A brochure that a U of T pro-life student club tried to have inserted into SAC frosh kits was actually promotional material provided to them by an anti-abortion advocacy organization, The Varsity has learned.

In an article that appeared last week in The Catholic Register, the University of Toronto Students for Life (UTSFL) alleged that the Student Administrative Council (SAC) had discriminated against it by not allowing them to have their materials-a pamphlet produced by the group and a brochure with “abortion facts”-inserted.

In an interview, UTSFL president Kathrin Matusiak said that the group delivered 6,500 copies of the materials to SAC on Friday, Aug. 18, with the understanding they would be placed in orientation kits.

“Come Monday, when our volunteers arrived to help stuff the kits, SAC told them that they were denied permission, because management had told them they were not allowed to stuff them,” Matusiak said.

“At best, I think this was some sort of misunderstanding between senior representatives and junior representatives [at SAC] in relaying information between them and us. At worst, I hate to say a discriminatory act, but it shows that there was a lack of any type of official meeting.”

A faxed copy of the fact brochure obtained by The Varsity contained a hand-written tear-away sticker with information about UTSFL on one side. But an electronic copy of that same brochure, subsequently obtained from UTSFL, instead had a mailing label soliciting donations for Alliance for Life Ontario, a Guelph-based pro-life advocacy group, in the spot where the UTSFL sticker would have been.

Matusiak explained that UTSFL had received the pamphlets from the organization, whose website also appeared on the other side of the brochure. Asked if UTSFL had paid Alliance for Life Ontario for the materials, Matusiak replied that “we paid for them in the sense that it’s a suggested donation.” And she did not see the fact that UTSFL wanted to distribute the pamphlet as an endorsement of the organization’s message. “That’s just because that’s where the facts are from, so if they need a source, that’s where it’s from,” she said.

Reached by e-mail on Sunday, SAC general manager Rick Telfer said that “junior contract staff of SAC mistakenly gave the club pre-authorization. When management learned of the mistake, we were away and unable to review the material. By the time we returned to the office, it was too late.”

Asked whether SAC had any rules in place as to the source of frosh kit inserts, Telfer replied no. “We do not have rules on paper. Thus, like any situation without rules, it is a management decision-to be made in accordance with SAC’s mandate.”