In Thursday’s National Post, Terry O’Neill published a fluff piece promoting a new pro-life group in B.C., Signal Hill. (He gets around to mentioning that he is actually on the board of Signal Hill, and therefore presumably playing the role more of interested promoter than critical columnist, only midway down the page, and his bio, characteristically, doesn’t mention the connection either.)

Pro-lifers in B. C., on the other hand, decided to adopt a different approach. Building on the success of their compassionate Focus on Life television campaign, they made some creative changes last June. They adopted a new name, Signal Hill, and featured a woman-and family-friendly look to their Web site and printed material. It all goes along with a new educational and service-oriented approach to help women make informed choices when they are in a crisis pregnancy.

The real news in O’Neill’s piece is that Reform wiseman Preston Manning, currently of the Manning Centre in Alberta, has leaped on board to advocate for the group, including giving a speech to supporters.

But there’s a hitch. What O’Neill dances around in that quote, without really saying, is that Signal Hill is not a new group per se, but simply a new mask for an old one, Pro Life BC. At some point they might even have thought about making the link explicit, judging from the tattered remnants of their old website. But no longer! Their new site scrupulously avoids references to the organizational roots.

Dammit Janet!, which opened the blogging world’s criticism of the O’Neill piece, made the connection immediately, and helpfully linked to some previous work done by that blog and by Unrepentant Old Hippie in January when Signal Hill first announced its existence to the world. Put briefly: this is little more than a re-branding effort