Now we know we’ve got a new “Pro-life Caucus”… a different
“Pro-Life Caucus”, a more dangerous “Pro-Life Caucus” than ever before… a secretive Pro-Life Caucus.
What’s so secretive about it? Not its chairman, MP Rod Bruinooge, who thinks abortion is like selling a kidney on EBay.(???) No, really:
Most Canadians would agree that you should not be able to remove your kidney and sell it on eBay to the highest bidder. Although it’s your body and your kidney, this would not only be a poor bioethical choice, but it is in fact illegal under our laws.
Most Canadians would also agree that an unborn child in the ninth month of gestation, moments away from delivery, should not be eligible for an elective abortion. However, regardless of the fact that this would be an extremely poor bioethical choice, it is in fact legal. As such, Canada has far greater protections for human kidneys than we do for human fetuses.
Not its past chairman, MP Maurice Vellacott, sponsor of Bill C-537, one of those goofy “conscience” bills that would have allowed health care professionals to opt out of doing their jobs, and uh, just incidentally re-defined “human life” as “beginning at conception”.
Other than that, what do we know about the Five Ws of this thing? We know the Where and the When of it, which is in our own Parliament that we pay for (though not for this particular sausagefest), whenever it reconvenes. And the What of it, which is obviously a dog-whistle to the goofy socon base. Also the Why of it, which is to *ta-da!* “re-open The Debate“. The real secret is the Who of it.
While Bruinooge says it’s a “cross-party” caucus, it’s not — in the past, only CPC and some mutant Liberals have been involved. Since it’s common knowledge that most of the CPC is anti-choice, the reason for the secrecy must be to protect the Liberals on board. Who might they be? Well, just look at who voted for Bill C-484 last March… fetus-fetishizing Liberal Party MPs, come on down!
Bonin, Raymond – Nickel Belt Ontario
Cannis, John – Scarborough Centre Ontario
Chan, Raymond – Richmond British Columbia
Cullen, Roy – Etobicoke North Ontario
Dhaliwal, Sukh – Newton-North Delta British Columbia
Guarnieri, Albina – Mississauga East-Cooksville Ontario
Hubbard, Charles – Miramichi New Brunswick
Karygiannis, Jim – Scarborough-Agincourt Ontario
Lee, Derek – Scarborough-Rouge River Ontario
MacAulay, Lawrence – Cardigan Prince Edward Island
Malhi, Gurbax – Bramalea-Gore-Malton Ontario
Maloney, John – Welland Ontario
McGuire, Joe – Egmont Prince Edward Island
McKay, John – Scarborough-Guildwood Ontario
McTeague, Dan – Pickering-Scarborough East Ontario
Murphy, Shawn – Charlottetown Prince Edward Island
Pacetti, Massimo – Saint-Léonard-Saint-Michel Québec
Scarpaleggia, Francis – Lac-Saint-Louis Québec
Simard, Raymond – Saint Boniface Manitoba
St. Amand, Lloyd – Brant Ontario
Steckle, Paul – Huron-Bruce Ontario
Szabo, Paul – Mississauga South Ontario
Thibault, Robert – West Nova Nova Scotia
Tonks, Alan – York South-Weston Ontario
Valley, Roger – Kenora Ontario
Wappel, Tom – Scarborough Southwest Ontario
Wrzesnewskyj, Borys – Etobicoke Centre Ontario
Now, some of these guys are gone — ie. Steckle, Bonin, Cullen. But the remaining ones are all suspect.
Next step: the media needs to occupy themselves during this Slow News Week by chasing these guys to the ends of the earth and getting them to admit whether or not they’re on this “Pro-Life Caucus” that serves no purpose other than figuring out ways to curtail women’s reproductive freedom. Something I’m pretty sure most Liberal voters didn’t sign on for. Go go go, now, MSM! That secretive “Pro-Life Caucus” isn’t gonna out itself!
UPDATE: It looks like these “Pro-Life Caucus” things have always been “secretive”. This is from David Akin’s “On The Hill”, May 2006:
As I reported last night, there are a group of MPs from only — so far as I can tell — the Conservative and Liberal parties who would push for a vote in the House of Commons on any issue that would lead to the restriction or elimination of abortion access rights in Canada. Some of these MPs are part of a Parliamentary Pro-Life Caucus but we cannot tell you who is a member of that caucus.
