Molly

I see. Changing long-standing policy is not - according to you two- raising the issue. Changing it in secret is ducky, but asking about those changes is not. You ask the opposition to simply allow the uncomfortable bits of the CPC agenda to remain hidden...

Riiiiiight. He acted quickly to remove her from cabinet until the air should be cleared. The opposition would have harped that more should be done, but would have made no points by doing so. Then, IN ADDITION, he acted quickly to remove her from caucus, which is a fate generally reserved for those whose guilt is beyond refutation, or those who have acted directly to harm the party. And THEN he acted quickly to block her nomination, thus certainly snuffing her political career, even if no substnce is found in any accusation and it all does blow over. ............ So.. does he actually know something that the rest of us don't, or is it personal?

It is true ... and if you have a problem with the priority, take it up with Mr. Harper. He's the one who selected this initiative to champion.

- changed in 1970 on time for the election in '72. Hmph. Folks are acting as though campaign platforms are somehow binding. They aren't, and never have been. In the end, the operating policy of the party is decided by concensus of caucus, so the power folks willingly hand to a bad candidate isn't tempered by their party, but in fact changes that party. (I guess it's one of those lessons that everyone has to learn the hard way.) Those who believe that party affiliation is more signifigant than individual merit would not be prevented from voting on that basis if affiliations were not included on ballots. 'Hiding' affiliation will certainly do no harm. Strange choice of words, though- 'hiding'. As hyperbolic as describing it's reverse as 'spoon-feeding poisoned gruel'. It's a simple disinclusion of excess information. Seriously, if you don't know your chosen candidate's name when you walk into the ballot box, you get bloody little sympathy from me. Play tic-tac-toe to choose if you must, since that's what you are doing anyway.

The accusation of outright hypocrisy over it is a double-edged sword. Perhaps the LPC is using it to suck up votes- that's what political parties do- but we also know for a certainty that the CPC is milking it as hard as they can, as well. The right wingnuts have been clamouring for a sop, and now they have one. The issue itself... well, while we are well aware that you don't give a tinker's damn about it, others do.

"Secondly : Candidates selected by local constituents associations could not be denied an opportunity to run in a campaign by party leader or party insiders" Parties are private clubs that make their own rules. If you don't like the way they choose who to endorse, take it up with that party.

Ha! First question should be, "Does your MP have a concience?"

Popular vote: ----- LPC ---- Combined conservative 1993 ------------ 41.3 ------ 34.7 1997 ------------ 38.5 ------ 38.2 2000 ------------ 40.8 ------ 37.7 The greater problem for the CRAP crowd was that their vote was so very concentrated in fewer ridings, not that it was divided.

Lets not be leaving any sense of luck to this: Chretien's 'fortunate position' in majority was because the voters of Canada chose to give him majorities. Voters were well aware of his warts, but they chose and re-chose his governance, because they approved of what his government did, and intended. Harper doesn't get majorities because the voters of Canada don't like, trust or approve his brand of governance enough to vote for his party in similar numbers. It's un-'fortunate' for him that so many disagree with him, but luck has nothing to do with it.

( Just soak up the feeling of this: " Sure. So when a boy does or doesn't wish for his wife or partner to have an abortion...well, these are important consideraitons, and he should have to go "talk to somebody" about it first." )

How? Because no doctor would perform it as we are luck here to have Doctors with some morals? There is no demand because there is no need, and thus no facilities available and no providers. IMO, that's a good thing. Hoever, you know what makes late-term abortions? Interference with more timely access. Everyone who can get it done earlier, does, nearly all by 12 weeks, and the vast majority of the rest that are done for any reason, within the week or two after that. By 6 months/26 weeks- only the very worst tragedies are left. Mothers or fetuses that might not or probably shouldn't survive a birth. Parents who mourn. If this means nothing to you and something to other people, why not allow regulation against it. Nothing to you but important to others. Whatever would possess you to think this means nothing to me?

True. No one has ever lost an election by underestimating the intelligence of voters.

And if she stays put, even as an independent, until the 28th day of June, she'll have a full 6 years of service in....

Ooooh, Bill! One word: 'detainees'.

From the news story: On Monday, Shory added a link on his MP website headlined, "Conservatives Stand Up for Victims of White-Collar Crime." In announcing tough new mandatory sentences for fraud, the Tories boasted that "our Government is building on our previous action by standing up for victims of white-collar crime. We have listened to Canadians' concerns and our Government is working hard to crack down on fraud." I'm beginning to sense a pattern here.

