Earlier:

Mickey I. upsucking to the deadly Dragon

Now from David Akin:

Canada caves on China
Harper, Ignatieff both change their tune on taking a tough line with the Chinese

Upchuck.

Mr Akin is newly of the Sun papers, along with another good man.  Foxy fellows–more from Adrian.

Update: One reason for a new news network:

…

One case involved a report filed by Neil Macdonald, a senior TV reporter for CBC’s flagship news program The National. The story aired early in September 2008 and was a backgrounder piece on Sarah Palin, the evangelical politician who had just been named the Republican Party’s vice-presidential candidate. Macdonald’s report was supposed to reveal to the Canadian public who Palin really was and what she was all about. What it seemed to reveal was Macdonald’s own biases.

At one point in his story, Macdonald ran a snippet from a speech Palin had delivered to a local church earlier that year. It showed her telling those in the pews that she believed America’s war against Iraq was endorsed by God. The interview clip was meant to convince viewers that, as a staunch evangelical, Palin was dangerously jingoistic. The problem was Macdonald had edited off the beginning of the clip and in doing so had changed the meaning completely.

A posting on YouTube where Palin’s complete speech can be viewed lets one compare Macdonald’s version to the real McCoy. The portion of interview that Macdonald included in his report began with Palin saying, “Our leaders, our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God.”

However, what Palin had actually said was this: “Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country [pray] that our leaders, our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God.”

Someone watching or reading the full quote in its true context could see that Palin was not raising a war cry, she was raising a question. A question steeped in humility with no hint of jingoism; she asked: “Is this war a task from God?” It’s a question to which she does not have an answer and advises praying for divine guidance in the hope of finding the right path…

Mark
Ottawa

So what happens when a plan to force through democratic reforms in the Senate by stacking it with partisan conservatives dedicated to the reformation of the Senate falls through?

Perhaps Richard Neufeld can field this one. Appointed by Stephen Harper in the quest to bring about a triple-E Senate, the Senator now thinks that everything is Serendipity, just the way it is:

Neufeld said he did support Senate elections when Harper chose him to sit in the upper chamber 18 months ago, although he admitted he’d not given the matter much thought.

But since seeing the Senate in action, he’s changed his mind.

“Before I came here, I only thought about it when it was brought up in newspaper articles, or someone was ranting and raving about the Senate when they talked about elections. But I thought we should have an elected Senate,” Neufeld said.

Indeed, Neufeld has become a big booster of the current unelected Senate.

A part of me wonders if Mr.Neufeld isn’t just play-acting at this point, making the Senate look so utterly unaccountable and unanswerable, that even the people hired to do nothing more than fill seats and be yesmen to the PMO, decide to get uppity and start having opinions and beliefs and changes of heart.

All of Mr.Harper’s appointees supposedly swore an oath to support the initiative to create an elected Senate and impose fixed eight-year term limitations. After all, some Senators have been sitting since MC Hammer Parachute Pants were in style. And if that doesn’t convince you to support Senate reform, nothing will.

To be honest, in some ways it makes sense to appoint Senators rather than elect them, since it doesn’t appear that accountability is really a part of the electoral process anyway. I favour term limits more than I do elections, since it’s simpler to wrap your head around the idea of mixing up the Senate more frequently than it is to figure out whether bringing populists into the Upper House is really such a wise idea.

Now is the time at UA when we juxtapose:

Michael Ignatieff sucks up to the ChiComs by asking for advice on how to win democratic elections [Steve Janke]

US geologist sentenced to eight years for dealing in state secrets

The Good Count is so, er, nuanced:

Ignatieff in China: Avoiding “megaphone diplomacy”

…. I’m in China to build relationships and build trust.

I’m in China to understand, to listen, and to learn.

I am here to engage China as a friend to Canada, and to speak frankly, as good friends do.

And I intend to be back frequently.

Want to bet on any frank speaking about this?

China challenged over executions

Human rights group Amnesty International has called on China to publicly state how many people it puts to death each year.