Two of its leaders, Liberal Paul Steckle and Conservative Maurice Vellacott, held a press conference yesterday related to abortion and would not say how big the caucus is; who is on it; or whether it includes any members of the Bloc Quebecois or the New Democratic Party. (An NDP caucus spokesman later said there are no NDP members of the Pro-Life Caucus).
Hmmm. I sure hope these MPs are doing this on their free time, and not on the Taxpayer’s Dime.
UPDATE: Oh-oh… Buckets is getting interested.
David Sweet is probably involved.
UOH:
Since it’s common knowledge that most of the CPC is anti-choice, the reason for the secrecy must be to protect the Liberals on board.
This isn’t exactly true. PM Harper has already said he doesn’t want the debate on abortion re-opened, so it is conceivable (likely?) that many of the CPC members of this so-called caucus would rather not be named.
I highly doubt there are very many Liberals involved. Some may be pro-choice but respect that the issue is settled. Others may be pro-choice but not willing to join a group of right wing lunatic fringers. If the members of this so-called caucus are ever revealed, my bet is that there no more than a few Liberals will be named. My money is on closet conservatives like Jim Karygiannis or John Cannis…
Buckets – “Promise Keeper” Sweet — slam dunk!
Cheryl Gallant.
Anyone from Reform/Crap (ex. Harper & any cabinet ministers).
Devin – While there are pro-choicers in the CPC (Baird, Verner, McKay come to mind), most of the ones from the Reform party are hardcore socons, so it could be any of them and Harper knows who they are. Harper himself has taken the pro-choice position because it’s popular. He won’t re-open “The Debate” — he allows his anti-choice MPs to take part in this thing because it’s a way of making it look like they’re doing something when they’re really not.
You might be surprised at the number of Liberals involved in this thing. Paul Steckle was a co-chair of the last one. I don’t think it’s a huge number, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were 10 or 15 of them.
JJ:
Its not so much that they don’t want Harper to know that they are anti-abortion, its that they wouldn’t want him to know that they have taken part in this secretive movement to re-open the debate.
Devin – Harper knows. I have no doubt about that.
This thing’s been around for almost 10 years, and it’s always been secretive about its membership (mostly to protect the liberals like Derek Lee, Paul Szabo, etc. who I’d be willing to bet are on board). There’s nothing new about this.
The only reason this thing is getting so much attention right now is because the chairmanship is changing, which hasn’t happened in 8 years, and because there’s F-A else going on.
Still, it’s time these jerks were outed. I don’t pay these guys to get together for tea and discuss how to take away my rights.
Devin==
I think it’s high time we all woke up and smelled the wedge.
As in wedge issue.
Harper knows.
.
Ross – Exactly, what better to distract peoples’ attention with than a highly charged, divisive, emotional issue like abortion. Harper knows how this goes.
This was actually announced almost 3 weeks ago, but it didn’t get any traction because it was just a week after Harper prorogued parliament and there was so much other stuff going on.
For some reason, *somebody* decided it needed to be announced again, complete with editorials in the NatPo. Big splash, big attention, everyone freaking out. (Economy? Hello?)
It’s still a good idea to out these bozos.
JJ–
Yuppers.
‘Tis nothing more than a little bit of ‘back-o-the-envelope’ Luntzianism papered over witht the ‘all-party’ label that allows yahoos like Little Johnny B. Ba(ir)d to disavow it in public while crowing over the numbers, sliced and diced like securitized sub-prime mortgages to make it all look good, in the backroom, in private, with The Commander…..errrrr….Dear Leader.
Nothing these fine folks do is NOT political.
.
To paraphrase Heath Ledger’s The Joker in The Dark Knight, “Why so secretive?”
A simple fact for the behind closed doors committee is that a woman who makes a decision to terminate a pregnancy will do so, with or without their approval. Protesting safe access pretty much assures health problems or death for the woman. Oh wait, they don’t care about life that’s already here.
This is Iggy’s way of refocusing that spotlight shining on the Coalition through his puppet, Warren. This has nothing to do with abortion or as Warren says in his post – “The Hidden Agenda” (when will they learn that it doesn’t work any more – plus it is kind of pottish calling kettle blackish, isn’t it). This is about whitewashing the Coalition and presenting it as a new and acceptable idea.
Thanks for that list – I had found another one earlier; but yours is more recent.
Fight it by letting both the opposition and the media know that it will not work.
“To paraphrase Heath Ledger’s The Joker in The Dark Knight, “Why so secretive?”
That;s a good question J.A.Baker? It has been “secretive” for years – since long before Stephen Harper became prime minister. Why do you think that is???
