By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on June 19, 2023.

OTTAWA—A Conservative private member’s attempt to revive the abortion debate by conferring unique legal status on pregnant women was clobbered in the House last week.

The governing Liberals united with New Democrats and the Bloc Québécois to defeat Bill C-311 by almost a two-to-one margin.

Opponents of the bill introduced by Saskatchewan Conservative MP Cathay Wagantall numbered 205. Supporters mustered only 113 votes.

Under most circumstances, that should be the end of the story. But with the Conservatives leading in national public opinion polls, and their strong support for the bill, it will only be a matter of time before the question of the legal status of fetuses ends up being litigated when a future Wagantall bill is passed.

Witness the debate concerning the Violence Against Pregnant Women Act in Parliament to understand why this legislation could represent a threat to legal abortions in the country.

The United States is already experiencing a wave of anti-women and anti-gay legislation as a result of a Supreme Court ruling that put legal abortions at risk in parts of their country.

Canadian pundits said this could not happen here, but another item in the news last week paints a different picture.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith named her cabinet, including a health minister with a strong bias against legal abortions. Adriana LaGrange served as education minister in the United Conservative Party government of former premier Jason Kenney. In that role, she presided over one of the largest public sector cuts in Alberta history, firing 20,000 educational assistants, substitute teachers, bus drivers and maintenance staff.

With LaGrange at the helm and Smith’s well-documented ruminations on private medicine, it likely won’t be too long before the new government moves to start charging for more health services.

Even more concerning is the minister’s opposition to legal abortion in the province. Her maiden speech in the Alberta legislature four years ago was entitled, “The lord leads me where he needs me.”

While she was a school trustee, LaGrange served on the provincial board of Alberta Pro-Life. In her first provincial election, she was backed by RightNow, an activist anti-abortion organization.

As education minister, LaGrange introduced a controversial piece of legislation requiring parental notification when any student joined a gay-straight alliance club. The original protection from parental notification was designed to protect those students who could face danger if their parents became aware of their sexual orientation. Students were also denied the right to use the word ‘gay’ or ‘queer’ in describing after-school clubs, and administrators were permitted to keep their inclusivity policies secret.

If LaGrange was controversial in education, there is no reason to think she won’t repeat that history in health. Those who think that access to abortion is safe across the country need to face facts.

Wagantall in Saskatchewan and LaGrange in Alberta are only the tip of the iceberg. When the bill on pregnant women was introduced, the Conservative party was pretty much unanimous in support, starting with the leader.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has said that he will not introduce legislation on abortion, but he has also stated that other members of his caucus are free to do so.

He is the only leader ambivalent about his support for the LGBTQ2S+ communities, refusing to attend Pride parades or showing visible support for those struggling with a wave of homophobia across the country.

With a raucous parliamentary session coming to close, Poilievre’s popularity continues to outstrip that of the governing Liberals.

Abacus Data released a poll last week in which 35 per cent of the respondents said they would vote Tory if an election were held today. That number had increased three percentage points since the previous month, while the Liberals were down two points at 28 per cent.

The appetite for electoral change is there and the Conservatives are the beneficiaries. Approximately 80 per cent of those polled said it is time for a change in government.

Polls move, and most would agree that both Poilievre and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are stellar campaigners. The fight may come right down to the wire in a tight election in 2025 (or whenever it happens).

If there is a Conservative majority win, do not be surprised if limitations on women’s reproductive rights and rights for those in the gay community resurface.

Premier Smith did not hide her intention to move toward health privatization.

Her party has many abortion opponents sitting in the legislature. A key one is now occupying the health minister’s chair.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on May 15, 2023.

OTTAWA—Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre claims he is in support of LGBTQ issues and a woman’s right to reproductive choice.

But his parliamentary record tells a different story.

As a young MP, Poilievre’s first intervention in the House was a speech to explain why he believed that people seeking medical help for gender reassignment should not receive any public funding.

His proposed ban involved provincial health-care systems but apparently, he felt it was such an important issue that it dominated his maiden speech in the House of Commons.

The Conservative leader has the same credibility issues regarding reproductive choice.

Last week, the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada arrived on Parliament Hill to promote the view that abortions and medically assisted dying should be banned in Canada.

To coincide with their annual march in May, the Conservative MP from Yorkton-Melville, Sask., introduced the Violence Against Pregnant Women private member’s bill, ostensibly dealing with the “legal void around abortion in Canada.”

