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The "What Do I Know Grit"
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- James Curran
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19 comments:
I wish people would stop saying..if he has anything to do with Martin then,....., or if antyone has anything to do with Cretien, then.......
Why in god's name do they not shut up..I would think that is what was dividing the Liberal Party in the first place..Grow up.
I like Leblanc and I do not care who he knows!!!
Sorry some one was writing a blogger and said that because some man who had something to do with Martin, said he would not go for Leblanc because that man was endorsing him.
lol. That happens a lot.
Dominic has people in all camps. But, he's not going to be the only one outside of the big two (one of which really should rethink the situation).
Tim Murphey is not someone who just had "something" to do with Martin. He was Martin in many ways.
Myself and other Liberals that see what a diaster the Martinite team has been just think LeBlanc needs to move away from them. It's also why Iggy will never get my vote, too many Earnscliffers with him.
Beard:
Like who? Who from Earnscliff?
If we are going to start so early with the smears, let's at least be open and honest about it, shall we. Jim's leading by example, follow suit.
Beard - if you use that formula for voting instead of policies, etc. - perhaps you shouldn't be voting.
......sigh.....
People do not have to vote on just policies, it is the total package that matters. Past statements, past judgement, political experience, renewal plan and street cred are what matters to this 30 year+ Liberal.
Ignatieff is out for me.
James, why "Not Good"? Isn't McKenna pretty much a wingnut?
Ignatieff was the ship where Martin disastrous Quebec team hung their hat in 2006, I'm not sure, nor do I care if the Earnscliff gang are supporting him, but I do know that Ignatieff's pandering to the worst of the nationalists once again renders him untouchable to any Liberal that respects the legacy of our successful leaders like Trudeau and Chretien and not the pandering losers like Martin and Turner.
The Globe has an excellent article today on how an Ignatieff lead party that follows his advice on Quebec would lead the party to electoral doom.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081028.WSteele29/BNStory/politics
It will once again be anybody but Iggy and that is for the good of the party.
P.S- My issue with Murphy supporting LeBlanc is that I like Leblanc and he should avoid having losers like Murphy advising him. The man knows how to play the internal Liberal game, but is a disaster at how to win a general election. I hope Leblanc uses Murphy to gain advice on running his leadership but jettisons him from another discussions.
Well we don't need to go on and on with this point on Jim's blog, but, in case you were curious or aware of history:
- Chretien was no Trudeau: Trudeau would never have recognized Quebec as a distinct society as Chretien did in Parliament.
- No one in the Liberal Party is even a Chretien or a Trudeau anymore: Dion supported distinct society and recognition of Quebec as a nation (and he voted for recognizing the Quebecois as a nation), so too did the rest of the party.
Blame Iggy all you want for raising the issue - he clearly and certainly didn't, the Quebec wing did and it was not just all Martin or Iggy supporters either - and if that makes him "untouchable" then I have a healthy respect for such a reasoning.
But because you reject Iggy for that, don't assume that anyone else holds any different view in this party.
Trudeau federalism has been long dead. And no one even bothered to come to the funeral.
Sorry Prole. A LOT OF PEOPLE WANTED HIM. Not particularly me. I don't like a lot of his positions...one of which is his stance on abortion.
James, you may or may not know that I'm a future voter, contingent on me taking up Canadian citizenship in just over a year. As a partisan Liberal, how can you reassure a progressive like me that the Liberals are a party that I can feel comfortable voting for if "A LOT OF PEOPLE WANTED" this anti-abortion conservative to lead the party? I ask earnestly as I'm completely uncommitted to a party at this point. I will say this though, if someone like McKenna were made leader, it would cement my vote (and my contributions, and my time) for pretty much anyone but the Libs.
Give it a rest Prole. Your comments show quite clearly that you are not a Liberal.
- a LOT of support for the Liberals has always come from "anti-abortion" immigrant groups, including Muslims and Roman Catholics. There are many reasons to support a big tent party; it's what makes it a big tent.
