International”.

Natalie Hudson Sonnen

Natalie Hudson Sonnen, Executive Director of Life Canada/Vie Canada

Natalie Hudson Sonnen is the Executive Director of LifeCanada and has a wealth of experience in the pro-life movement. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts from Thomas Aquinas College in California, a Graduate Business Diploma in Business Management from Capilano College, and is completing a Masters in Social Communications from the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome, Italy.

Natalie has worked for years bringing the message of life into university and school classrooms. She was the executive director of Toronto Right to Life from 2002 – 2007, and Director of Education for Signal Hill from 2007-2009.  She married John Paul Sonnen in Rome in 2011, and they had their first child, a baby girl in October of 2012. Natalie will be speaking about “Life Canada”.

Dana

Dana Rosemary Scallon, known as “Dana”, is an Irish singer, and a former member of the European Parliament. Dana had the great honour of singing for Blessed Pope John Paul ll on six occasions, the first being in 1987, when she led 86,000 young people in singing “Totus Tuus” for him in the New Orleans’s Super Dome. In the 1993 World Youth Day (WYD) in Denver, Colorado, she sang for the late Pontiff once again, this time her composition “We are one Body”, which was chosen as the WYD theme song. Then in 1995, she sang alongside Placido Domingo, as soloist at the Holy Father’s open air mass in Central Park, New York.  Dana has also hosted a Christian music and interview series on EWTN. Working tirelessly for peace, Christian family values, and respect for Life, she became the first woman to be awarded the highly prestigious St. Benedict Award for her outstanding work in defending Family and Life.

Alissa Golob

Alissa Golob , Youth Coordinator, Campaign Life Coalition

As Youth Coordinator for Campaign Life Coalition in Toronto, Alissa has traveled across Canada, addressing Canada’s youth, and motivating them to become active in the pro-life movement. She has been featured on various radio and television programs such as CBC, Global Television, CHCH, CTV, CTS and is a regular on Sun News Network’s The Arena with Michael Coren. She has also been featured on television specials on MTV and the 12 Biggest Lies (documentary). Alissa recently spearheaded the Defund Abortion Campaign across Ontario, starting with a rally at Queens Park, which attracted over 2,000 people. Alissa recently represented Canada’s pro-life youth movement at the United Nations’ 57^th Commission on the Status of Women in New York, where she lobbied for women’s rights for girls in and out of the womb. She is one of the main organizers of the March for Life, which attracts over 20,000 people annually. Alissa will be speaking to Youth about pro-life work.

Rebecca Richmond

Rebecca Richmond, Executive Director, National Campus Life Network

Rebecca Richmond has served as NCLN’s Executive Director since 2010, directly training and supporting Canadian students to be leaders for life on their campuses.  She oversees the national operations of NCLN as well as campaigns, programs and projects, and also serves as the primary media contact for the organization.  When President of the University of Ottawa’s Students for Life, Rebecca came to understand how desperately campuses need the pro-life message and the critical role that students have to play in bringing that message to their peers. In the last few years, Rebecca has spoken to thousands across the country at university campuses, high schools, and elementary schools as well as Right to Life banquets and meetings, youth conferences and retreats, and pro-life conferences. Among her writings is included Growing up in the Shadow of R. v. Morgentaler  published in The LifeCanada Journal, and My Aunt’s Killer Should Not be an Excuse to Kill published by the Prairie Messenger and the CWL Magazine.  Rebecca will be speaking to Youth about pro-life work.

Alex Schadenberg

Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director and International Chair of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

With the aim of building a well-informed network of groups and individuals to establish an effective social barrier to euthanasia and assisted suicide, Alex’s efforts are wide and varied.  His articles and commentaries are published both in Canada and world-wide. He has a widely-read blog at www.alexschadenberg.blogspot.com. He published the Full Report of the World Federation of Right to Die Society Conference that was held in Toronto, September 2006, that exposed the truth related to the Right to Die agenda.  Alex recently published the book: Exposing Vulnerable People to Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide. Husband to Susan and father of 6 children, Alex often speaks internationally, as far away as Australia, New Zealand, Rome and Scotland.  Alex will be speaking about euthanasia.

Peter Ryan

Peter Ryan, Executive Director of New Brunswick Right to Life

A native of Saint John, NB,  Peter Ryan holds four university degrees. His dissertation in theological ethics at the Lateran University of Rome was devoted to the topic of euthanasia.   After meeting Jean Vanier and working several years with mentally disabled persons, Peter devoted his life to the pro-life cause. He has worked full-time in the movement since 1977.  Peter has organized numerous pro-life organizations and services for expectant mothers across Canada. In 1980 he co-founded the New Brunswick Right to Life Association. In 2000 he founded the Mother and Child Welcome House to assist pregnant mothers, located next to the Morgentaler abortion facility in Fredericton. In 2000 also, Peter became the first president of the national pro-life organization LifeCanada.   Peter holds a special expertise and interest in euthanasia. In the 1990s he co-founded the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition of BC. He has lectured and written many articles on the topic. He chairs the Euthanasia Committee for LifeCanada.   For the past 14 years Peter has been the Executive Director of New Brunswick Right to Life. He and his wife Suzie have 7 daughters, 6 sons in law, and 13 grandchildren including one unborn and one in heaven.  Peter will be speaking about euthanasia.

Mike Schouten

Mike Schouten, Executive Director of the weneedaLAW.ca campaign

Mike has had a lifelong interest in politics and the sanctity of human life, and his position as campaign director of the weneedaLAW.ca blends these two passions wonderfully.   Aside from directing the day to day affairs of the campaign, Mike has been published many times in the National Post, Vancouver Sun, and the Calgary Herald. He also has been interviewed by Sun News anchor, Brian Lilley.  Living in Surrey, BC, with his wife Jennifer and their six children, his goal for this campaign is to bury the status quo by helping to enact the first pro-life law this country has seen in 25 years. His ultimate goal is that Canada will have full legal protection for all pre-born children.  Mike will be speaking about Canada’s need for an abortion law.

Stephen Woodworth

Stephen Woodworth, Member of Parliament for Kitchener-Centre

Mr Woodworth is known as a tireless defender of life. In 2012, the Ontario MP tabled a motion seeking to create a Commons Committee to review subsection 223(1) of the Criminal Code, which declares that a child becomes a human being at the moment of his or her birth. Although defeated, his motion awakened the public and started discussion on the humanity of the unborn, whose rights he continues to defend.  He has served on the House of Commons’ Justice Committee (2008-2012), Environment Committee (2012-present) and Fisheries and Oceans Committee (2012-present).  Prior to this, he practiced law for 30 years in Kitchener, Ontario.  We are both pleased and honored to have Mr. Woodworth speak at our conference. He will be speaking on Denial of Human Equality: The Greatest Threat to Democracy in Canada Today.