In its annual report on the use of the death penalty worldwide, published on Tuesday, Amnesty said the number of people executed by Beijing last year was likely “in the thousands” – estimated to be more than the total in the rest of the world.

“Chinese authorities claim that fewer executions are taking place. If this is true, why won’t they tell the world how many people the state put to death?” Claudio Cordone, the Amnesty International interim secretary general, said in a statement.

The 41-page Death Sentences and Executions in 2009 report refused to even estimate the toll in China, saying that the organisation believed publicly available statistics “grossly underrepresent” the actual figure…

This (from another Liberal type):

As for our government:

Canada and China broaden strategic partnership

…

Where seldom is heard (these days) a discouraging…Meanwhile, here’s something about which to keep our knickers really knotted.

Update: Spector Vision has a wicked thought:

…If the idea of summoning business leaders to parliamentary committees takes off, perhaps we will learn one day why Stephen Harper no longer believes that human rights in China are much of a problem — a position that former human rights professor Michael Ignatieff extended yesterday in China…

Upperdate: The National Post cuts to the quick:

Beijing’s Canadian apologist
…

While teaching rights theory at Harvard University, Mr. Ignatieff routinely cited China as one of the worst rights-abusers in the world, lumping it in variously with North Korea, Libya, Saudi Arabia and others. But now he leads the party of Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chretien, men who made a habit of “engaging” China, while at the same time ignoring its right record. Mr. Trudeau even toured China during the height of the Maoist purges, but never once makes mention of them in his travel memoirs.

Mr. Ignatieff now seems eager to return to his weak-kneed roots and take on the see-no-evil mantle of his Liberal predecessors. This may gain him a few votes, but is a denial of the torture and terror China inflicts on all those

it punishes for their thoughts. It is a sad and somewhat pathetic moment for a political leader who once was sold to the Canadian public as an icon of principle, and an expert on human rights.

Mark
Ottawa

Post by BruceR. at Flit, first link well worth the read:

Today’s essential Afghan reading: Bing West

Reviewing Kilcullen:

Because they are partnered with our troops, Afghan soldiers are copying our rules of engagement and risk-avoidance procedures. Since they wear our heavy armor, they too cannot pursue the light and mobile Taliban forces. When the enemy initiates contact, the Afghan soldiers are trained to wait alongside our troops until our attack helicopters force the Taliban to flee. The Afghan soldiers will not be able to fight that way as U.S. resources are reduced. The Afghan security forces simply cannot take over the fight anytime soon.

Reminds me of what I wrote (point #7) [also WWTR] fresh from the fight last August.

More WWTR from Australia–a way of looking at things that would be most unusual in many Canadian circles.  Realpolitik: do it, and do it right:

Diggers need freedom to win freedom

Update: Another view from down under (with more Realpolitik) about, er, others down under:

NZ puts nation first, war second
…
Certainly there are concerns about corruption in the government in Kabul led by Hamid Karzai. But the Karzai government is the only viable administration that Afghanistan has right now. There are many instances where the Allies have supported flawed governments during times of conflict – most notably Joseph Stalin’s communist dictatorship in Moscow when the priority was to defeat Adolf Hitler and Nazism.

Whatever its faults, the Karzai government offers more hope for both Afghans and peace than an Islamist dictatorship run by the Taliban. Also, under Karzai, Afghanistan is unlikely to become a base for the export of Islamist terrorism of the kind that led to the murder of Australians and New Zealanders, among others, in such places as New York, Bali and London…

…New Zealand…has a proficient army, which the conservative Prime Minister does not want to deploy to assist an ally. Once were warriors, indeed.

Ouch! And we too have a Conservative prime minister.

Upperdate: Another ouch!  Good on the French (via Defense Industry Daily):

France: More military trainers to Afghanistan

France’s military will soon send 250 more trainers to Afghanistan, bringing the overall French force to 4,000 people.