Cathay Wagantall introduced a previous bill on sex-selective abortion that was defeated two years ago. Her party claims the current bill has nothing to do with abortion, but Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada disagrees. Coalition executive director Joyce Arthur said some groups who oppose abortion view the bill as a positive step because they feel it would legally recognize “pre-born children” in the case of violent crimes, which is not the case now.

Wagantall also links her bill to an anti-choice website, which states that “pre-born children should be considered victims.”

Last month in Parliament, Wagantall stated “Canada has no abortion law and it is still a huge discussion in our country.”

Montreal Liberal MP Rachel Bendayan refuted Wagantall’s claim during a passionate speech in defence of abortion rights.

“Where is this still a huge discussion in our country. … It’s only the Conservatives that want to discuss abortion law in our country because there is certainly no doubt that it is the Conservatives reopening this debate.”

Jurists believe that this is a bill that could be interpreted to give legal status to the fetus. How else to explain why a sentence should be tougher for the murder of a pregnant woman than a defenseless child or an eighty-year-old wheelchair-bound victim?

Bill opponents see the legislation as a backdoor legal argument for giving legal status to a fetus.

And Wagantall’s communications strategy reinforces that thinking.

While publicly, Conservative caucus members were claiming this issue had nothing to do with abortion, the member’s web links told a different story.

It was certainly no accident that the bill was up for debate during the same week that opponents of abortion gather in Ottawa for their annual protest.

The Conservative leadership had to agree on the timing of the private member’s debate.

If the legal status of fetuses is reinforced by legislation that differentiates between pregnant women and all other crime victims, the door will be open to a judicial decision to limit access to abortion based on the rights of the fetus.

In the United States, Donald Trump does not hide the fact that his appointments to their Supreme Court paved the way to a recent ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, the judicial decision that legalized their abortions.

Just last week, in his bid for re-election, Trump took credit for the court’s anti-abortion ruling and garnered huge applause from the majority Republican audience in a televised townhall on CNN.

Canadian observers claim no one is about to reverse Canada’s position on reproductive choice, but a court decision on fetal rights could have the same effect as the reversal being witnessed in the United States.

Poilievre says he supports legal abortions, but courted those Conservatives who opposed reproductive rights in his bid for the Tory leadership.

Wagantall says Poilievre also plans to vote in favour of the legislation, sending a signal that a fetus will have legal standing in a Conservative government.

Poilievre is treading carefully on the question because he doesn’t want to lose the support of the majority of Canadian women who support reproductive choice. He is already having more difficulty in bringing women onside and support for this bill would exacerbate his problems.

The Republicans are facing the same dilemma as traditional female supporters deserted them in the last mid-terms because of the abortion issue.

Last week’s woman-led debate in the House was very heated.

But it is nothing compared to the heat faced by any Conservative who thinks they can deny women’s right to choose.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

The only party that must navigate this issue with great difficulty is the Conservative Party.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on May 9, 2022.

OTTAWA—The f-bomb was allegedly dropped in the House of Commons on May 4 by a frustrated prime minister.

It was not picked up by any microphone and even though Conservatives vociferously demanded an apology, even they were at odds over what exactly was said.

Upon exiting the House, Justin Trudeau himself mimicked his own father’s explanation when Trudeau senior was accused of using the same language in 1971.

Members of the official opposition jumped on the transgression, but their voices were muted when a clip of leadership front-runner Pierre Poilievre emerged on social media, saying, “Fuck you guys” at a legislative committee.

An f-bomb may have been fatal a half-century ago, but today it barely makes a ripple in news coverage.

In the same way as language has been liberated, so too have social attitudes.

The notion that a non-binary leader could be the head of a Canadian political party was unheard of 50 years ago.

In fact, no one really even knew what non-binary meant.

Today, the interim leader of the Green Party is non-binary and it is common to state his/her/their declaratory gender preference.

Fifty years ago, the notion of legalizing abortion was hugely controversial. Even the most liberal of politicians had to tread carefully when the issue was up for debate.

Today, it is accepted that the majority of Canadians are in support of a woman’s right to choose.

Even in the Conservative leadership, only one candidate is openly promoting an end to abortion in Canada, even though two other candidates with similar views have been been kept off the leadership list.

