Erin O'Toole says no to freedom of conscience rights for doctors

Dear Erin O'Toole,

I am really sad that you flipped on your original stance regarding conscience rights for doctors. It seems you are becoming more like Justin Trudeau every day. Will you next ban pro-life people from obtaining grants from the summer jobs program? And what about pro-life candidates? Do they get the axe as well?

It seems that Conservative party has lost its way. Perhaps you think that those of us who care about doctor's conscience rights and the rights of the pre-born child, are not important, and that those of us who hold these beliefs will vote for the Conservatives anyway. Think again. We can and will vote for the Christian Heritage Party or the People's Party of Canada. And if there is no candidate in a riding, we can spoil our vote.

Canada already has enough parties from the left. I hope you change your mind about where you stand on issues that are crucial for a very large number of Canadians. We do not need Justin Trudeau lite.

Sincerely,

Patricia Maloney

Ottawa

Peter MacKay's dumpster fire campaign

All Conservatives should listen to my friend Jonathon Van Maren's excellent analysis of the leadership campaign the Culture Wars Episode 15: Why I think Leslyn Lewis is the best choice for next leader of the Conservative Party

His conclusions are spot on. If Peter MacKay wins, social conservatives will have no place in the Conservative Party. We will be done. MacKay makes no bones at how much he disdains us with when he stupidly said he considers social conservatives are a stinking albatross around Andrew Scheer's neck.

The thing is, we stinking albatrosses, actually make up a good chunk of the Conservative party. Without us supporting the Conservatives, their chances of defeating the Liberals in the next election would be very difficult, if even possible.

Jonathon's entire podcast should be listened by everyone considering how to vote, as he explains his reasons for his ranked choices.

1) Leslyn Lewis
2) Derek Sloan
3) Erin O'toole
4) Peter Mackay

I will be voting the same way.

Ottawa Vanier: time for a change?

Yesterday on CFRA, Rick Gibbons had the three main Ottawa-Vanier federal election candidates from the Conservative, NDP and Liberal party, on his show.

Liberal incumbent Mauril Belanger told us that he attends all the community AGM's and has regular coffees with constituents. That's funny. He's never invited me to any of his coffee dates. Come to think of it, he never answers my emails either. Although he has hung the phone up on me. I guess he invites his other constituents to coffee: the ones who agree with him on abortion. Or maybe they just don't know about his stand on abortion.

But the discussion got interesting between Belanger and Conservative candidate David Piccini when discussing the possibility of a tunnel going through the downtown core, to divert truck traffic.

Piccini: "I was at those King Edward task force meetings. I didn't see our Member of Parliament there."

Belanger: "Come on. I'm present all the time. Don't lie."

Unfortunately moderator Rick Gibbons stopped the exchange as there was only one minute left and he asked each of the candidates for their final words. I would have loved to know more about those meetings Belanger said he attended.

Belanger then had this to say:

"If people are not satisfied with the work I do, and I do work very hard, I would not have been re-elected seven times."

I think if a Liberal lamp post ran in Ottawa-Vanier, it would win too.

Is permitting and financing abortion good public policy?

More on Religion arguments are only a distraction in the National Post's letter of the day.

Hiding abortion spending makes bad Economics Policy

I received this in an email yesterday from Ontario Conservative leader Tim Hudak.

Below his email you can read my response.

Friend,

I’m excited about the 2013 Policy Convention and I hope you are too. With a Masters in Economics, I tend to be the kind of guy who would go to conventions just for the pamphlets. As a politician I love the debates.

But this weekend’s convention is going to be something special.  It’s an opportunity for us to take our 14 Paths to Prosperity white papers and forge a platform. I want to commend our PC MPPs, the PACs and our PC team who worked hard to produce these papers full of bold conservative ideas to get our province back on track.

They’ve been a big success. In the past year since the launch of our white papers, we’ve had over 56,000 downloads. Across our province people are talking about our roadmaps to a stronger, prosperous Ontario – that spends within its means and is a leader in job creation.

