By John-Henry Westen
OTTAWA, February 14, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a letter dated February 6, 2006, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) congratulated Stephen Harper on his becoming Prime Minister of Canada. Signed by Sherbrooke Archbishop and CCCB President André Gaumond, the letter states, “We are pleased with the attention you have given to date to matters dealing with respect to life and human dignity.” (see the full letter here: https://www.cccb.ca/PublicStatements.htm?CD=547&ID=1822 )
In an interview with LifeSiteNews.com today, Archbishop Gaumond explained that he was referring to Harper’s statements on life and family issues.“We are saying that during the campaign and before the campaign (Harper) addressed those topics with more of an open mind in our point of view.” When asked, if the Archbishop meant ‘more open mind’ than his Prime Ministerial predecessors, the Archbishop replied in the affirmative, adding also that Harper was more open than “other politicians at the time” of the campaign.
The statement from the Catholic leadership is especially interesting since Harper is an evangelical Protestant while his immediate predecessors Paul Martin and Jean Chretien were at least nominally Catholic.
During the campaign Harper himself promised that he would not allow his government to put forward or support pro-life legislation, he maintained however that such issues could be proposed as private members legislation and be given a free vote. Nearing the end of the campaign he went further to appease abortion supporters saying he would “use whatever influence I have in Parliament to be sure that such a matter doesn’t come to a vote.
Despite this however, Harper was far more “open” to life issues since former Prime Minister Martin made keeping abortion legal a major part of his campaign. Martin, while claiming to be Catholic, went to great lengths during the campaign to champion abortion and homosexual ‘marriage’. As Luc Gagnon, President of the major political pro-life group in the province of Quebec – Campagne Quebec Vie – told LifeSiteNews.com ,“On abortion, Harper at least did not use the same rhetoric as Martin who said it was a charter right and Mr. Harper was more moderate.”
Gagnon said that the archbishop in praising Harper’s stand on the right to life was likely referring primarily to Harper’s stand against assisted suicide, which came out clearly in the campaign during the French-language debate. During that January 10thÂdebate Harper said his party would not propose changing the law on the matter, adding, “I think it’s important to resist the idea of giving the power to kill.”
Archbishop Gaumond also told LifeSiteNews.com that Harper’s stand in favour of the traditional definition of marriage was worthy of praise since the matter “is for us so important a topic.”Â