Question Period today was particularly painful to watch. Not just because the same old questions pertaining to unimportant matters continue to be asked in slightly different ways, but because they don’t serve any purpose beyond the transparency of their political motivations.
Take the fact that Liberal MP Wayne Easter got up in the House of Commons again today, 34 days after Helena Guergis had a particularly unpleasant birthday at a Prince Edward Island airport, and asked yet again for the government to explain itself. There is nothing to be gained from asking questions about either Ms.Guergis or Mr.Blackburn, and the truth is that while many Canadians think that Helena Guergis probably went outside of bounds of proper decorum, we stopped caring weeks ago.
But because Veteran Affairs Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn has surfaced in the news over an airport squabble regarding a bottle of Tequila, the Liberals see it as an opportunity to play partisan games in the House of Commons.
What you might not realize, is that Mr.Blackburn was returning from a vacation in Mexico with, as is wholly appropriate, a sealed bottle of tequila. Unfortunately for him, the airport gestapo decided to seize it because it exceeded the 100 mL of liquid allowed on air planes. He was understandably upset. I would be, too. Not just for being forced to surrender something you paid good money for, but because of the ridiculousness of whatever passes for airport security these days.
Although I suppose that technically the Veterans Affairs Minister could be smuggling the tequila on the plane in order to use it as the fuel for an airplane bomb in a suicide mission for Allah, the likelihood is probably as remote as Osama bin Laden being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize [although even that seems more probable, since those things don't seem very difficult to win these days].
Then there was Ujjal Dosanjh’s obligatory torture-rendition-war crimes question to Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, who could at this point simply hire a Mexican migrant to stand in his stead and read from a sheet that refers all questions on Afghan detainees to the need for patience of retired Supreme Court Justice Iacobucci to do his job.
But if it’s not airport blowups or tortured detainee questions, the opposition is nothing if not unrelenting to score with the unfathomably ill-advised Conservative G8 maternal health plan. Several Liberal and NDP Members got up in the House of Commons today and demanded to know whether the government would be offering the “full range” of maternal health services to women in the third world. The full range is, of course, a euphemism for abortion, the current wedge issue that the opposition is, rather successfully I must say, driving into the heart of the Conservative government right now.
There is no proper way to address this hot potato. The Conservatives have managed to ignore the abortion issue for their four years in power, even though they are fully aware that their socially conservative supporters would like nothing better than to bring it up for legislative control. The opposition, too, would love nothing better than for the Conservatives to bring abortion into the House of Commons, since the topic is completely toxic to the government. You just have to look at the emotional rhetoric flung about when the Conservatives tried to add criminal punishment to those who harm the fetus of pregnant women during the perpetration of another criminal act in order to fully understand.
Unfortunately, Bev Oda, Minister of International Cooperation, said that the Conservative plan for maternal health has always “been clear”, in that they are open to any options that would promote maternal health in their plan. The fact is that, no, they haven’t been clear about it, which is the reason the opposition are on them like feral dogs on a chicken bone.
Allowing the opposition to make this issue about abortion, has wedged the government inbetween the socially conservative and liberal elements of the country. If they allow for abortion to be included as a part of CIDA’s maternal health, the socons will be upset that the government is officially sanctioning and funding abortion abroad. But if they explicitly remove that option from the table, the opposition will use that as proof of a socially conservative ideological agenda.
It’s not about holding the government to account. These politicians don’t care about whether Afghans were really tortured, or if Helena Guergis made an airport worker cry, or if women in countries they’d never visit can get abortion on-demand services. It’s all about gotcha politics, and the moment you engage people in these games, they’ve already got you.
This is exactly why I stopped watching Question Period.
All the Opposition continue to prove is that while the PM may have refreshed and recharged his batteries over the prorogue time the opposition clearly did nothing as they offer nothing new.
Pathetic really.
Pathetic is par for the course it would seem.
What’s frustrating about this abortion thing is that a Conservative position is easy and yet they can’t seem to articulate it.
So here’s what they should say.
1) The plan WILL include funding contraception. This will not offend most of the social conservatives, because protestant Christians do not oppose contraception. The oppose promotion of contraception in teen sexual education classes, but that’s a completely different issue.
2) The plan WILL NOT include funding abortions. This is a divisive issue both at home and in the third world and the Conservative government will take a hands off approach.
3) The plan WILL NOT involve cutting off funding to organizations that also promote abortion or provide abortion services. While the Bush policy was to cut ALL funding for groups that provided abortion information through separate funds, the Canadian Conservatives will take a hands off approach. The Conservative plan does not seek to eliminate abortion and it does not promote it.
That’s exceptionally clear and it claims the middle ground.
If the Liberals want to become the “pro-abortion” party, that’s a terrible idea, but let them bring it up.
Someone made a fairly good point in another blog entry that I can’t quite recall now, in that contraception won’t contain the problem of “rape babies” in the third world, particularly lawless African states [although even South Africa has highest rape rate in world].
Logically, maternal health services would allow for rape victims to get abortions. But again, it’s a toxic conversation to get into because it creates a strawman argument over philosophical support or opposition to abortion, rather than focusing on the issue of maternal health.
Actually, the pill could do a lot for that problem. Of course the pill doesn’t help at all with HIV transmission and there may be problems with promoting the pill, but I’d leave that to others to sort out.
In any case, abortion would be quite effective at eliminating “rape babies”, although it wouldn’t reduce incident of rape. As you said though, it’s a toxic conversation. Leaving the issue alone isn’t going to please either of the camps, but lighting up a culture war would only help the extremists.
Mr.Easter enjoyed a distinguished 6 month stint in Cabinet until PM Martin came to his senses
It is an interesting point though Adrian. I would not have thought of it.
Interesting & amusing analysis as always, Adrian. We had a more conservative govt when the Liberals were in power with Conservative opposition, than we do now, even though the CPC, is now the govt. QP is a joke now, have some of the members no shame? I actually sympathize with Blackburn, it seems like someone wanted a free bottle of tequila, I don’t blame him for saying, “pour it out in front of me”… Airport security is nothing if not inconsistent!!
People that think all the booze confiscated is destroyed should get in touch with me. I have a couple of bridges and some ocean front property in Alberta for sale.
Same with the airport security porn I’m sure. In fact I’ll bet they save a bottle for that after hours viewing pleasure.
Why Mexican or Immigrant?
Because they come cheap, of course. Gosh, dude, that was an easy one.
I don’t see it as a divisive issue. Including contraceptives, in the plan might annoy some social conservatives but is not a deal breaker for most. Abortion is by far the bigger issue for them and from what I’ve seen personally even ProChoice Canadians don’t get to excited about not including it in aid packages to foreign countries.
As I see it, more money on contraceptives and Abortions means less money for food, water and medicine. Ask someone in the 3rd world who has no clean water or food whether they’d prefer food and water or Abortions, I think they’re answer would be obvious.
MacNair you can tell Coulter is in town.
Who knows if you act even more indecently she might give you a peck on the cheek.
That reply shows what a bigoted piece of crap you are.
Still Interested Issachar??
[...] Bye Bye Ambidextrously Ambiguous MacNair the bigot – National Post you must be so proud Posted on 26 March 2010 by harebell Adrian (Raph) MacNiel has shown that a Coulterish addiction to controversy matters more to him than actually acting like a decent human being: harebell says: March 22, 2010 at 3:36 pm [...]