As conservatives we believe in smaller government, respect for taxpayers and freedom of choice. We’ve put forward hundreds of ideas for a government that focuses on getting the big things right.  But we can't campaign on 200 pages of policy. So we need to hone that into a winning conservative platform to take to voters. One that shows them our optimistic conservative vision for a better Ontario.

I encourage you to sign up for the policy sessions and give our MPPs your view on what works and what doesn’t. We want to hear what you think. How do we reach voters in their hearts and minds with clear, concise, strong language that shows the PC Party is on their side?

For the past two years, PACs have been meeting to prepare for this weekend’s policy discussions and votes. This is your chance to have your vote on our policy resolutions using hand-held voting machines and create the launching pad to a winning election campaign.

Our campaign platform will be forged in those halls of the convention centre in London. This weekend we will make history, we will build the foundation for the next PC government. We will all look back on this weekend and say this was the beginning – this was the start of Ontario’s comeback.

Sincerely,

Tim Hudak,
Leader, Ontario PC Party

--------------------

Dear Mr. Hudak,

Since you have a Masters in Economics, surely you understand that the $30-$50 million we spend every year on abortions in Ontario isn't very good value for money. That's tens of thousands of killed potential contributors to the Ontario economy who never get to be born. And from here on in, we won't even know how much we are spending on these abortions because the Liberal government is hiding this information from us.

What kind of policy will your party implement to deal with this, or will you continue to remain silent on the whole debacle? You have been completely silent on the subject so far, so I must ask myself, do you even care?

White papers are wonderful, but they don't make up for your condoning of this trampling of our rights to access information, which allows us to keep our politicians accountable to the people in how they spend our hard earned tax dollars.

Your speaking out on this, would indeed make it an exciting weekend.

Sincerely,

Patricia Maloney
Run with Life Blog

Looking for a home (updated)

In today's National Post Andrew Coyne: Manning Conference makes one wonder how long conservative movement can keep from tearing itself apart

Mr. Coyne talks about all the different kinds of conservatism and how the current Harper Conservatives are not any of them. And this is what Mr. Coyne says about us:
"Social conservatives? Pretty much their only demand — more of a request, really — is for some sort of restriction, however mild, on the availability of abortion, in the only country in the democratic world that has none. For their troubles, they have been rewarded with a ban on even discussing it."

How true is that?

Mr. Coyne ends with this:
"I’ve never been quite clear on what progressive conservatives believe, but whatever it is, it’s not Harperism. And while I agree that free-market environmentalism ought to be part of any modern conservative coalition, it is difficult to find it in a government that boasts of taking the most top-down, regulatory-heavy approach possible to climate change — precisely because it does not take it seriously. Democratic conservatives? Don’t make me laugh. Even decentralization, the obsession of constitutional conservatives, has been fitful at best.

And yet the base remains, on the whole, quiescent. One has to wonder how long this can last."

Indeed. So where do we go from here? Can we depend on the Conservative party anymore? If not, where do we find a home? Are we even trying to find a home?

UPDATE:
Mike Schouten over at WeNeedaLaw.ca writes more on this  "Cognitive dissonance" today.

Here is part of what Mr. Schouten wrote:
"...The campaign I am directing had an exhibit at the Manning Networking Conference and in all my conversations on the floor of the Ottawa Convention Centre there was no one who affirmed the status quo; all expressed a level of discomfort with Canada standing alone among Western nations with no protection for pre-born human rights. There is common ground among conservatives, yet, as Coyne aptly notes, “They have been rewarded with a ban on even discussing [abortion].”

The release of “The Big Shift” by John Ibbitson and Darrell Bricker surely has Mr. Harper and those close to him feeling emboldened to continue making incremental changes to shift Canada to the right. That the so-called ‘Laurentian elites’ no longer run the country may be of some comfort to grassroots conservatives, but the growing disconnect between so-called ‘Harperism’ and conservatism is of great concern and the quiet can only last so long.

While the cognitive dissonance still exists for some voters who cling to an ideology that ignores what science and philosophy have to say about the humanity of children in the womb, there is a huge shift underway in Canada in how we regard pre-born human rights. The numbers of those opposed to the status quo, especially among Canada’s youth, are growing. We are witnessing a youth movement unwilling to blindly accept the dogma of the previous generation and who are making decisions informed by science and reason. They are displaying a passion for responding to injustices, manifested by the sheer numbers of young Canadian women and men involved in the battle for the protection of all human beings, no matter their location..."