“For close to a decade, the Parliamentary Pro-Life Caucus (PPLC) has been a fixture on The Hill. It has been supported by substantial numbers of MPs from three parties and a few besides in the other two. At any given time, up to 70 MPs and senators have allowed their names to be on the PPLC list. Whether or not they are themselves pro-life, they know enough to inform themselves of an issue that occupies the thinking of a fair number of their constituents. “
I do find it interesting that many who are decrying this as evidence of Harper’s “secret” agenda do not allow comments? I wonder why??
“This is about whitewashing the Coalition and presenting it as a new and acceptable idea.”
I’m not sure I get you.
“For close to a decade, the Parliamentary Pro-Life Caucus (PPLC) has been a fixture on The Hill.”
Yeah, well, that’s what I’ve been saying. This is nothing new. But since they’re not getting together to play racquetball, they’re getting together to discuss MY RIGHTS, it’s about time I knew who they were. They need to be outed, that’s all. For transparency.
“I do find it interesting that many who are decrying this as evidence of Harper’s “secret” agenda do not allow comments?”
Like who?
Shorter Alberta Girl: Conservative Wingnut writes article in National Post but it’s all Iggy’s fault.
Shorter Reality Bites; Let’s try Hidden Agenda again!!! Yeah lets!!!
RB – What’s she talking about?
JJ – over the past week we have seen article after article about how the Coalition could work and how the Coalition is working well in other countries. We see articles showing Iggy threatening Harper over the kind of budget to bring in. We see articles trotting out “experts” discussing the merits of the coalition; the illegality of Harper appointing senators; the constitutionality of the Coalition. And now we have the old Hidden Agenda being thrown out by none other than WK.
How come, when this committee has been in existence for over 10 years, with liberals as chairmen; it is now, with a Conservative as chairman, garnering all this attention. Don’t you find it just a little strange.
I agree – why is it secret – Bring it all out in the open – if an MP is prochoice – they should be able to admit it; just as they should be able to admit they are pro-life. Why the secrecy.
I just find it interesting that many of the blogs and online articles do not have comments available or the comment “comments are closed” (10 minutes after the article hit). I just question why?
My point is; with deference to Reality; this is not about the abortion debate; his is about framing Harper as taking away women’s rights.
Alberta Girl, the whole point of the “shorter” meme is that the pithy one-liner is attributed to someone’s blog or comment.
If you can try to hold one thought in your head for more than 15 seconds, please note that you are the one who ranted on and on about the ’secret agenda’ in the comments here, not Reality Bites.
Basically, she’s a troll who’s trying to drag the Liberal Party (specifically Iggy) into an issue that doesn’t involve them at all, in a vain attempt to blame her own party’s incredible stupidity in letting a lunatic like Brooney speak.
Sure, Kinsella seized on it as evidence of the hidden agenda – because Kinsella’s agenda is attack Harper whenever, however. But Kinsella didn’t put this issue out there, no matter how badly Alberta Girl wants to pretend he did. Brooney did. Deal with that – and if you weren’t such a mind-bogglingly stoopid little Conservative party mouthpiece you’d at least be aware that the LAST thing Kinsella wants to do is breath life into the coalition. That’s a dead issue. And Alberta Girl is a brain-dead idiot.
“How come, when this committee has been in existence for over 10 years, with liberals as chairmen; it is now, with a Conservative as chairman, garnering all this attention. Don’t you find it just a little strange.”
Okay, now I see what you’re getting at.
Well, no actually, I don’t find it strange at all. As I mentioned above, consider (1) Parliament is prorogued, there’s nothing going on, the media was having a slow news week and thought this might be exciting, and (2) This is the first time in a few years that this caucus has changed chairmen, so that made it newsy (although if there’d been anything else going on I doubt if this story would have made a blip on the radar).
Also, Bruinooge isn’t the first conservative chair — it’s been co-chaired by Vellacott (CPC) and Steckle (LPC) for the last few years.
Harper has already repeated today that he won’t revisit abortion, and I tend to believe him. It’s a loser issue. Being anti-abortion in this country is a political liability.
However, I still want to know who’s on this “pro-life caucus”, now that it’s got my attention.
“Basically, she’s a troll who’s trying to drag the Liberal Party (specifically Iggy) into an issue that doesn’t involve them at all, in a vain attempt to blame her own party’s incredible stupidity in letting a lunatic like Brooney speak.”