The same cannot be said for Conservative party members, many of whom have public views opposing abortion and have promised to vote against the procedure in any private member’s bill brought forward in a parliamentary session.

In the last election, observers attacked the Liberals for raising the spectre of a renewed abortion debate based on the number of Tories who had promised to do so.

But now that the United States Supreme Court is preparing to rescind the law legalizing abortions in that country, the issue will move to the forefront in Canada too.

The only party that must navigate this issue with great difficulty is the Conservative Party.

The prime minister has already said that the government is looking at a regulatory amendment to the Canada Health Act to guarantee a woman’s universal right to reproductive choice. No time limit has been put on the move but one thing is certain.

The amendment will force the Conservative Party to take a solid position on the issue once and for all.

The longer it takes to bring in any changes, the better it is for the Liberals. The government would love nothing better than to have that wedge issue to present to Canadians in the next election.

Six months ago, the issue was not even on the general public agenda.

But with the bombshell leak on Roe v. Wade last week, there is no doubt that a woman’s right to choose will be an ongoing political issue south of the border. And what dominates in the United States will undoubtedly have a spillover effect in Canada.

According to the Pew Research Center in Washington, 59 per cent of Americans support abortion access. That number jumps to more than 70 per cent in Canada.

A decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, expected in June, would immediately impact access in all states across the country, including those that currently offer the right of abortion to all.

The result of a legal reversal to reproductive access by the United States will embolden the minority of Canadians who have been actively opposing abortions for years.

It will also mean that more money, and more volunteers will be crossing the border with the same fervour enjoyed by the cross-border movement of ‘freedom fighters’ who joined the Ottawa truckers’ occupation.

There is no law in Canada on the issue of reproductive choice, but there are standards of care that have been developed by the medical profession.

However, there is an uneven application of these standards, with some provinces offer little or no access while most other provinces make abortions readily available.

The Liberals promised in the last election to introduce regulations forcing less-compliant provinces to open up their abortion access requirements.

In 2020 and 2021, New Brunswick suffered federally-imposed financial penalties totalling almost $300,000 for refusing to offer access.

Expect last week’s abortion bombshell, not the f-one, to dominate the fall agenda.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

A close race could help push left-leaning voters toward the favoured Liberals, especially if the NDP doesn’t get its act together.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on August 23, 2021.

Many punches were thrown in the first week of the campaign. Few landed.

From vaccines to abortions, the two main leaders sparred on the wedge issues that could shape the campaign. But the one issue that could be decisive got no attention whatsoever.

Conservative leader Erin O’Toole unveiled his party’s slick promotional magazine touting various aspects of the platform. Most commentary focused on his buff body and how great he looked in a black t-shirt. The magazine was obviously intended to appeal to the millennial crowd, a voter cohort that has traditionally shied away from the Conservatives. But he will have a tough time beating the TikTok king Jagmeet Singh, who was recognized on the streets of Vancouver not as a political leader but as “that TikTok guy”. Liberals are perusing the Tory document for ammunition they might use to widen the wedge between themselves and their main opponent.

Outgoing Status of Women Minister Maryam Monsef was quick to point out a line in the platform promising to enshrine “conscience rights” for medical professionals in legislation. In and of itself, this might not be problematic, but O’Toole stated in July that he would not intervene if provinces defunded abortions in their health care planning.

“How provinces run their health care system is not what the federal government should be interfering with,” he told reporters during a whistle-stop in Fredericton, where the provincial government refuses to fund abortions performed outside the hospital setting.

The controversy swirls around a clinic that offers reproductive and general services to the LGTBQ community called Clinic 554. The federal Liberals have been withholding health transfers to the province because of their refusal to fund it, and the fact that there are no hospitals providing abortions in Fredericton.

O’Toole went to great lengths last week to convince Quebecers that he was pro-choice. But the fact that the majority of his caucus voted in the last Parliament to limit abortions does cast doubt on his affirmations.

Voteprolife has shut down public access to its website, which tracks abortion views of all candidates in the upcoming election. However, there is no doubt that over the course of the campaign, the views of all candidates will become public, and O’Toole’s solemn personal views will likely clash with his caucus majority.

In the last election, abortion became enough of a wedge to move some doubtful women voters over to the Liberals. I don’t think that is the issue to do so this time. Instead, the positions of the two main parties on childcare will cost the Tories dearly in terms of their capacity to attract support from the swathe of Greater Toronto Area so-called soccer moms so crucial to victory.