- please provide one single quotation from McKenna that even indicates he's anti-abortion. Remember, every single leader of the federal Liberal Party in its entire history has been anti-abortion. Chretien, Martin and Turner all modified their views only in the 1990s. So please, just one quotation from him. That's all I ask.
- the Liberal Party has been staunchly pro-choice for many many years so if you ever thought they would be introducing any legislation that would criminalize abortion you are not just a "Prole" but clearly a "troll" on this blog.
Clarification needed because of sloppy typing: I did not mean to imply that immigrant groups were anti-abortion or that Roman Catholics were immigrants. Just meant to give two examples of demographics that have traditionally supported the Liberals and have traditionally been anti-abortion.
Troll? Ok, whatever you say, Ted. I'm exactly what I said - an uncommitted future voter (new Canadian, US staunch Democrat), and I'd like for someone from the Liberal party to sell me on the idea that as a progressive person, they are the party to support. Word on the street is that McKenna is anti-choice, and I'm just going by that, like most potential voters would.
"the Liberal Party has been staunchly pro-choice for many many years so if you ever thought they would be introducing any legislation that would criminalize abortion you are not just a "Prole" but clearly a "troll" on this blog."
I sincerely hope you're right. As it stands, I'm not worried at the moment about Liberals introducing legislation themselves, but supporting legislation brought forward by the Conservatives. Or not bothering to show up to vote against it, as is the case with the second reading of C-484.
Call me a troll for asking questions all you want, I really couldn't care less. I'm just trying to get the information I need. James Curran is a Liberal who I trust, one of the few blogging partisans who doesn't seem like a total jackass, and I do have some very friendly history with him so I thought I'd ask him. So very sorry you have a problem with that.
No problem, Prole, and if I over-reacted, let me apologize.
I just don't like having litmus tests for party membership. It strikes me as the kind of idiological purity tests that the NDP and Conservatives and Republicans apply at the door. And I particularly don't like anti-abortion attacks on good Canadians, and good Liberals when someone can't produce any evidence to support the attack. That's not good for any party. You did state you were prepared to make a decision about the party based on what you thought you knew about him.
By way of background on McKenna specifically: when abortion was illegal, no Canadian hospital would allow abortions to be conducted within their walls. Dr. Henry Morgenthaler established a doubly illegal abortion clinic in New Brunswick: doubly because abortion was then illegal and private health clinics were illegal. The Liberal New Brunswick government acted to enforce the law while McKenna was Premier. In the meantime, the abortion laws were struck down and eventually Morgenthaler won at the Supreme Court.
Like every Liberal leader at the time and since including our "heroes" Trudean and Chretien, McKenna (a Roman Catholic) was probably not pro-choice back then. I'm guessing because I've never seen a single quotation. Also, that was a while ago and no one knows what he thinks now because people who don't like him would prefer to just smear him. Like most non-politicians, he's never made any statement one way or the other. So to call him, quite definitively, as being "anti-choice" is a bit over the top.
Besides, the Democrats in the US seem to be doing OK notwithstanding Harry Reid and many other anti-choice Democrats. So again, should not be a litmus test. The Dems and the Republicans, in my view, are screwing themeselves and their country because no one can get passed their personal belief on that issue.
Ted, just so you don't think I pulled "Frank McKenna = anti-abortion" out of the thin air, also evidenced by James' above comment saying he disagreed with McKenna on issues including his abortion stance:
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=f2P&q=Frank+McKenna+anti-abortion&btnG=Search&meta=
Unless McKenna came out publicly and stated that he supports a woman's right to use birth control and/or terminate a pregnancy in Canada, I'm left to believe by the majority of opinion that I've read (on both sides of the spectrum) that he is anti-abortion. If I'm wrong, that's super, but also largely moot, since he is not contending to be leader of the Liberals.
