So in the past few weeks Andrew Scheer and Elizabeth May have been making statements on abortion or at least in the case of Mr. Scheer, was blindsided by the issue and was forced to make a statement that satisfied no one.
The issues of abortion and Same Sex Marriage (SSM) have been settled in Canada. The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that both are constitutional rights that cannot be taken away by a government. The majority of Canadians have indicated time and again that they do not want to have any further debates on these issues. Only a very small but vocal minority thinks otherwise.
The one constant in democratic politics is once a politician wins an election he wants to win the next one and the next one after that. Such a goal would be highly endangered by opening up the abortion and/or the SSM can of worms again.
Regardless of how circumspect a politician might be in reopening these debates they will take on a life of their own and quickly roar out of control. Woe to the politician that triggers that.
As for actually banning either one that is not likely because such a ban would require an amendment to the Criminal Code, which would not survive a court challenge. Even nibbling around the edges would be fraught with risk because the current SCC is rather liberal in its interpretations of our Chart rights.
So a government would find itself in the fight of its life during the debate on the Bill banning them and then it would be embarrassed by losing landmark court cases and then it would be in another fight if they decided to use the Notwithstanding Clause to overrule the courts. After it is all said and done the party that put the country through that would lose the next election and probably not win another again, ever.
You see these two issues are just the issues that would energize the under 30 set to actually participate in our democracy.
So if the Conservatives actually tried to ban abortion and/or SSM they would be committing political suicide. Currently, the only reason why they are competitive is the largest block of voters who actually bother to vote are the Boomers and the Gen Xers and they are pretty much split down the middle with regard to supporting the Conservatives and the Liberals. The generations that come after them have generally walked away from politics (mores the pity). However, research has demonstrated that they tend to be much more progressive than the older generations and they are also more numerous than them. They are a sleeping giant and I am certain there are many in the Conservative movement in this country who would like to keep it that way. Even so, in about three elections the number of Boomers and Gen Xers will dwindle to the point that even the smaller number of the younger generations who bother to vote will eclipse them. At that point, if the Conservatives have not changed from their current incarnation, they will be a spent force in Canadian politics.
I am certain that there are many Conservatives smart enough to see this coming and would like to have the time to adjust to the changing demographic picture. The last thing they need is to rock the boat and bring the younger generations into the picture before they can make that adjustment. And worse yet, cementing in their minds that the Conservative Party does not share their values. That is a recipe for wandering the political wilderness for a very long time.
Mr. Harper knew this which is why he made a half-assed attempt to ban SSM, in his first minority government, and then told the social conservatives that put him at the head of the Conservative Party that "he tried" before dropping the issue for the remainder of his time in government.
I am going to assume that Mr. Scheer knows this as well. However, watching him for the past couple of years I know that he is not nearly as politically astute as Mr. Harper was and it could be that he owes his victory in the Conservative Party leadership race of a few years ago more to the social conservatives than Stephen Harper ever did. Hence the total botching of his response when these two issues reared their ugly heads three or four weeks ago.
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Thing is, he doesn't have to outright ban it. He can do the slow and stealthy drip-drip of privatization and defunding, thus restricting access to all but those with enough pocket change. Because it's not really about some perceived moral high ground of "saving the unborn." It's about controlling women, and in particular, poor women. Lulabelle the megachurch pastor's daughter who "gets in trouble" just "goes away to day camp" and has her abortion quietly swept under the rug.
Then there's the whole religio-libertarian issue of "conscience exemptions," which would enable doctors and privately/religious-owned medical establishments to say we don't offer these services here. Prosperity gospel types love them some of that old-time Ayn Rand religion. Odd considering she was a self-worshiping atheist, but there you go.
The "free market" loophole connecting healthcare to religion-driven policy opens up a whole Pandora's box. It's a bad-faith (pun intended) ideological framing about "choice." In the U.S., Trump authorized some sort of "conscience" loophole with the Orwellian language of "medical providers" being allowed to refuse any sort of treatment to anybody if they say the magic words "sincerely held religious beliefs." A "medical provider" can be anyone from a pharmacist refusing to fill birth control prescriptions or even a first responder refusing to provide care to a transgender person in a car accident. Stretch it further and you have the question of Scientologist employers (they do exist, see for instance EarthLink ISP) refusing to provide coverage for psychiatric healthcare.
Thing is, it's always this particular set of white Christianists who want the exemptions for themselves, and always around their two main obsessions: women's bodies and LGBT. They freak out if you point out that their Bible-branded version of the notwithstanding clause might allow, for example, a Muslim or Jewish veterinarian to refuse to save Farmer Bob's prize show pig.
As usual, Scheer's God Squad and their American equivalents don't dwell in the realm of logic. In which case, per the ongoing controversy in Quebec, I can kind of see the point of la laïcité in theory, but only if it's applied fairly rather than the discriminatory way Quebec is going about it now, obsessing over Muslim garb while allowing a giant crucifix to remain in the Provincial Assembly. Any reasonable person can see the othering, racialization and outright self-serving hypocrisy of the bookend extremes, Scheer and Legault. One way or the other they want "choice for me, not for thee."
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