Abortion, gay marriage could be next on chopping block in Canada, Chrétien warns

[Newsjock]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/abortion-gay-marriage-could-be-next-on-chopping-block-chrtien-warns/article2269178/

Jean Chrétien is warning Liberals that gun control and the Kyoto accord are dead because of Stephen Harper’s Tories, darkly noting that same-sex marriage and abortion rights could be next on the Conservative government’s chopping block. He even raises the return of the death penalty as a possibility.

“Unless we are bold. Unless we seize the moment. Everything we built will start being chipped away,” the former prime minister writes in a toughly-worded fundraising letter. “The Conservatives have already ended gun control and Kyoto. Next may be a woman’s right to choose, or gay marriage. Then might come capital punishment. And one by one, the values we cherish as Canadians will be gone.”

MPs have ‘duty’ to debate rights of unborn, backbench Tory argues
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/mps-have-duty-to-debate-rights-of-unborn-backbench-tory-argues/article2299369/

Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth has restated his interest in examining the point at which a person becomes a human being, saying he will decide in February how to open that discussion in Parliament.

It is a debate that could have profound ramifications for access to abortion.

... Prime Minister Stephen Harper said during the spring election campaign that a Conservative government would not bring forward any legislation to restrict access to abortion and that any such legislation would be defeated.

... Members of the opposition say it is clear, given the strict control that the Prime Minister exercises over his caucus, that Mr. Harper has sanctioned the efforts of MPs like Mr. Woodworth to restrict abortion. And they say this challenge of the law is an attempt to make abortion illegal without addressing the real question.

[Ken Burch]

1. All the more reason to work hard to elect an NDP government

The Liberals will have no chance to win starting the next election from third place-and they no longer significantly disagree with the Tories anyway-the Nineties proved that.

The Liberal Party had its chance...now it needs to do the decent thing and get the hell out of the way.

[Swede]

4. The liberals will probably win the next election.

Tories will piss off everyone. The NDP will never form a government here.

[Ken Burch]

7. The Liberals have nothing to offer

In their last government, they proved that they no longer have any major disagreements with the Tories. The voters of Canada do not want the country locked permanently into a right-wing austerity-based economic system, and the Liberals are still committed to locking Canada in to that.

There's no good reason for anyone who voted NDP last time to switch to the Liberals. Period.

[Swede]

10. They are switching already,it seems many voted for Jack.

Liberals will sweep in next election.

[Ken Burch]

12. It was never just about "Jack"

They actually preferred and continue to prefer what the NDP stands for(which is progressive change, unlike the Liberals, who haven't stood for anything since Trudeau.)

[Swede]

13. I disagree.

The Liberals will be the next majority government.

[Ken Burch]

14. Why? They have nothing to offer

And Canadians are not insisting that the alternative to the Tories be just barely different than the Tories. The NDP are no longer anathema in Canadian politics.

Most of the NDP's ideas are popular. Most of their past leaders were highly regarded as individuals. Their MP's have consistently been the most conscientious, uncorruptable and socially committed people in Parliament.

Why, exactly, do YOU see the NDP as unacceptable? Is it that terrible that, unlike the Liberals, the NDP actually cares about workers and the poor?

Clearly, there's no reason for anyone with progressive values of any sort to prefer the Liberals to the NDP...especially since the Liberals no longer have any principles at all and haven't had any since Trudeau retired.

[Ken Burch]

15. The only reason the Liberals have made small gains and the NDP has had small losses

in the post-election polls(most of which are now being reversed) is that the NDP is in the midst of a leadership contest, and its interim leader, Nycole Turmel, is not in that contest, and therefore not being as flashy as interim Liberal leader(and potential actual leadership candidate)Bob Rae.

Once the NDP has a new leader, (most likely the Montreal-area M.P. Thomas Mulcair)the NDP's poll numbers will likely increase, since the short-term advantages the current situation gives to the Liberals will be erased.

And, in practical terms, it's going to be much easier to try to elect a party that starts the election in second place than it will to try to elect a party that starts the election in third place.

Finally, while the NDP made massive gains in Quebec at the expense of the Bloc Quebecois, the sovereigntist party that was reduced to only four seats, there is no possible chance that people who voted Bloc and then switched to the NDP would ever switch their votes to the Liberals, since the Liberals have nothing whatsoever to offer those voters.

Also, the NDP has great potential to make gains in the Prairies and in B.C.(areas where the Tory vote has been disproportionately strong in the last three elections)while the Liberals remain hated by the voters in those areas.

[Spazito]

6. With the loss of Jack Layton, Quebec will not be a hold for the NDP next election, imo...

Jack was the charismatic face of the NDP and they have no one running to fill his place that comes anywhere close to him. A reduction of seats in Quebec back to the Bloc is very possible, imo.

The left must merge, imo, if there is going to be a REAL chance of dislodging the rabid rightwing neocon "Harper Government" (Harper insisted his government be called HIS government and not the Canadian government, I agree, Harper should own the despicable legacy he will leave).

With the left (center left to far left) vote split 4 ways and the neocons not split at all, the neocons will continue to get in as a majority government with less than 40% of the vote.

[Ken Burch]

8. It's the Liberals who need to facilitate that merging, by getting out of the way

There simply isn't any reason for the Liberals to nominate candidates anywhere in the next Canadian federal election-or, at the very least, they should settle for contesting the seats they currently hold. They will never be popular again in the Prairies or B.C., they've collapsed in Quebec, and they're on the ropes in Atlantic Canada(a.k.a.,The Artist Formerly Known As "The Maritimes&quot .

The large group of left-of-center voters who used to vote Liberal because "the NDP can't win", now knows they don't have to settle for the Liberals(a party that just barely disagrees with the Tories on anything and has no sympathy for working people or the poor)any longer.

What's the point of the Liberal Party continuing to exist anymore?

[DonCoquixote]

2. This is sad

Why does Canada seem so ready to make the sorts of mistakes they used to laugh at us Yanks for making?; that's like taking up chain smoking after your cousin dies of lung cancer.

[justiceischeap]

5. I read somewhere that we are responsible for this

That (some) Christians are going to different countries and spreading our flavor of fundamentalism.

[Ken Burch]

9. That may be true. American conservatives see themselves as religious and ideological missionaries

And, unfortunately, they've now put Canada into the missionary position.

[xchrom]

3. Good luck, Canada. Sounds rough indeed. Nt

[marmar]

11. Oh (No!) Canada

This is the inevitable result of giving cons(ervatives) free reign. You would think that watching what happened just to the south from 2000 to 2008 would have been enough of a deterrent.

[laundry_queen]

16. Just like you guys

There is a large apathetic group that doesn't really look at policies, just at personalities. And there's a bit of "It can't happen here" type of denial with regards to what has happened to our south. Plus, our media is (slowly) shifting as well. We have some safeguards in place, and those safeguards have slowed the bastardization (is that a word? lol) of our media but there are some people hell bent on changing it. And most people don't see dopey-looking Harper as a threat, because he's soft-spoken and kinda 'fluffy'. Oh, and Harper is great at keeping what he is doing a secret. Us Canadians are slow to outrage (but when we do, it's not pretty) so unless Harper really fucks up openly, I see this continuing.