The value proposition for parents is clear: do you want money, or do you want safe childcare?

But parents with young children know that money is only part of the problem. The other issue is access to excellent licensed childcare spots. And a $10 dollar a day government-approved childcare establishment gives parents a lot more reassurance than a year-end refundable tax credit.

O’Toole won’t be able to attack the Liberal plan as profligate, since his approach costs approximately the same amount of money. In addition, he will have to tear up agreements with multiple Conservative provinces that have already signed onto the plan. But the biggest blunder is what could happen to his electoral chances in Quebec. La belle province has been living with subsidized childcare since it was introduced for $5 dollars a day by the Parti Quebecois government in 1997. With almost a quarter-century of experience, Quebecers are not about to give up a social program that they believe contributes to positive family and community life. And the government of Quebec has already signed an agreement to top up provincial spending with a lucrative cash transfer from the federal government. The childcare program is supported by the Bloc Quebecois as well, and they will be pounding hard at the Tories on this issue.

With several provincial governments already lining up to introduce more licensed childcare spaces to complement the federal plan, O’Toole’s promise to tear up those deals is not going to win him any support.

Instead, it will turn women off, the very voters he needs if he is to form the government.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

If Erin O’Toole really wants to appeal to non-traditional Conservatives, he will have to cut ties with social conservatives and the far right.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on August 31, 2020.

OTTAWA—It would be a mistake to underestimate the electability of Erin O’Toole.

He has many things going for him, the first of which is that he is a relative unknown. These days, the shelf-life of a politician is generally one election. It used to be that if you were doing a decent job, voters might keep you around for a second term.

The longevity of a local politician is still in the double digits. Just ask Ottawa mayor Jim Watson how many ministers on the federal and provincial level that he has outlived. But party politics is one place where the more experience you get, the more people want to get rid of you.

Just look at how many people rabidly despised Hillary Clinton, even though she had more experience than any other candidate at the national and international level. She wore her husband’s warts, and then some.

Clinton was also suffering from the same swathe of sexism that came to the fore when Chrystia Freeland was recently named finance minister. Multiple journalists attacked Freeland’s lack of financial credentials. These same journalists never questioned the bona fides of lawyers cum finance ministers, like Jim Flaherty and Ralph Goodale. Freeland, like ministerial colleague Catherine McKenna, was dished up a particularly vitriolic dose of misogyny.

O’Toole has a chance to shape his brand, and in his early morning victory speech last week, he hit all the right buttons. He spoke at length about how to broaden the party base and invite those who have never voted Conservative to join him. He outlined his support of the LGBTQ community and his opposition to reopening the abortion question.

But O’Toole will also have to stickhandle the demands within his own party, as the radical right gained strength and visibility during the Conservative leadership race.

Tory pundits were lauding the fact that a Black woman surpassed Peter MacKay’s support in all western provinces. They claimed that the support for Leslyn Lewis was testament to Tories’ openness to diversity.

Hogwash. Lewis was a stalking horse for the anti-choice movement, which continues to grow deep and strong roots in the Conservative party.

The fact that a candidate for leadership, who could not speak French, would get 20 per cent of the party’s vote on a first ballot is truly frightening. When you couple her party support with that of Derek Sloan, the pair of proudly evangelical politicians garnered 40 per cent of the Conservative Party’s 174,404 voters. That is scary.

Lewis is now being touted as a new leading light in her party. That blows up O’Toole’s shout-out to inclusivity on election night. Her leadership transcendence was driven by those who would like to turn back the clock on issues like abortion.

Sloan had a 12-point plan on the issue. His first commitment was to promise to work with party grassroots to revoke Conservative Party policy No. 70. That policy, slimly endorsed at their 2018 Halifax policy convention, states that “a Conservative government will not support any legislation to regulate abortion.”

Lewis was ranked No. 1 on the voter’s list recommended by the anti-choice group RightNow. Sloan was ranked second. O’Toole was ranked third, and MacKay came dead last.

RightNow describes itself as the political arm of the pro-life movement and promotes a mandate to work full-time to secure nominations and elections for candidates who oppose abortion. No surprise that Lewis was their chosen candidate.

Like Sloan, she does not support abortion and is opposed to a government ban on conversion therapy, a controversial practice to modify the sexual orientation of gays and lesbians.