The chief of the French defense staff, Edouard Guillaud, said in French Senate hearings that the French troops in Afghanistan “are 3,750 men and women who are engaged in a difficult operation.”

He adds that “they will soon be 4,000, with the deployment” of new police and military trainers.

He says the war Afghanistan is “a war for the long term [emphasis added].”..

Mark
Ottawa

Our government does not appear to care about either.  A plea from the Afghan government:

Afghanistan asks Canada to extend its military mission

Afghans will die if Canada does not play a part in the Afghanistan recovery after the planned military withdrawal in July 2011, Kabul’s man in Ottawa said Wednesday.

But the commander of all Canadian troops overseas said the government has provided no indication of any such intentions beyond next summer’s deadline.

Afghanistan’s ambassador to Canada, Jawed Ludin, said even with Canadian troops in the country for the past eight years, there is still an enormous challenge to uproot Taliban militants from the country.

“The challenge is still there, but the guarantee for the success is also there,” he said, urging Canadian troops to remain in Afghanistan to forge a stronger partnership.

“This is a question of life and death. For us there is no Plan B,” he said.

“There is no doubt that Afghanistan is a country that needs everything it can get. From aid to development, to military assistance, too.”

Despite that plea, the commander of Canadian Expeditionary Force Command Lt.-Gen. Marc Lessard said Canadian military commitment in the country will end next year.

“Technically Canada is leaving,” he said, “We’re handing over to another ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] … whichever country, which will continue doing what we’re doing so well right now [guess flipping which].”

It is exactly one year from this Canada Day that the Harper government is slated to officially begin its retreat from Kandahar. Combat operations are scheduled to continue until the July 1, 2011 deadline, and all troops are to be home by the end of next year.

When asked if the Canadian Forces plan an continuing, non-combat role for troops [they are already in that role in the Kabul area] beyond next year, Lessard, who commands all Canadian forces overseas, said: “In fact, no. Because we haven’t been [given] any, any, any indication” by the government…

Latest about our government:

The final countdown to end of Afghan mission

When talk in Ottawa’s halls of power turns to Afghanistan, he’s known as the immovable object.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, once considered a hawk in the mould of George W. Bush, appears more and more like a dove as Canada enters what could be its last summer of war in southwest Asia.

Publicly, Harper’s Conservative government stands firm in its determination to end the country’s combat mission in Kandahar on July 1, 2011, despite a growing chorus of voices at home and abroad urging it to reconsider — or redefine and renew its commitment.

The message privately is the same: The army comes home from war-wasted Afghanistan, to be replaced by development and diplomacy.

In a city that’s accustomed to political back-room deals and obfuscation, the clarity and consistency of the refrain is startling, unnerving and even a little weird…

Earlier:

Hell yes, we’re gonna go

As for horses, most recently:

…
Other villages in this part of Paktika also signed agreements pledging to keep the Taliban away from their lands. “They’ve come to believe that we are the winning horse,” says the U.S. captain…

In my view that’s what Afstan is in the end all about.   Osama bin Laden, November, 2001: “…when people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse…”

US defense secretary Gates got that last December:

…

While Al Qaeda is under great pressure now and dependent on the Taliban and other extremist groups for sustainment, the success of the Taliban would vastly strengthen Al Qaeda’s message to the Muslim world: that violent extremists are on the winning side of history. Put simply, the Taliban and Al Qaeda have become symbiotic, each benefiting from the success and mythology of the other. Al Qaeda leaders have stated this explicitly and repeatedly.

Taliban success in re-taking and holding parts of Afghanistan against the combined forces of multiple, modern armies — the current direction of events — has dramatically strengthened the extremist mythology and popular perceptions of who is winning and who is losing. The lesson of the Taliban’s revival for Al Qaeda is that time and will are on their side. That, with a Western defeat, they could regain their strength and achieve a major strategic victory — as long as their senior leadership lives and can continue to inspire and attract followers and funding. Rolling back the Taliban is now necessary, even if not sufficient, to the ultimate defeat of Al Qaeda…

Consequences of Failure

Failure in Afghanistan would mean a Taliban takeover of much, if not most, of the country and likely a renewed civil war. Taliban-ruled areas could in short order become, once again, a sanctuary for Al Qaeda as well as a staging area for resurgent militant groups on the offensive in Pakistan.

