Current leadership races in all parties seem to be flagging. There is a dearth of capable candidates, whether for the Ontario Conservatives, the federal NDP or the federal Liberals. The only thing they seem to have in common is being pro-abortion though it is good to see three pro-life candidates in the Liberal leadership race with Tom Wappel, MP for Scarborough Centre, the most outspoken of them.
Unsuitable
For a politician to be pro-abortion means that intellectually he is a mediocrity and morally a failure, two qualities which become dangerous when he or she ascends to power. That is why the pro-life movement has argued consistently that politicians who are pro-abortion disqualify themselves from office. They are unfit to lead and guide the country.
Pro-abortion politicians don’t understand that people come before things. They have come to look upon people as a menace. They speak of unwanted people, undesirable people, too many people, people as polluters, people as enemies of the earth, people causing poverty. Thus, over the years they gradually become convinced that abortion is actually a good thing: it cuts down the population.
Once politicians adopt this view they are no longer suitable for office. They lack the vision to govern a country because, in reality, not only are people a country’s greatest asset, but their combined welfare is the sole purpose for government in the first place.
So far, the two most prominent prospective candidates for the Liberal leadership are Catholics and pro-abortion
Jean Chretien
Jean Chretien, former Quebec MP and Cabinet Minister under Trudeau, is the supposed front runner. After John Turner, he is the best-known Liberal in the country.
As a member of the old guard, Chretien is molded in the Trudeau philosophy. This includes abortion, which is erroneously justified by the principle of the lesser of two evils: abortions in clean hospitals are preferable to back-street ones. It is justified erroneously, because this principle only applies when the person has no choice. Now this is never the case with abortion, whether for a pregnant woman contemplating having an abortion, or a legislator confronted with legalizing it. Both have the freedom not to proceed and that’s precisely the route they must follow, because no one may choose evil freely.
Aside from this false philosophy, Chretien has two specific strikes against him. As Minister of Justice and chief pilot for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1981, he successfully stymied pro-life pressure to include protection for the unborn in the Charter.
And as a wandering politician, he laughs off any enquiries about abortion, chuckling, that after all, his name is Christian, his initials are J.C., his mother’s name is Mary and he is one of seventeen children. It’s all a ploy to placate and deceive pro-lifers who assume that because Chretien is from Quebec and a Catholic, he must be pro-life. Chretien should be, but he isn’t.
Paul Martin
Party strategists have decided that Paul Martin, formerly of Windsor, today of Montreal, should be designated the “runner-up” to Chretien. The media immediately agreed and have played along.
Elected in November 1988 as MP for LaSalle-Emard (Montreal), Martin’s candidacy is pushed by those Liberals in the party hierarchy who have not committed themselves already to Chretien.
With Martin in the race the party presents the image of a true democracy. At the same time he is an insurance policy in case something goes wrong with Chretien, who is identified with Trudeau, centralist federalism, and Quebec, each of which has its enemies.
But one plausible theory has it that Martin is merely a stalking horse for Chretien. When push comes to shove at the June 1990 Calgary Convention, Martin will move his supporters to Chretien to ensure party unity for all, a political reward for himself and firm control of the party for the established powers.
Confident of party backing, both Chretien and Martin went on record supporting the spending limit of $1.7 million per candidate. This limit is obscene but very effective: it will give them the upper hand without further ado and leave party officials without fear that their behind-the-scene manipulations will be uncovered.
One of the chief manipulators is said to be Peter Desmarais of Montreal’s Power Corporation and assorted media conglomerates. His son married Chretien’s daughter. Desmarais also had a hand in the Mulroney drive for power in 1984.
Campagnolo
In late October of 1989, former party President Iona Campagnolo announced that while she still had “nostalgia and affection” for Jean Chretien, Paul Martin is the “man of the future” and that she will run his campaign, together with MP Jean Lapierre of Shefford, Quebec. Actually Campagnolo had started work at Martin’s campaign headquarters in Ottawa already at the beginning of October at a rumoured salary of $80,000.
Both Campagnolo and Lapierre are committed pro-abortionists. In the past Campagnolo has clashed frequently with pro-life people because of her outspoken support of Morgentaler and the feminist demand for “reproductive choice.”
In July 1988 Lapierre, a Catholic by baptism, voted first for the Mary Collins abortion on demand proposal and then against the pro-life resolution. In August 1989 he re-stated his pro-abortion commitment.
Martin himself is a practicing Catholic who doesn’t like abortion, but who follows the same philosophy as Jean Chretien. Nothing will stop a woman from obtaining an abortion if she’s determined to have one, he has stated. So the politician’s task is to ensure “safe” abortions in clean hospitals or clinics.
Halifax
Visiting Halifax in July 1989, during the Dodd-Daigle uproar, Martin declared that Parliament be reconvened immediately to pass a law allowing all women access to hospital abortions. (Halifax Mail Star, July 20) H readily admitted to being a Catholic. He explained to the Halifax paper, “I think that in what is a pluralistic society, I would not legislate my own morality on what is a divided public.
Has anyone ever heard a politician say this on any other subject? Did politicians invoke it when the legislated an end to capital punishment or introduced free trade or new tax legislation?
It just goes to show that there is no difference between Mulroney of the PC’s and the Martin-Chretien team of the Liberals.
Pro-life members
What is of interest is that unlike in 1969, the 1989 Liberal MPs are much more aware of the ideological bearing of the abortion syndrome. There now is a large group of pro-life Liberal Members of Parliament, Catholics and other Christians, who are determined not to surrender a second time (as in 1969).
The old guard remains pro-abortion, people like House Leader Herb Gray (Jewish, Windsor West), Lloyd Axworthy (United Church, Winnipeg South Centre), Liberal justice critic Robert Kaplan (Jewish, York Centre) and, of course, Chretien, who is not a sitting MP at the moment. Martin has now joined this group.
But since November 1988 there are 30 Liberal MPs who do not share this pro-abortion syndrome. One may hope they will exercise their influence.