MacKay, who ran behind Lewis in all western provinces on the first ballot, was directly attacked by her for claiming that social conservatism was like a “stinking albatross” around the neck of party in the last election.

At some point during the race, one-third of Tory voters cast a ballot for Lewis.

Lewis, who has four degrees including a master’s in environmental science, opposes the carbon tax. She also received support during the race from the gun lobby. She and Sloan both oppose Canada’s current immigration policy and Lewis promised to roll back legalization of marijuana.

If O’Toole elevates her to a senior party position, he will be playing right into the hands of RightNow, whose stated intention is to re-criminalize abortion.

During his victory speech, O’Toole promised to reach out to a broad coalition of Canadians. To do so, he needs to visibly cut ties with his own party’s radical right.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

It is tough to keep anti-choice candidates motivated if the leader refuses to guarantee their right to introduce anti-abortion private members’ bills.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill TImes on October 7, 2019.

OTTAWA—Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer continues to promise he will not revisit Canadian abortion laws. He says he will follow the example of predecessor Stephen Harper.

Some example.

When Harper was prime minister, he would only fund International Planned Parenthood in countries that criminalized abortions except in cases where the mother’s life was at risk.

And with last week’s Conservative announcement of a 25 per cent cut in foreign aid, it would be easy to end all reproductive choice funding in poorer areas of the world under the guise of belt-tightening.

The poorest countries around the globe are precisely the places where the greatest number of women die from the complications of childbirth every single day.

According to the World Health Organization’s 2017 statistics, 810 women around the world died daily from preventable causes related to childbirth. Girls aged 10 to 14 are especially vulnerable, facing the greatest risk of complications and death. Ninety-four per cent of all maternal deaths occurred in lower income countries.

When Harper secured a majority government in 2010, anti-choice Members of Parliament lobbied to stop all funding to International Planned Parenthood. The decision laid waste in the Prime Minister’s Office for almost two years. Harper eventually approved funding only in countries where abortion was illegal.

That funding, managed by international cooperation minister Bev Oda, ultimately rewarded countries that would not allow women to control their own reproduction.

So the claim that Harper did make changes to Canada’s legal framework for abortion is certainly not true on the global scene.

In this election, a new organization called RightNow is working with Conservative candidates with the express purpose of electing enough parliamentarians to win a private members’ vote.

Scheer is beholden to RightNow because he won the Tory leadership on a cliffhanger vote against Maxime Bernier, by pledging to allow private members to pursue a vote in the house.

During the hard-fought campaign, Scheer told RightNow “I’ve always voted in favour of pro-life legislation … I can assure you that I support the right of individual MPs to speak out and bring, introduce matters that are important to them.”

That same organization has a long-term plan to elect 170 Members of Parliament across the country, securing majority control for a specific vote on abortion.

In this election, it’s focusing on 50 ridings primarily around Toronto and Vancouver. The group is not saying which ridings are on their priority list but some candidates’ views are so extreme that the Conservative Party appears to have banished them from public appearances. Heather Leung was still running as Conservative candidate in Burnaby North-Seymour, against Liberal Terry Beech who won narrowly in 2015 and NDP candidate Svend Robinson, who was the first openly gay MP. The Conservative Party dropped her as a candidate on Friday.

Leung, who plans to still run without the Conservative Party banner, opposes same-sex marriage and appears to promote conversion therapy to help people escape what she calls their “perverted homosexual lifestyle” in an undated video referred to in a recent Vancouver Sun column.

Leung opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest and rejects medically assisted dying.

Once Leung’s views were published in British Columbia’s mainstream media, she went underground, deleting her Facebook page and refusing interviews. The Conservative Party also declined to set up any interviews with her.

Other anti-choice Conservative voices are on the record. Nicholas Insley, Coquitlam-Port Coquitlam Conservative candidate and former communications adviser to Michelle Rempel, told The B.C. Catholic newspaper that the strategy was a numbers game. “If you get enough people to vote, if enough people come out to support you. … You either win or you lose. There is no prize for second place. Whoever wins, gets to make the bills.”

Early in the campaign, Scheer featured York Centre candidate Rachel Willson, who was filmed at a 2017 anti-abortion rally on Parliament Hill, promising that her top priority was “ending abortion.”

When Carolyn Bennett posted her video during this campaign, Willson claimed to have changed her mind.