Success in South and Central Asia by Islamic extremists — as was the case twenty years ago — would beget success on other fronts. It would strengthen the Al Qaeda narrative, providing renewed opportunities for recruitment, fund-raising, and more sophisticated operations. Aided by the Internet, many more followers could join their ranks, both in the region and in susceptible populations across the globe…

Mark
Ottawa

The treehuggers have been busy trying to get Prime Minister Stephen Harper to include the ubiquitous “climate change” — otherwise known as Global Warming except when it’s inconvenient — on the G8 and G20 economic summits timetables. At first, the Conservative leader was standoffish about the idea, but he has apparently “warmed” up to the idea.

Despite more important issues to discuss, like the fact that Europe is falling apart while France and Germany pay the equivalent of war reparations to try and save Spain, Greece, Portugal and Ireland from economic ruin, the world wants to talk about melting glaciers and hurricanes.

Last month it was filthy Mexico that came calling to lecture us about the importance of Canadian leadership on global warming. Which was sort of like getting a lecture on virtue from a call girl.

Well, the lecturing must have worked, because the government has capitulated, and put climate change on the G8 and G20 agendas.

“We anticipate that climate change will come up, in fact, at both summits,” Andrew MacDougall said.

“Actually, the prime minister was on (the telephone) with Chancellor (Angela) Merkel this morning of Germany and they discussed the fact that this issue, climate change, will be raised at both summits.”

So not only will we be spending $1 billion on security for this dog-and-pony show [or $930 million as the case may be], but we’ll be putting climate change on the agenda, a time and money waster that Copenhagen proved is second to none.

Has nobody read the memo? Are we still going on about this 2007 Nobel winning fad?

This is the end of the world as we know it. Every 100 million years, a rock the size of a small asteroid slams into the Earth, causing global earthquakes, one-kilometre high tsunamis, and global extinction.

But man-made climate change? Not likely.

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is now widely believed to have deliberately misled the global public into believing that there was a consensus among thousands of scientists with peer-reviewed research and irrefutable, “settled” science. According to Mike Hulme, an IPCC insider and whistleblower, the real number of scientists in the infamous “consensus” was a few dozen experts.

“Claims such as ‘2,500 of the world’s leading scientists have reached a consensus that human activities are having a significant influence on the climate’ are disingenuous,” the paper states unambiguously, adding that they rendered “the IPCC vulnerable to outside criticism.”

Right. But let’s not allow evidence of scientific tampering for the manipulation of the global political agenda to at all dissuade the G8/20 discussions of how driving to work causes hurricanes in Malaysia.

Bob Rae, Liberal Foreign Affairs Critic. Photo: Globe and Mail

When I wrote in the National Post the other day that it should be unsurprising that the Special Parliamentary Committee to the mission in Afghanistan would change its mind about Canada’s military coming home after the summer of 2011, it was only because I think that when it comes to Afghanistan, “seeing is believing.” But to say that I haven’t been surprised by the comments from the Liberals and NDP since the committee returned to Canada, would be dishonest.

Verily, I have been nearly floored by the prospect of keeping some kind of role in Afghanistan beyond our parliamentary consensus to leave in 2011. Floored, because the suggestion is coming not from the traditional base of support for the military, the Conservative Party, but from those who have been altogether engaged in smearing the mission for the past year, the opposition parties.

In a particularly bizarre reversal of support for the mission in Afghanistan, the parliamentary committee suggested that Canada should continue a role — a non-combat one — in the country, by continuing humanitarian work and focusing on the ongoing security needs of the people there. But equally bizarre is the fact that Stephen Harper, who once wrapped himself so tightly in the colours of the mission that leaving was considered a cowardly value, now seems to be ruling out any possible restructuring of that mission.

