Rod Bruinooge (C-Winnipeg), your bill to change the Criminal Code to make it illegal for anyone to coerce a woman into having an abortion is done. Finished. Over.
It made first reading in the House, common for a private members bill, and had been eagerly touted by groups such as 4myCanada and bound4life, run by one of the stars of The Armageddon Factor – Faytene Kryskow.
“It’s going to be strongly recommended that the bill be opposed,” said a senior adviser to Mr. Harper, speaking on condition of anonymity. “This is an old debate. Canadians don’t want to have this debate anymore.”
That recommendation, though, could put some Tory MPs in a difficult position.
A resolution adopted by the Conservative Party at its 2008 policy convention reads: “On issues of moral conscience, such as abortion, the definition of marriage, and euthanasia, the Conservative Party acknowledges the diversity of deeply held personal convictions among individual party members and the right of Members of Parliament to adopt positions in consultation with their constituents and to vote freely.”
PMO Communications Director Dimitri Soudas:
[Harper] has never had more than one position on this issue. The debate is over. It’s done, said Soudas.
Canadians don’t have an abortion law and it’s apparent from ongoing polls we don’t want one. Money for Toronto’s Gay Pride parade – gone. Money for international Planned Parenthood – gone. Funding for faith groups – up. The socially conservative anti abortion voters are going to have to deal with this decision, the Conservative MP’s would not have had a whipped vote. Many of Harpers MPs made an apearance at the March for Life last week. That’s fine. The bill is finished since Conservative MPs will be “very strongly recommended” to defeat it.
Coercion is already against the law and Canadians picked up on this C-510 sneak attempt quickly. Chantal Daigle’s 1989 situation had nothing to do with what Bruinrooge was attempting to get passed with help from other groups such as Lifesite, and the Canada Family Action Coalition.
Broonruige is chair of the anti-abortion caucus. Here is a list of some of the members.
C-510 served the conscience of the sponsor, but it doesn’t help the party and it’s goals for a majority or electorate pleasure.
BSDO posted background on Roxanne and this private members bill. 4MyCanada misrepresenting Roxannes Law:
“It’s going to be strongly recommended that the bill be opposed,†said a senior adviser to Mr. Harper, speaking on condition of anonymity. “This is an old debate. Canadians don’t want to have this debate anymore.â€
——
Canadians don’t want this debate yet the Conservatives won’t put the nails in the coffin of abortion. That’s a way of pandering to their
Christian franchise and keeping the opposition nervous.
I note that Bene has linked this piece with an OttawaWatch I wrote in the dim and distant past. The link is entitled “Here is a list.”
Unfortunately, some of my older OttawaWatch columns archived at http://www.canadianchristianity.com are not dated by year.
So, here is some context:
That OttawaWatch was likely written in 2004 or 2005, when the two Parliamentary Pro-Life Caucus co-chairs were Conservative Maurice Vellacott and Liberal Paul Steckle. At that time, the caucus was at least bi-partisan. Today — and I think it is more a matter of leadership style than a partisan issue — the current chair, Rod Bruinooge, is more comfortable not sharing the chairmanship with someone from another part. (Or it could be that other party leaders have told their members not to accept an offer of co-chairmanship.)
Be that as it may: The PPLC does not make its mailing list public. Further, not everyone who is on the list is necessarily pro-life. In many cases, they may be personally pro-life but cognizant of a woman’s right to choose. But they may also accept that it is good to be on the PPLC caucus, in order to be informed on an issue which is important to a segment of their constituency.
A look at that list will show the name of a Liberal MP, David Anderson, who was environment minister in the Chretien cabinet. He was a case in point. Anderson is a devout Anglican and would likely be positioned as a pro-choicer, but not someone who would support abortion on demand. However, he had staffers who were either pro-life or interested in keeping his office informed across issue lines.
Anderson informed my editors, after the piece appeared, that he was not a member of the PPLC. That was technically true, because the only people on its mailing list who were de facto members were those who supported the PPLC from their MP budgets. (That is one reason why the Board of Internal Economy don’t want too close a monitoring of MP expenses. It might reveal too many secrets about what MPs support financially. But that is another subject.)
Private members’ bills will always be used to road-test certain potential laws. The recent Bloc attempt to legalize assisted suicide was one such effort. And, in his day, Liberal Steckle proposed a bill to outlaw abortion after 20 weeks. Generally, party leaders decline to whip their members on private member’s bills, even those proposed by their own members.
Which brings me to my last point:
There is a new body, known as the Parliamentary Palliative and Compassionate Care Committee, which was formed after the defeat of the assisted suicide bill. It is led by two Conservatives (Albrecht and Block, two Liberals (Simson and Valeriote) and one NDPer, (Comartin, who is the chair). As it happens, at least four of the five members are clearly people who will likely bring their faith perspective, in part at least, into exploring these issues and proposing action.
This committee is set up like the PPLC was intended, orignally, to provide research and non-partisan exchange of information on end-of-life issues and services, from a “small pl” pro-life perspective.
From my perspective, it looks a bit like the Social Justice Centre set up in Britain a couple of years ago, by former Brit Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith. The main difference is that it is internal to the parliamentary system.
My point is to suggest that the Social Justice Centre was likely one of the elements that led to the new Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition in Britain.
In a similar manner , the new committee, if developed to its full potential, could provide a model for getting centrists and right wingrs of various perspectives working and thinking together.
All part of the collaborative politics agenda that could well lead to an emulation of the way things are emerging in Britain. And which have been a way of political life in British Columbia, where I come from, for 70 years. And in Saskatchewan, more recent.
Just a little food for thought.
Just a quick correction. The proper name of the new parliamentary committee to which I refer is Parliamentary Committee on Palliative and Compassionate Care.
The David Akin article mentions that:
“It’s going to be strongly recommended that the bill be opposed,†. . ..
If that isn’t coercion in itself, I don’t know what it is.
Couldn’t be friendly persuasion; it’s too emphatic.
Just a thought: I wonder if anyone will sign Bruinooge’s
nomination papers when the next election rolls around.
Canada’s need for pro-life legislation aside…I figured that the bill was done like dinner when Harper pre-ordered his cabinet to vote against it…
“I wonder if anyone will sign Bruinooge’s nomination papers when the next election rolls around.”
I think just the signatures from the YFC supporters in his riding should be enough.
Tim
I meant Harper or the Conservative executive in Ottawa
signing the papers allowing Bruinooge to run again.
I hope that clears things up.
Yes, the YFC would sign up–locally–but the party
executive and Harper have final say.
Sorry Torontonian, I was thinking about the “naive” (can’t use the word I want to due to rules of the blog) ones on the street who would actually vote for him. As for the ones in the party, all you have to do is follow Bruinooge’s twitter feed and I think you can figure out exactly who would be in line to sign his papers.
Good thing we have all these pro abortion blogs etc on the internet. Future generations can then look back and have insight into the mindset that rationalized the slaughtering of unborn babies.
It’s easy to be pro abortion when you’re not the one being killed.
i agree with you jiminy cricket! It’s easy to be pro abortion when you’re not the one being killed!