I can appreciate what you're saying regarding his stance and litmus tests. However, as a woman who greatly values her bodily autonomy, I'm afraid that the abortion/birth control/reproductive liberty issue is indeed a litmus test for any candidate I would consider voting for. It's not something like taxes or economy or whether or not to fund a museum. It's my body, my life, and if a candidate does not respect my right to decide whether or not to become pregnant in the first place, and if I do, what to do about it, I will not vote for them. Especially here in Canada where there are more than 2 choices in any given election.
Plus, the overwhelming majority of Canadians are pro-choice (or so I've read). For the Liberals or any party for that matter to choose a leader that opposed that position on a legislative level would say to me that they either have trouble reading the public, or would seek to impose their brand of morality on people. Either way not someone I could support. I don't think it's the government's place to make such decisions for anybody. In fact, I emphatically oppose giving the government a say in such personal family and medical matters.
I've been fighting to keep my bodily autonomy for a lot of years in the US, where abortion and birth control rights have been vastly eroded in the last 8 years. I never dreamed I'd have to even consider such a thing in Canada, but here we are. I'm not exactly a single issue voter, but this issue is very, very important to me. If I were in the US, I'd vote against Harry Reid or any anti-abortion rights Democrat in a primary election. I'd likely hold my nose and vote for them if necessary to keep a Republican out of office, and then work like hell to get them ousted in the next primary. But here, I could vote NDP instead. It's that important. Your religious extremists have recently been emboldened here, so unfortunately this fight is just starting.
So, I'll be watching the leadership race with great interest, as well as watching to see if the Libs embrace the grassroots or not. I have a few years to decide at any rate.
I guess and I see we are coming to the same point from two very different angles/experiences, Prole.
I follow US political news vociferously and I know that the hardfought freedom women won in the US is under constant attack from very powerful forces with a lot of money. That you are constantly on the defensive in the US is 100% understandable.
Here, though, we not only have no law criminalizign abortion, but no one serious in politics in any part of the country wants to talk about it. The only discussion is by a few hardcore MPs who introduced a feeble piece of legislation that got nowhere in the end. We should not underestimate the determination of the conservative movement on this issue and it would be very dangerous to do so.
But the conservatives are not emboldened in this country, in fact, they are in retreat. Stephen Harper has shown the face of the bedrock of Canadian conservativism: economic and not social conservativism dominates Canadian conservativism. The mere hint of abortion cost him the election in 2004 and cost him a majority in 2006. If you read the hardcore rightwing blogs and commentary, the social conservatives are getting very frustrated with the Conservative Party. The other very very significant difference in Canada is that the provinces do not have same legislative ability to criminalize or block abortions as they do in the US.
Harper is a shrewd calculating politician who likes, in his own words, the power of running the country. As much as I detest him, I truly believe he knows he'd be toast if he ever allowed any criminalization of abortion to get passed.
That being said, and McKenna's position now being moot as you said, I can tell you that all of the contenders for the Liberal leadership - Ignatieff, Rae (if he runs, now in question), LeBlanc - are all very opposed to abortion, very much in favour of equal marriage, very strongly in favour of a national healthcare system. I know this from personal discussions with them on these issues (at least with Iggy and Rae).
So I come to the same point as you - the importance of ensuring no legislative change - simply from a different point view, one that looks at the political landscape and has no concerns about the Liberals introducing or supporting any abortion legislation.
Hopefully if we can meet sometime and discuss further.
Actually, Ted.
This has come up here in Canada. Back door legislation and private members bills. three of them.
Its incremental, sneaky and underhanded as are many conservative changes.
And just to mention, it's been many pro-choice bloggers who have raised the alarm since the traditional media ignores much of it.
Prole is quite correct that the Liberals are not in any way shape or form all on the same side with this..
Bill C-484, passed second reading, with Liberal abstentions, and some tools voting FOR it in the Liberal party. Is that worrisome? Totally worrisome to those of us most affected.
You can deny it, we arent so callous.
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