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Trudeau Says He’ll Raise Women’s Rights ‘Backsliding’ With Pence

Trudeau and his government are avowed defenders of abortion rights.

Trudeau Says He’ll Raise Women’s Rights ‘Backsliding’ With Pence
Justin Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister, arrives to speak during a roundtable discussion. (Photographer: F. Carter Smith/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- Canada’s prime minister said he’ll raise his concern that the U.S. is “backsliding” on women’s rights during a visit Thursday by Vice President Mike Pence, a noted abortion opponent.

Justin Trudeau, speaking to reporters in Ottawa on Wednesday, said his meeting with Pence will mostly center on the new trade deal between the two countries and Mexico to replace Nafta. But he signaled he’ll also address abortion. Trudeau and his government are avowed defenders of abortion rights.

“Obviously, I’m very concerned with the situation around the backsliding of women’s rights that we’re seeing from conservative movements here in Canada, in the United States and around the world,” Trudeau said, according to video from the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. “I will have a broad conversation with the vice president -- of course that’ll come up, but we’re going to mostly focus around the ratification process on Nafta and making sure that we get good jobs for Canadians.”

Trade Push

Pence announced the trip earlier this month and said he was going to call for swift adoption of the new continental trade deal. A senior official in President Donald Trump’s administration, speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of the trip, said the White House is calling on Congress to bring the deal up for a vote. Canada introduced its ratification bill Wednesday.

Trudeau and Pence are also expected to discuss the situation in Venezuela, where President Nicolas Maduro has been accused of stealing his last election. Juan Guaido, the head of opposition-dominated National Assembly, says he is the country’s rightful leader. Both the U.S. and Canada support Guaido.

Pence and Trudeau also plan to discuss China’s Huawei Technologies Co., the U.S. official said. The Trump administration is seeking to choke off Beijing’s access to key technologies by limiting the sale of vital U.S. components to the Chinese telecommunications equipment maker over security concerns.

Canada is concerned about its citizens held captive in China since Canada arrested Huawei’s chief financial officer in December at the request of the U.S. Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor were seized by Chinese authorities nine days later, in a move many analysts said looked like retaliation. Two other Canadians have also been sentenced to death in drug cases.

Asked about Trudeau’s concern about “backsliding” women’s rights, the U.S. official said they’d see what Trudeau has to say during the meeting.

High Court

The U.S. Supreme Court this week made a move toward strengthening state powers to regulate abortion by upholding an Indiana law requiring clinics to bury or cremate fetal remains. The measure was signed into law in 2016 by Pence, then the state’s governor.

Meanwhile, several Republican-dominated U.S. states including Georgia, Alabama and Missouri have passed laws this year criminalizing most abortions. The measures are seen as an attempt to prompt lawsuits that may lead to the Supreme Court overturning the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that made abortion legal nationwide.

Trudeau and Pence could hardly have more different views on abortion. In 2017, Pence became the first sitting vice president to address an annual anti-abortion march in Washington, celebrating Trump as “a president who I proudly say stands for the right to life.”

Trudeau heads into an election this fall against a rival Conservative Party that’s leading in polls. Trudeau’s government describes itself as feminist, and Trudeau has said he firmly defends a woman’s right to choose whether to bring a child to term.

To contact the reporter on this story: Josh Wingrove in Ottawa at jwingrove4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Joshua Gallu, Justin Blum

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