Really? Wow! I left it alone because I considered it an utter eye-roller. So I should give it a cursory run-through after all, I guess. 1. Switching from 'patronizing' to 'matronizing' doesn't make an intrusion any less intrusive- but it's d***ed patronizing to try. 2. " It's nice that you think that all girls/women at any stage of life can make their own decision on something as important as an abortion." Yeah, it is nice- but nice or not, their decisions remain their business and not yours. It is especially their business to decide if, what and with whom they might want to discuss their decisions with. They don't need a beaurocrat, much less a political moralist, making a list of things they should be lectured about. 3. I'd say a pregnancy is a pretty good qualification for being described as a woman, rather than being infantalized as 'girl'. Whatever their age, they are facing the decisions and consequences of full womanhood. Perhaps they also deserve that respect. 4. Fragile mental state?!! Speaking of patronizing... ! I sincerely hope that you are equally concerned that boys of whatever age should recieve 'counselling' before they are allowed to proceed with a private decision, in case they are in a fragile mental state. We wouldn't want them to hate themselves, now would we? But, btw, providing ready access to couselling doesn't require legislation at all. Enforced lecturing though, can't be done without legislation. If you have to force people, then it's not 'access'. 5." .....or do you believe that if a woman is 6 months pregnant and is having a bad day, that she could arbitrarily decide on the spur of the moment to have an abortion - and that's OK with you? " If it actually comes down to that, then yeah, I do, but what you are describing is a completely mythical situation. Accessing abortion at 6 months gestation is nigh on to impossible without a very extraordinary medical reason for it to be done- and even then it is very difficult. (A woman might even be asked to continue carrying a known-to-be dead fetus without intervention to be free of it.) I see no sensible reason to write legislation to address problems that don't exist... unless the hope is that they might be used to interfere where they were not intended to tread. 6. "And you think she will have no regrets and it won't affect her?" Patronizing. Your major personal decisions might result in long term regrets, too, yet you are considered adult enough to make them. You are assumed to be the one best qualified. Why would a woman be less so? 7. "And you don't think she should talk to somebody first.." What I think is irrelevant to her decision. She certainly shouldn't be forced to talk it over with the 'counsellor' of the states choosing. 8. "because as you say "there's no room for comprimise"? Righto. There isn't. Either women have the first right of possession of their own physical selves, or else they don't. It's black or it's white- completely binary. 9. "Is that what you want to teach to your children? If so, then to you, abortion IS inconsequential." I taught my children to respect themselves, trust themselves, and take responsibility for themselves and for the quality of the community in which they live... and to take no crap from folks who try to diminish them.

Just thought you'd like a small reminder of why folks seem to think you have suggested that abortion is cosmetic.

Pregnancy itself is 'elective', so I suppose we shouldn't cover any sort of pre or post natal care, nor, of course anything reproductive at all, + or -.

. Without thought to her own welfare? Do you have any idea how incredibly patronizing that is? To suggest that adult women need a state-sponsored keeper to 'help' them make decisions in their own interests? Why not just go whole-hog Taliban, and have her nearest male relative make the decisions on her behalf? Yikes! .... It's a human rights/personal physical integrity thing- even a life and death matter.... Either you have first dibs on use of your body/body parts, or someone else has. There's really no room at all for compromise there. None at all.

And to be able to attest to this, you've been pregnant how many times?

At the very least, Ms. Somerville says, having any legislation, even one that does little to actually limit abortion access or popularity, sets a cultural tone about how a nation feels about something. Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2972995#ixzz0myCWa254 Are we a nation of buttinskis? If you get to make my medical/life decisions, then I demand a shot at making some of yours.

It is an okay article , Keepitsimple. Generally I view such things with an extremely jaundiced eye- outright dismissively in fact, because they are generally people at zero risk smugly calling for 'reasonable debate' of the rights of others. This, however, caught my eye: At the very least, Ms. Somerville says, having any legislation, even one that does little to actually limit abortion access or popularity, sets a cultural tone about how a nation feels about something. Currently, she thinks Canada's message is that abortions are an inconsequential matter. She is precisely correct in her first sentence. That's why I'm generally unwilling to allow BS on the subject to go unchallenged. Her second sentence, though, misses the mark. Abortion is not inconsequential, ever. The absence of legislation says that it's very important, but that the consequence to the individual far, far, far outweighs the interest of the state. The message is that not everything can or should be legislated, and in particular that the state has no place in the uteri of the nation.

And since there is clearly no problem, we obviously don't NEED any! (Just like we don't NEED special laws to deal with appendectomies.)

So? Deeply divided, though? I think not. Like Canada, those nations seem to have had the issue essentially settled for decades.

Oh right.... and the G8, and in fact Canada itself, was formed solely to play bobble-head to the UN? Perhaps the fact that other collective international aid initiatives are so crotchbound in politics that they are disallowed from providing help when it's actually needed is what makes it so very important that the nations that like to believe they have actually entered the 21st century grow up and fill the gaps.