Who's stupid?

Oh yi yi, who peed into this guy's cornflakes?

Now I know we are all entitled to our opinion, but when that includes personal attacks about people we don't agree with calling them "stupid" and "bushwackers", well that's a different matter entirely:
"Bushwhackers embarrass PM - Ignorant of the law, three Tory backbenchers revisit abortion issue".

And "ignorant of the law"? Ah, no. Too bad the writer, Marc Bonokoski, didn't take ten or twenty seconds, to read the letter in question.

Now I wouldn’t call Mr. Bonokoski stupid or a bushwacker, but maybe if he had bothered to read the letter, he'd see that he was, how shall I put this, not the sharpest needle in the haystack. The letter was about the possibility of born babies dying, and nothing being done to help them.

The original letter, and clarification press release of the letter, explains why they wrote to the RCMP in the first place:
"Our request to the RCMP was not about the deaths of preborn children, but rather the deaths of children who had already been BORN ALIVE and who are, therefore, recognized as "human beings" in Canadian law.Section 223 (2) of our Criminal Code makes it a crime to cause injury to a child before or during birth as a result of which the child dies AFTER being BORN ALIVE. The Criminal Code calls it homicide. That is not our opinion; that is the law today."

Mr. Bonokoski also thinks that the letter to the RCMP written by Messrs. Velacott, Benoit and Lizon was unconscionable. Why? Because Mr. Harper stated that the abortion debate was closed, don't you know? Well I hate to break it to Mr. Bonokoski, but the letter wasn't about abortion.

I thought newspaper professionals were supposed to read stuff they're writing about. Apparently some don't need to.

Second, exactly what was "unconscionable" about this letter? I don't think Mr. Bonokoski knows the meaning of that word, but here's a hint, it's when you don't listen to your conscience. The MPs raised an issue that in good conscience they wanted to be investigated, so it wasn't unconscionable, got it?

Lastly, Mr. Bonokoski said:
"Until I grow a uterus and am able to bear children, it is absolutely none of my business and certainly outside my emotional and psychological purview."

So here's a question for Mr. Bonokoski. If you lived in a country where female genital mutilation is legal, I suppose you'd be okay with that too? After all it's also "absolutely none of your business and certainly outside of your emotional and psychological purview", right?

Illogical reasoning aside, here's the question I'd really like Mr. Bonokoski to answer. Why is he standing up for Mr. Harper and his "I won't reopen the abortion debate" mantra? I always puzzle when I hear someone say this, especially a newspaper person whose raison d'etre is supposed to be free speech (I thought), something that this mantra categorically dismisses. So what is that all about anyway?

I wonder. Is this guy trying to get some kind of brownie points in his weird Mr. Harper adulation? Maybe he's wants to run for the Conservatives and become an MP.

Mr. Bonokoski says he sought the Canadian Alliance nomination in the federal riding of Nepean-Carleton in 2000. Does he not realize that the policy of the CA and the policy of the existing Conservative party is that individual MPs have the freedom to vote their conscience on these moral issues? So it's a good thing that voters rejected Bonokoski because he didn't even know CA policy, and it seems like he still doesn't.

Perhaps he harbours some bitterness over his loss in Nepean-Carleton due to his pro-abortion world view that compels him to lash out at anyone who might have the courage to stand up in defense of Canada's most vulnerable citizens? Could that be it?

Or maybe he wants to become Minister for the Department of Diputs Elpoep. Could be.

Make late-term abortions illegal and defund abortions

The Executive Director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies, David Krayden, called on Harper to open up the abortion debate, on CFRA's "Lunch Bunch" yesterday.

Krayden says late-term abortions should be made illegal, and abortions should be defunded.

Krayden also says:
"Harper has the opportunity to create a true conservative majority in Canada, and that means being principled conservatism, it doesn't mean being pragmatic on all issues...it means believing in something, and that's why people are going to follow conservatism in this country."