Scheer’s refusal to speak frankly about his personal abortion views during the TVA debate is likely a reflection of his own ambivalence.

It is tough to keep anti-choice candidates motivated if the leader refuses to guarantee their right to introduce anti-abortion private members’ bills.

Scheer left Quebecers with the distinct impression that he was evasive and non-committal on the question.

The following day, the leader quickly tried to undo the damage by clearly stating his position.

For Quebecers, it may be too little too late.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer says he supports equality for women, paying homage to his own mother who sponsored a refugee group during an immigration announcement last week. But his actions, and those of his party, tell a different story.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on June 3, 2019.

OTTAWA—The usual suspects are lining up telling Canadian women to shut up about the abortion question.

Anti-feminist Margaret Wente penned a column last week accusing Liberals of creating a false issue.

Talk show hosts joined with Global Television’s Ottawa bureau chief David Akin to downplay any concern on abortion access in this country.

“Alarming rhetoric aside, there is no serious threat to abortion rights in Canada,” said Calgary talk show host Rob Breakenridge on a Global newsfeed.

Similar pundits went crazy when newly-elected prime minister Justin Trudeau set a precedent by making gender equality a crucial element of cabinet making.

The national press gallery pounced on Trudeau when he left Rideau Hall, demanding to know why he would ever introduce a notion like gender parity in cabinet appointments.

“Because it’s 2015,” was an answer that left them speechless. That same answer prompted millions of women around the country to celebrate the fact that Canada would finally have equal numbers of women and men in cabinet.

Just last week South African President Cyril Ramphosa announced a parity cabinet, joining Rwanda and Ethiopia in the rarefied club of African equals.

If he wins the election, the Canadian leader of the opposition won’t be joining that club.

Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer says he supports equality for women, paying homage to his own mother who sponsored a refugee group during an immigration announcement last week.

But his actions, and those of his party, tell a different story.

Instead of committing to cabinet parity, Scheer leads the only political party in Canada that still refuses to set targets for recruitment of women candidates.

Equal Voice, a non-partisan organization designed to promote the election of more women, polled every party in the last election and all responded with specific goals, except the Conservatives.

Scheer also slapped women in the face when he named a vocal anti-choice advocate as his Status of Women shadow minister, or party critic.

Before the appointment, Member of Parliament Rachael Harder, an anti-abortionist, was reported by iPolitics to have approved $12,000 in federal funding grants to two pregnancy care centres that refuse to refer clients to abortion centres.

Defending his decision, Scheer said, “Harder is a very, very strong, hard working, dynamic young MP and a woman who was democratically elected by her constituents and who shares my positive vision for a government.”

Just what that vision is remains murky.

The following communiqué was sent in 2017 to members of RightNow, an anti-abortion group. The message summarized a meeting held with leadership hopeful Scheer.

“Andrew Scheer has said that the government will not introduce legislation on abortion. When leadership candidates (or even elected leaders) of political parties say that, it means the cabinet. Let’s say the Conservatives win 180 seats in the next federal election and of the 180 MPs, 30 of them are in cabinet. That means 150 other Conservative MPs would be allowed to introduce a private member’s bill on this. He also never said that he would whip his cabinet not to vote for pro-life motions or bills nor did he say he himself would not vote for them either.”

Scheer won the leadership by a vote of less than two per cent. His main opponent was pro-choice. To curry anti-abortion support, he bragged that he had always supported “pro-life” legislation.

In a corollary move last week, Scheer also promised to reopen the Office of Religious Freedoms in Canada, opened by Stephen Harper in 2013.

There is only one other country in the world that has such an office, the United States of America, a country that has been aggressively legislating to reduce access to safe abortions.

In a shocking report from Harvard Medical School, American women today are 50 per cent more likely to die in childbirth than their mothers.

Researchers report that the risk is also consistently three to four times higher for black women than white women, irrespective of income or education.

The death rate per 100,000 women has jumped from 17 to 26 in the past quarter century. Maternal mortality is still lower than in most of the world.

In developing countries, the ratio in 2015 was 239 deaths per 100,000 live births. The World Health Organization cites unsafe abortions as a key contributor.

Former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper blocked aid to international organizations that offered reproductive choices.

Why should Canadians shut up when women around the world die because they cannot access safe abortions?

Scheer tipped his hand in his anti-choice appointment to Status of Women chair. He would reverse women’s gains, on many fronts.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.