Dear friends,
As the year draws to a close, we’d like to update you on what CCBR has accomplished with your assistance in 2022. I hope you will be encouraged by this review!
A rapid expansion of staff and internships

The big focus of this year was recruitment, and I am pleased to report the result was the largest internship we’ve ever had, with 44 interns participating in Alberta and Ontario. A total of more than 60 people were working for CCBR and putting boots on the ground at the peak of CCBR’s year!

The summer programs are already bearing fruit. Many interns are planning to come back next year; others have indicated that they will be recruiting friends to join us. Most encouragingly, we’ve seen the team expand. Ten people have applied to join staff part-time or full-time, setting us up for an even bigger year in 2023, Lord willing.
An unprecedented year of outreach

  • 1,456 instances of activism—584 in 2021
  • 7,960 doors knocked on—5,024 in 2021
  • 9,593 man-hours of pro-life outreach—7,695 in 2021
  • 399,616 postcards hand-delivered—236,697 in 2021

Combined, CCBR’s efforts resulted in 4,015,707 views of abortion victim photography.

Conversation door-knocking was done by East and West, but the West focused on expanding this year, reaching 5,378 homes. Staff, interns, and volunteers also tracked 3,876 conversations and saw 689 people become fully pro-life and 785 people become more pro-life. Of those who engaged in meaningful conversation, 53.72% became either fully pro-life or more pro-life.
“‘This is the best conversation I’ve had on abortion! I hadn’t thought about it in depth before and the arguments you both made really got me to think. Thank-you!’ This is what a man said at the end of our conversation at his door; I can’t think of many comments which would be more encouraging. He had thought that abortion was the solution to many difficult situations, but later heartily agreed that we couldn’t solve problems by killing people.”
-Quiana Casamayor
An upward trend in presentations

With the end of restrictions, CCBR’s reach through speaking engagements has dramatically increased. Our staff members have given a collective 154 talks in North America and Europe for a total audience of 8,274.
“CCBR brought us a clear presentation that was easy to follow for the youth of our church. We’ve only received positive feedback. The video was intense and something they won’t forget soon. It was good to bring this message close to their hearts. Some are even considering the internships.” -Church youth group leader
CCBR was also brought in to train medical professionals and students on pro-life and anti-assisted suicide apologetics at the annual Canadian Physicians for Life Conference. Our books and presentations have become the standard for training many professionals in Canada in just a few years. Additionally, CCBR’s Church Study Series was held in 18 churches.
A growing international impact

We again had the opportunity to help other organizations as they’ve noticed the success of the EndtheKilling strategy. CCBR has been working with the new organization Pro-Life Global, which recruits and trains students around the world to work in their countries. We’ve also increased providing training to Pro-Life Michigan and partnering with Created Equal in the U.S.

Eastern Outreach Director Blaise Alleyne joined up with various American pro-life groups in March for a week of outreach in New York City. He also spoke in Michigan in August at the Life Advocate Intensive, a three-day crash course for high school and university students. Communications Director Jonathon Van Maren spoke at the Leadership Institute in Washington, D.C. the weekend Roe v. Wade was overturned and was invited to Ireland as the keynote speaker for their Renewal Tour. I just completed a speaking tour with 11 presentations in the Netherlands in November.

The Pro-Life Guys Podcast, hosted by Western Outreach Director Cameron Côté and developed to help people worldwide have more effective pro-life conversations, was downloaded 64,852 times this year.
An encouraging reach through resources

This year, STUCK, authored by Justina Van Manen, was translated into German, and Jonathon van Maren’s Culture War was translated into Russian. We released Prairie Lion: The Life and Times of Ted Byfield with proceeds going to support CCBR, as well as a booklet on embryo adoption.

The Bridgehead continues to provide consistent social commentary on a daily basis on all culture war issues, with hundreds of thousands of annual visitors. The new Bridgehead Substack (newsletter) now has nearly 2000 subscribers, providing crucial context and information for what is unfolding in society.
A solid pro-life presence in Quebec

In 2021, Montreal Against Abortion was started by two people who were brand-new to activism themselves, joined by a group of volunteers. My colleague Blaise Alleyne travelled to Quebec five times to help them get started until they were comfortable running outreach on their own. Blaise provided the following update:
In 2022, the training wheels were off Montreal Against Abortion, and they continued to run monthly activism independently through the year. But the highlight was definitely June, when we brought a dozen interns to Montreal for a three-day blitz of activism and training. On the day that Roe fell, we held a Pro-Life Day of Action with training from CCBR and Toronto Right to Life, and we had 35 people on the streets of downtown Montreal at four locations. This was also the first time that the banner and postcarding projects were run in Montreal, and we launched a new bilingual version of our human rights pamphlet. Toronto Right to Life also contributed a French translation of our apologetics training booklet for use in Montreal.

We’re preparing to bring a new Truth Truck with bilingual signs to Montreal and Ottawa and the surrounding region in 2023, as we continue to support Montreal Against Abortion and work to build inroads elsewhere in Quebec.
An organized pro-abortion pushback

As a result of CCBR’s growth and effectiveness, we’re also seeing increased opposition. Pro-choice groups have now teamed up with pro-choice politicians and gained momentum in lobbying to restrict pro-life freedom of expression, targeting our postcarding projects in particular with a new by-law that regulates pro-life flyers in London, Ontario. Toronto and Calgary are also exploring such by-laws.

We have been organizing a response because we need to defend our voice in order to continue to be a voice for the voiceless. CCBR and pro-life partners have submitted legal letters to these municipalities and are building a grassroots campaign to empower pro-life constituents to be heard by their councillors. We’re working hard to ensure that these new laws do not impact our work and are developing projects to ensure that CCBR’s outreach is not hindered
A hopeful end of the year

An Ipsos poll from July found that just 56% of Canadians supported abortion “whenever a woman decides she wants one.” More significantly, an Ipsos poll from 2021 found that up to a quarter of Canadians opposed abortion in almost all cases. This is up by double digits since 2012, the year CCBR launched its national educational outreach plan and began putting boots on the ground daily. When we started, around 11% of Canadians opposed abortion in almost all cases. That number has now grown to up to 25%. The pollsters noted that in much of Western Europe, abortion has become a non-issue, while in Canada, the polling indicates that the number of people opposing abortion is actually growing significantly.

The key difference between those countries and Canada—which are very similar with regard to rates of religious belief and culture—is that the truth about abortion is shown to millions of Canadians every year, and pro-life outreach is growing every year. We believe that keeping abortion front and center in the minds of millions of Canadians has been the major contributor to that.

It is thanks to your gifts that CCBR has been able to play this role in changing minds and saving lives. With the Lord’s blessing, our country is more pro-life now than it was ten years ago. We hope you’ll join us in celebrating Christmas with grateful hearts, and wish you a blessed 2023!
On behalf of the team, 
Maaike Rosendal