VICTORIA, BC, June 21 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Canadian Alliance leadership hopeful Keith Martin, who yesterday made news headlines saying he would leave the party if it went pro-life, was back-pedaling today after losing a key campaign worker over the issue. Herb Wiens, treasurer of Martin’s Canadian Alliance leadership campaign, resigned yesterday and switched his allegiance to Stockwell Day. Wiens said Martin violated a promise to him that he would not make abortion an issue in his leadership campaign.
The Victoria Times Colonist reports Martin saying that the coverage of his abortion comments was “overblown.” He reaffirmed his allegiance to the party. “I’m going to stay in the party,” he said. Prominent backers of Tom Long have also expressed a fixation on the abortion issue. Ernie Eves, the Ontario Finance Minister, noted that his membership in the Alliance party was contingent on Long’s winning of the leadership. In his April 20 column, Globe and Mail reporter John Ibbitson revealed Eves strong views on abortion. He wrote “Back in the 1980s, when the Liberals were in power, a back-bench MPP named Ernie Eves broke with his party to vote in support of publicly funded women’s health centres, which performed abortions”.