Stephen Harper’s hidden social agenda appeared to be finally, fully, in bloom, with reversals on same-sex marriage laws and Conservative backbenchers freely and publicly flexing their anti-abortion muscles.
But it turns out that while the legions of Harper opponents were waiting for the hard-right social agenda to be firmly planted in Ottawa, the Conservatives are actually exporting those policies.
While federal lawyers argue that couples from outside Canada who thought they had legally tied the knot here were actually never married in the eyes of this government, the Prime Minister says the same-sex marriage debate is closed at home.
“We have no intention . . . of opening or reopening this issue,’’ Harper said.
Last autumn, federal lawyers intervened in a case in the United Kingdom, arguing that a Canadian same-sex couple who were joined in a civil union there was not recognized as married under Canadian law.
“We are not reopening the issue (of same-sex marriage),’’ Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said at the time.
But we will export our views on the matter to offshore couples and foreign courts.
The day before The Globe and Mail revealed the government’s same-sex court argument, Kitchener Centre Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth again raised his argument that the unborn are human beings and have rights.
Harper’s office did not vet the news release, but it also did not condemn it.
“Our government has no intention of reopening the debate on this matter,’’ a Harper spokesperson said.
Woodworth said he would let the Prime Minister speak for himself, but he would continue to speak out as an MP on an issue he feels is important.
Last fall, three other Conservative backbenchers openly criticized a Harper decision to provide funds to International Planned Parenthood, claiming the group was “deceitful’’ in its language to obtain funding from Ottawa.
“We have been clear. We are not reopening the debate on this matter,’’ a Harper spokesperson said at the time.
But the Harper government has been clear that it will not provide funding under its maternal health initiative to countries where abortion is legal and will not fund organizations that provide abortions.
“We have been crystal clear on this issue — we are not re-opening this debate,” a Harper spokesperson said when the issue flared during the election campaign.
Btu we will put our money only where we can fund a position that runs contrary to the law of this land.
Harper may personally favour capital punishment in certain cases, but, yes, of course, he has no intention of reopening that debate.
Instead, Harper ordered Canadian diplomats a few years ago to drop efforts to bring Ronald Smith, an Albertan on death row in Montana, back to Canada to serve out his sentence.
It was up to the Federal Court to order the Conservatives to restart clemency efforts on behalf of the only Canadian facing the death penalty in the U.S.
We won’t reopen the debate here, but we will let other jurisdictions execute Canadians.
Barely a month ago, former prime minister Jean Chrétien released a fundraising appeal to Liberals who are gathered in Ottawa this weekend.
“Everything we built will start being chipped away,” Chrétien wrote.
“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.’’
The tinfoil crowd nodded; many snickered at the apocalyptic prediction.
It appears that Harper is true to his word, he will not impose a social agenda on Canada where it won’t wash, but he will export it to other jurisdictions.
Reopen debate, no. Export those views, yes.
Unless, of course, the tinfoil crowd is just a little ahead of its time.
As their friends, the paranoiacs like to say, you’re not paranoid if they really are out to get you.
Original Article
Source: Star
No comments:
Post a Comment