“I note [Mr. Rae's] words with some interest,” Mr. Harper said. “I think we’ve been very clear. We’re working according to the parliamentary resolution that was adopted in 2008 by which Canada’s military mission will end and will transition to a civilian and development mission at the end of 2011. And that continues to be our workplan according to the resolution adopted by Parliament.”

Mr.Harper has been like a skipping record on this answer since 2008, and while it made sense to respect to the will of parliament and drop a losing proposition, I would have expected something a little more ambiguous this time around. A response to the effect of welcoming further discussion in the House of Commons, would have been far more consistent with the Conservative Party line that they had been forced to adopt the resolution to end the mission in Afghanistan unwillingly.

The response to Mr.Rae’s words about the possibility of a mission extension in a non-combat role has been particularly jaded coming from the media. Some suggested that it was a sign of a loss of control over the Liberal Party by leader Michael Ignatieff, unable to reign in the rogue Bob Rae. Some called the former NDP Premier of Ontario “two-faced”, and intimated that this is prerequisite trait of being a Liberal.

The truth is that Bob Rae does deserve a considerable amount of heat for his about-face, if only because he and his party has been determined to undermine the mission in every way possible for the past year with the “torture-rendition-war crimes” inquisition of our military. Nobody has worked harder to control a negative perception of the mission in Afghanistan than the Liberal Party.

Vancouver MP Ujjal Dosanjh worked overtime in casting aspersions on both the military command and the government in the House of Commons during Question Period, that suggested we were deliberately having Afghans tortured by the NDS in order to extract information from them.

For those reasons, it’s not difficult to see why the sudden offering of support for a post-2011 role would be met with mistrust and skepticism. But that does not mean we can ignore the branch that has been offered. This is an opportunity too valuable to scoff at. And though the professionalism, maturity, and sensibility appear to have arrived at a most tardy moment, it would be wrong-headed to simply turn away. Even the Toronto Star has cast its support for a mission extension of our military’s presence in a non-combat role.

It is positively surreal to see Bob Rae sitting on CTV’s Question Period, making sensible comments and suggestions about the importance of providing ongoing security training for the Afghan police and army. We can either mock him for his late arrival to table, or we can take this opportunity to spur on a much-needed discussion about our post-2011 role in Afghanistan, and maintain our commitments to our allies. If the comments of Conservative MP James Rajotte are any indication, there is at least some willingness to do that from within the government.

ALSO READ

Canada’s milblog is divided on the opportunity here. Mark sees a chance for a military role to continue in some beneficial way. Babbling sees this more cynically as keeping the troops trapped “behind the wire”, where they will be least effective.

The Conservative Party has made a lot of hay over the billion dollar boondoggle of the Liberal gun registry, a tool that has debatable benefits for law enforcement agencies, and does more to curtail illegal ownership of 40-year-old long guns in the hands of Toronto Star writers than street gangs.

The Liberal gun registry came to symbolize everything that is wrong with big spending, big government prying into the affairs of law-abiding citizens. There is little doubt that the move led to some migration of support over to the Conservative Party, who originally posed a fiscally conservative, more libertarian kind of government.

Well, those days are long gone now, as Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party have managed to shatter all previous perceptions of being fiscally restrained. The 2009 federal budget promised $30 billion in support to the Canadian economy in the form of “stimulus” spending, equivalent to 1.9 per cent of our total economy. But The Fraser Institute later argued that stimulus spending accounted for just 0.2 percentage points of economic growth between the second and third quarters of last year, and nothing from the third to the fourth.

Then there’s the inexplicable $1.1 billion “security summit”, a boondoggle so massive that not even former PMO spokesman Kory Teneycke could contain his disgust. The amount is so far beyond the understanding of most Canadians, that we have become relegated to shaking our heads in disbelief over the wastefulness of spending that kind of money on an international schmoozefest of little real value.

