By Steve Jalsevac
TORONTO, October 31, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In its November CLC National News, Campaign Life Coalition presents its detailed assessment of the results of the October 14 federal election. CLC’s overall view is summed up in the election story headline, “Abortion issue avoided, but pro-lifers hold ground.”
Following are excerpts from the CLC report:
“After a pointless and premature election call, the Conservatives failed to increase their 127-seats to majority status, coming up short by about a dozen seats. The anti-life and anti-family Bloc Quebecois won two-thirds of the seats in La Belle Province. The pro-abortion NDP increased its seat totals to 37 and the Liberals were reduced to just 76 seats.
Despite predictions of a breakthrough, the Green Party garnered less than 7% of the vote and ended up with no seats. The Christian Heritage Party ran 59 candidates and received 26,722 votes in total – its lowest total vote yet.
This Parliament will likely be as volatile as the previous two, which means that without pro-life leadership at either the top of the parties or from vocal MPs within them, life and family issues are likely to be kept on the sidelines. This do-nothing state will inevitably lead to a further plunge in respect for human life as the abortion culture embeds deeper and even more Canadians become personally implicated in abortion and other anti-life activities.
The good news is that the pro-life contingent has mostly held its ground. Almost all of the pro-lifers who ran for re-election won. An exception is Paul Zed, a Liberal from Saint John, who has said the right things but has sent mixed signals through his voting record. He lost a close race and it is possible that his lack of clear pro-life convictions turned off values-voters in his New Brunswick riding (previously held by pro-life stalwart Elsie Wayne).
A number of stalwart pro-lifers, including Rod Bruinooge (C, Winnipeg South), Pierre Lemieux (C, Glengarry-Prescott-Russell), Albina Guarnieri (L, Mississauga East-Cookville), Royal Galipeau (C, Ottawa Orleans), Dean Del Mastro (C, Peterborough) and Jeff Watson (C, Essex) were re-elected by more comfortable margins than anyone expected. Moreover, on the Liberal side, two committed pro-lifers in the Toronto area, Dan McTeague (Pickering Scarborough East) won re-election easily and Paul Szabo (Mississauga South) eked out a narrow victory.
Unfortunately, Michelle Simson, the Liberal who replaced Tom Wappel in Scarbarough Southwest is a pro-abortion feminist imposed on the Liberal riding association by Stephane Dion. Simson won, although not by the same large margins that Wappel enjoyed for two decades. In Huron-Bruce, pro-life Liberal MP Paul Steckle retired and the riding turned blue.
In Western Canada, about a dozen pro-life MPs who began their careers in the Reform Party retired from politics. In some cases, their replacements refused to answer the questionnaire leaving us unable to qualify them as pro-life (or pro-abortion) because of a lack of information. With the loss of Reform Members of Parliament, we continue to lose the transparency they brought to the political process.”
From there Campaign Life Coalition adds, “Now the hard part begins” and urges pro-life Canadians to educate the MPs on the issues “and assist them in bringing forward pro-life legislation and government policies.” It acknowledges, “That job could be much more difficult after the two major party leaders vowed not to allow any legislation on abortion, including Private Members bills, to be debated and voted on in Parliament.”
CLC President Jim Hughes said that both Prime Minister Harper’s statements on abortion and the Liberal party’s election letter on the issue “demonstrated once again that pro-life advocates must vote for the pro-life candidates in their own ridings regardless of the party they represent.”
The newsletter continues, “Harper’s comments should prove that contrary to many people’s heart-felt but erroneous hope that the Conservative leader would protect the unborn once he won a majority, Stephen Harper is definitely not pro-life. We want to remind you to continue visiting your MPs and let them know that life issues are important and must not be swept under the carpet – for the good of the nation.”
CLC concludes by encouraging pro-life Canadians to become actively involved in the political process. However, it also strongly warns, “make a constant effort to keep your loyalty to God and to His principles above all affiliations with parties or party people.” CLC urges pro-life Canadians to not “be co-opted by partisan political influences” and forget the reason that they entered politics in the first place as has often happened to others.
** See the complete election analysis and the rest of the November CLC National News**
https://www.campaignlifecoalition.com/national_news/2008/news_1108.pdf (This is a large pdf file that may take a while to load)