Planned Parenthood has been waiting for more than a year for word on funding from CIDA—Bev Oda’s shop. Looks like the answer is NOT.

While there is no official word as yet, a virulently anti-choice Harper Candidate™ has blown the gaff. Brad Trost (Saskatoon-Humboldt) boasted to the annual general meeting of the Saskatchewan Pro-Life Association that the grant had been refused.

In a recording of the speech, obtained by the Liberals and provided to the Toronto Star and Le Devoir, Trost claims a number of parliamentary victories for the pro-life movement, including a decision to deny funding for the International Planned Parenthood Federation.

Trost said he and “many” other MPs helped spearhead efforts to round up petitions “to defund Planned Parenthood.”

“Let me just tell you, and I cannot tell you specifically how we used it, but those petitions were very, very useful and they were part of what we used to defund Planned Parenthood because it has been absolute disgrace that that organization and several others like it have been receiving one penny of Canadian taxpayers dollars,” Trost said.

Just another glimpse into the Harper Not-so-hidden Agenda™.

By an odd coincidence, United Way Ottawa has just finished defunding the local Planned Parenthood branch, eliminating a sex education program in local schools while the STD rate among teenagers is skyrocketing. The Community Services Cabinet, which made that decision, is chock-a-block with local business types and people with solid Conservative connections (e.g., Michael Allen and Jim Durrell). No word as yet from the Ottawa and District Labour Council’s Sean McKenny, who seems to have gone along with the majority.

[H/t]

UPDATE Shorter Dimitri Soudas: “Thanks for joining me at this late hour. I can neither confirm or deny.”