Acacia Group co-found Albertos Polizogopoulos was honoured at the 2025 National March f Life Rose almost a year to the day after he went home to God on May 9, 2024.
The annual March and dinner, held this year on May 8 in Ottawa, were dedicated to both Albertos and fellow constitutional lawyer Carol Crosson. She, too, was remembered as a devoted pro-life champion who died in 2023.
Albertos’ larger-than-life spirit pervaded the room this year – much as it had the previous year when word of his death at only age 41 was passed among the gathered pro-lifers and then formally announced from the podium.
Time and space were given to his wife, partner, and Acacia co-founder Faye Sonier so that she could speak about their lives, their love, their family, and their unwavering commitment to the protection of life from conception to death.
Faye’s address can be seen in the accompanying link or read in the text below:
“Being here tonight feels like coming home. So many of you have loved my family well and faithfully over the last five years since Albertos’ brain cancer diagnosis. Our family extended to include so many of you, passionate pro-life advocates. We’ve sat next to each other in court, in the House, at my own home over dinner.
My children know you and understand our common cause. The pro-life fight is our shared spiritual DNA. Our relationship with you means so much to me.
Many of you knew Albertos. For those who don’t, I’ll share, for a moment, about him.
Albertos and I met and fell in love during our first year of law school. We married during our second year.
During that time, he became a Christian and subsequently became passionate about protecting the vulnerable and fighting for the rights of Christians to worship, speak and engage in the public square in meaningful ways.
We started our careers together focused on this advocacy work. He from a law firm in the private sector and me, as in-house counsel in the charitable sector. We often attended the Supreme Court of Canada and other courts together, both representing various clients, fighting the good fight. Our story and partnership felt unique, special and God-ordained.
Albertos was loud, passionate, gregarious and thoughtful. He had a few talking points that he would repeat often. The one that most reflects his place in this movement was: “We are not called to win, we are called to fight.”
Many of us know that winning in our culture is hard. It depends on who is in government, who is in the bureaucracy and who is on the bench. But he, along with our clients, believed that we had to show up, be faithful, be a light in the darkness, regardless of the outcome.
In September 2020, at the age of 38, he collapsed on our kitchen floor in front of me and my children. That night, in the ER, we learned he had a horrific form of brain cancer, glioblastoma, and that he had twelve months to live. My children were four and six.
But, in God’s providence, he lived 3.5 years. My children now have vivid memories of him that will last, Lord willing, the rest of their lives.
A few months after his diagnosis, in a step of incredible faith, Albertos asked me if we could found a law firm which was solely dedicated to carrying on his work for the Church in Canada. I agreed and we worked to make his dream come true.
That dream carries on, and our law firm, The Acacia Group, continues to grow and expand. He would have been so moved to see how many Christians we come alongside, and how many lawyers and law students we are training to carry on this Kingdom work.
Many of you know that Albertos never missed the March for Life. There are more pictures than I can count scattered across various social media platforms, with him smiling in the crowds and his arms around some of you for a selfie.
It was fitting that he took his last breath during last year’s March, which was also the date of the Feast of the Ascension.
I want to thank you for dedicating this year’s March to Albertos. It would have meant a lot to him. In his final years, this work somehow came to mean even more to him, and then as he experienced life-affirming palliative care in the final months of his life.
This honour is beautiful and it is brilliant, and on behalf of Albertos, and my children, Jack and Melina, thank you.”
Peter Stockland leads the Strategic Communications division at The Acacia Group and is the author of The Acacia Arc newsletter. He has decades of experience as a Canadian journalist, including as editor-in-chief of the Montreal Gazette, editorial page editor of the Calgary Herald, vice-president of English language magazines for Reader’s Digest Canada, and Publisher of the Catholic Register. Peter also enjoys writing short-stories and other fiction, which have been featured in numerous publications across Canada.