Speaking of Trolls
you should know that Iggy’s puppet WK opened the whole “hidden agenda” can of worms – don’t get your panties in a knot because your hand got played.
Now go home to mommy, boys.
deBeauxOs – “If you can try to hold one thought in your head for more than 15 seconds”
Oh, I see. I wasted 45 seconds typing that response up there. Oh well.
“you should know that Iggy’s puppet WK opened the whole “hidden agenda” can of worms – don’t get your panties in a knot because your hand got played.”
Iggy? Are you sure you’re posting on the right thread?
RB – “Alberta Girl is a brain-dead idiot.”
Yeah, I kinda caught the play.
Since Kinsella commented on his blog about it – much as you and countless others did, AG is enjoying pretending that Brooney didn’t write the op-ed in the National Post and instead insists that because Kinsella linked to a Canadian Press story already in the Globe and Mail (and countless other outlets) somehow it’s all Iggy’s fault, in an attempt to help a coalition he wants no part of.
Mind-bogglingly stupid. Alberta Girl isn’t here to debate or argue. Just to lie through her teeth like a good Conservative.
RB – Wow, is she really that stupid? God, that’s sad.
You know, speaking of that op-ed, I have the weirdest feeling that I’ve seen it somewhere before. A few months ago. Not more than 6 months, but not less than 2. I don’t know if it was by him or — heh, hopefully — by someone else. But I know I’ve seen it before, somewhere. It had to have been by him, it’s way too stupid to be anyone else — unless –
Hey Alberta Girl, did you write Bruinooge’s op-ed for him?
A cursary googling didn’t yield anything like the op-ed, but as a matter of interest:
In October a pro-choice British MP named Kidney asked the Secretary of State for Health “if he will commission an independent investigation into the operation of the law relating to abortion.” Stands to reason a Kidney would be pro-choice. Abortion on demand is the only thing keeping Kidneys safe from being auctioned off.
In 1999 and 2005 people tried to auction kidneys on ebay. The auctions were pulled.
Now… (you’re really going to kill me for this) given the kidney’s function, if you bought one on ebay would you pay for it using Pee-pal?
If people can have kidney-shaped swimming pools right out in the open in their yard and let their kids play in them, why were people so upset when I brought a penis-shaped cake to a kid’s birthday party?
Ok kiddies – you’ve had your fun at my expense. Too bad you don’t use your time to actually find out more about this so called “secret” committee.
But then, it’s just much more fun to post degrading comments, now isn’t it.
So much for “debate”.
Alberta Girl – Don’t be so paranoid.
Nobody’s stopping you from jumping in and defending yourself if you think someone’s unfairly mischaracterized you in some way. I don’t even know you, but other commenters here apparently do.
Knock yourself out…
Posting degrading comments is fun indeed when they’re aimed at someone who stumbles over like a weird drunk and makes a bunch of indecipherable comments (with extran punctuation, as is the way in the Trollish language) about someone or something that has nothing to do with the thread.
And “kiddies”? Ok, “demented old hag”.
Yeesh.
RB –
Thats hilarious! Thanks for the morning laugh.
Dr. Prole – Yeah, uhh… not too sure what’s up with AG, but she had me pretty confused there for awhile.
Wander over to Raphael’s (trackback at bottom of thread) if you want to see fetus fetishry at its finest — somebody over there wants me to prove “with facts” that there are no “moments before delivery” abortions.
Can you believe how fucking thick these people are?
JJ, I would say the burden of proof is on them, since they’re the ones insisting that the “moments before birth” myth is true.
No, not going to Raphael’s (if that’s his real name) and you can’t make me.
Prole – Absolutely. Especially since it’s about as ludicrous a claim as i can imagine anyone making — “Moments before delivery” abortion?? Hello? No doctor would even do this. No Canadian doctors even perform late term abortions at all (ie, 3rd trim). Even Morgentaler wouldn’t do abortions after 24 weeks.
These people are on CRACK!
FF – I kind of wish I hadn’t. Toxic levels of Stupid over there.
I think they’re ALL aware of this. For some reason it just kills them that it’s technically legal to do it, but of course it’s technically legal to do all kinds of things because no one’s ever done them, resulting in no need to legislate against them.
RB – That’s exactly what I mean. Its technically legal to drink battery acid, but nobody does it. Do we need a law just in case someone does?
Also, late-term abortion isn’t what this is really about for them, which is the banning of abortion at any time AND contraception. They just keep banging the “late term abortion” drum because to admit their real agenda would alienate so many people, even a lot of conservatives.