Now the good old Right Honourable Stephen Joseph Harper is signaling a readiness to commit a billion dollars to the G8 maternal health program, sending all that money out of the country for foreign aid at a time when Canada is still reeling from a $40 billion deficit last year alone. At the rate the government bandies about billions of dollars, it might be a relief to get a more fiscally conservative leader back in the halls of power. Even Paul Martin didn’t open the purse strings this wide.

The sad thing is that to find any semblance of fiscal conservatism these days, one would have to open the pages of the Globe and Mail and read former Conservative strategist Tom Flanagan’s latest diatribe on Stephen Harper’s big government.

The fact is that most of the recent controversies surrounding the Conservatives have all been owed to pandering to woollyheaded Liberal ideas of subsidizing green technology, extending the social services blanket to the third world, and cultural events like Toronto Pride. Had the Conservatives cut these extraneous tentacles suction-cupped to the udders of the government long ago, we could have avoided the expectation that the responsibility of the government is provide an endless flow of milk and honey.

The “old” Stephen Harper opposed business welfare and public subsidies. The “new” one loves them so much that he’s set up regional development agencies for such economically challenged areas as Southern Ontario.

Then there’s the fact that the Conservatives are dabbling in appeasement tactics for other government-dependent industries, such as the “green” technologies that have complemented Al Gore’s snake oil tour so well. Rahim Jaffer wouldn’t have been mucking around in the lobbying business if there wasn’t a lot of money to be made in peddling the global warming racket. This, even as Great Britain’s scientific community is undergoing a revolution of sorts on the issue.

I suppose it’s a bit of an addiction to be able to get in front the cameras every day and make spending announcements of a billion dollars. It not only makes the government look like it’s doing something, but that it “cares”. Unfortunately it’s also sending Canada right into the poor house. By the end of the 2009 budget fiscal outlook, Canada will be sitting at least $600 billion in public debt, meaning that up to $20 billion in expenditures each year will come from interest payments alone.

And no matter how many times Stephen Harper says he’s going to decrease the size of the government, review departmental spending, or start tightening the belt, it never happens. All we get is boondoogle after boondoggle. The man who was brought in with lofty ideals about spending restraint and transparency has been just about as contrary to them as possible.

“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

Nathan Denette/Canadian Press

Several recent polls are showing that the Conservative Party has shot back into a large lead over the Liberal Party, the largest coming in at 12% from Leger Marketing. This has spawned voluminous writing and debate over what it all means, including regional breakdowns of the fluctuating support in Ontario and Quebec, battleground ridings, and speculation as to what has given the Conservatives their recent “bounce”.

The answer is simple. Nothing.

Acting as though polling is a science instead of guesswork, and trying to extrapolate all sorts of reasons and justifications for the numbers is ignoring the obvious.

Canada has been in a political stalemate for over four years now, and nothing short of an absolute breakdown of the government is going to change that. There has been no meaningful momentum in the past four years, other than the times that political parties have threatened meaningless electoral confrontation.

Think about it. The Conservatives have variously been accused of proroguing parliament twice in two years for self-serving reasons; refusing to hand over Afghan documents ordered by Parliament; playing fast and loose with the election rules on campaign financing; presiding over the largest and most reckless deficit in the history of the nation; and now owning a billion dollar security boondoggle that makes the gun registry look cheap. But far from falling in the polls, they’re hovering somewhere around where they’ve been since Stephen Harper became Prime Minister for the first time.

The party first won 124 seats on the merit of 36% of the popular vote in 2006, and followed that up with 37% in 2008. The 12 point lead that has caused such a flurry of keyboard pounding and “expert” round table discussions at the Canadian news networks? Also 37%. We’ve gone nowhere since the last time Stephen Harper was saying things like “we will never return to deficits in Canada.”

It’s the same for the other parties as well. Whether the Liberals are at 25% or flirt as high as 30%, they’re still in the same post-Chretien rut they’ve been in for years. The NDP have managed to make absolutely no traction at all. This, despite the fact that Jack Layton consistently ranks in the top approval ratings for the job he does.

So what could the reason be for the absolute dysfunction in picking a clear mandate for one political party?

Does there have to be a reason? Contrary to Stephen Harper’s belief that Canada has become a more conservative country since he took power, the fact is that the vast majority of Canadians continue to be left of centre, meaning that it takes the combined efforts of the right to hold them at bay.

The left have an “out” any time they want it, by forming a coalition and pressing ahead with a power-sharing arrangement between the NDP, Liberals, and Bloc. But the heavyweight egos involved in that enterprise are so unwilling to take that risk, that they are instead relegated to an ineffective parliamentary opposition role. That could be because the well has been so poisoned by partisan posturing that drinking from the same cup is certain to be to fatal to all.

But don’t expect the fortunes of the Conservatives to rise as the economy improves either. Although they seem to have weathered the economic storm with an unprecedented amount of public sucking up and pandering with “stimulus” programs, this is a party that hasn’t managed to capitalize on the unpopularity of a man leading the Liberal Party for whom even Liberals don’t want as Prime Minister.

The one thing that may eventually change Liberal fortunes is a change to a more dynamic, charismatic, and driven leader. But nobody on the horizon is even remotely close to fitting this description. Especially not the “heir apparent”, Justin Trudeau, who displayed a forfeit of the intellectual prowess possessed of his father in a recent CTV interview involving Conservative MP Shelley Glover.

So meanwhile we can continue to analyze the blips and beeps of the political EKG monitor, but if you look at it long enough you’ll find it’s really just a flatline.

Rod Bruinooge, Conservative MP for Winnipeg South

Stephen Harper is being dragged into the abortion issue again, but this time it’s because of friendly fire. The Conservative Leader’s hand has been forced to crack the whip on the upstart pro-life caucus on his own team, which attended a large rally on Parliament Hill last Thursday. Now the Prime Minister will encourage his party to vote against a pro-life private member’s bill tabled by fellow Conservative MP Rod Bruinooge.

Although the vote will not technically be whipped, Conservative MPs will be “very strongly recommended” to defeat it, which almost assures it won’t pass. The Liberals, Bloc, and NDP will almost certainly vote against it with or without the involvement of the Conservative Party.

Stephen Harper has been criticized by social conservatives since taking power in 2006 for not addressing the abortion issue, and it’s possible that the pro-life crowd are simply tired of waiting. But with a minority government, the last thing the Conservative Party needs right now is an issue that paints them on the wrong side of voters.

The bill by Mr.Bruinooge is a far cry from the one introduced, and defeated, earlier by Ken Epps, which would have protected pregnant women from injury to the fetus during criminal acts. But C-510, An Act to amend the Criminal Code for coercion of abortion, sounds like a precipitous slope.

Balancing the needs of the party with the needs of the social conservative base has been a tricky proposal. The 2008 Conservative policy convention adopted a resolution affirming the right of MP’s to adopt positions that might be adversarial to the party if they’re based on issues of “moral conscience”, such as abortion, same-sex marriage, and euthanasia.

But it’s fairly clear the Conservative Party doesn’t need to draw any more attention to the abortion spotlight than has already been shed by Canada’s G8 maternal health plan, a topic hijacked entirely by the fact that abortion was taken off the table as an option for mothers.

The opposition has shrewdly — or opportunistically — publicized the abortion issue as much as they possibly can, knowing that the topic makes some voters, who might otherwise consider voting Conservative, very squeamish. The party has always been very careful to avoid the issues of moral conscience, knowing they can easily kill mainstream support.

It may also scare away potential support to build toward a majority government [though the Conservatives are pulling away again as I write this], since people may believe that an unhindered Conservative government would loosen the reigns on the social conservative side of the party.

Private member bills from Mr.Bruinooge like C-510 may serve the conscience of the Honourable Member, but it won’t serve the future electoral success of the party, and that’s something he might want to think about.