Joseph Goebbels said that if you tell a lie often enough, everyone will believe it. While I won’t accuse the Canadian media and political elites of lying, I think they have repeatedly made a mistaken assumption so often that they honestly believe it.
It is a truism among many political journalists, backroom strategists and senior party officials that holding socially conservative views is a political albatross. But whatever they may believe about abortion and marriage as political issues, the facts tell a different story. At the risk of sounding radical, could I suggest to the professional class of talking heads and strategists that they actually look at the numbers before they comment on how the abortion issue affected the election outcome?
Twice in 2000 – once before the federal campaign and once during it – former prime minister Jean Chretien claimed that Canada had “social peace” on abortion. While bringing up the topic of abortion, he claimed that Canadians were not interested in discussing the issue.
Less than four years later, his successor Paul Martin – fumbling while claiming there was a consensus on abortion that was threatened by the Conservatives wanting to re-open the abortion debate – used the issue as a political wedge. It didn’t work out as planned and his party fell in the polls – even, for a week, consistently trailing the Conservatives in the SES daily tracking polls.
To be clear, when Martin accused the Conservatives of being extreme on abortion for merely suggesting, as one sitting MP (Rob Merrifield) did, that abortion-minded women should undergo counselling, the Liberals fell in the polls.
At the same time, the media dug up a supposedly inflammatory quote by Conservative MP Cheryl Gallant, who had told the March for Life in Ottawa three weeks before the campaign had begun that abortion was similar to the beheading of an American in Iraq. It did not seem that the average Canadian voter was as incensed about this as the average political reporter, and there was not any polling hit in the days after the media reported Gallant’s comparison.
To recap: Team Martin cynically injected abortion into the campaign, the Liberal Party polling numbers went down and the media said the issue hurt Conservatives. The journalistic herd had ideological blinders on or were merely re-writing Liberal party press releases and handing them in as stories. The fact is, when the topic of abortion was on people’s minds, the party that was perceived to be more socially conservative began to show momentum in the polling. The Liberals regained the lead when they returned to the themes of health care and Paul Martin as a competent leader.
It seems odd that if there is a consensus on abortion, the issue could be re-opened so easily or that one party could elect so many pro-lifers to jeopardize abortion “rights.” The National Post editorialized after the campaign was over that Canada is a “socially liberal” nation, so the Conservative party should just accept abortion and gay “marriage.” But local candidates, who are closer to regular Canadians, saw it differently. Campaign Life Coalition had the best return rate on its questionnaire in more than a decade. That means candidates for elected office thought it was important to let voters know where they stood on the issue.
Sure, some were not pro-life, but the vast majority of respondents vouched to stand up for the rights of the unborn. Most of the respondents to the Life Ethics Education Association questionnaire on same-sex “marriage” opposed the redefinition of marriage. If Canadians are so socially liberal, why were so many candidates eager to publicly state their positions on these issues?
And how did these candidates do? Quite well, in fact.
At least 67 pro-life candidates won on June 28, including more than a dozen Liberals. This represents at least a dozen additional pro-life MPs, and does not include pro-life candidates who, for one reason or another, did not return a questionnaire. CLC says that there may be more than 20, and perhaps 30, more pro-life MPs. If Canada is so socially liberal, why are at least 30 per cent of the MPs pro-life?
In only two ridings did a publicly pro-life candidate lose: Liberal John O’Reilly in Ontario and Conservative Andy Burton in British Columbia. Furthermore, the vast majority of incumbent pro-life MPs in both the Conservative and Liberal parties won by larger margins this year than they did in 2000.
In the east Toronto riding of Scarborough Southwest, Liberal MP Tom Wappel, who was supposedly in trouble, beat Conservative Heather Jewell by more than 10,000 votes. Other Toronto area pro-life Liberals, such as Dan McTeague, Albina Guarnieri and Paul Szabo, all garnered more than 50 per cent of the votes in their ridings. In Bruce-Grey, Paul Steckle, who was criticized by some for being co-chair of the Parliamentary Pro-Life Caucus, was being written off even by some Liberal strategists. But he trounced former MPP Barb Fisher.
Paul Zed, a pro-lifer and former Liberal MP, recaptured the Conservative riding of Saint John in New Brunswick, one of only two ridings the Tories won in 1993 when Elsie Wayne held it for the then-nearly eliminated party.
On the Conservative side of the ledger, half of their Ontario MPs are pro-life, including returning Scott Reid and Cheryl Gallant, who are joined by Dean Allison (Niagara West-Glanford), Gord Brown (Leeds-Grenville), Rob Nicholson (Niagara Falls) and Jeff Watson (Essex), among others. If Ontario is so socially liberal, why are so many MPs publicly known to be pro-life?
Significantly, the troika of demonized Conservative candidates who allegedly hurt the Conservative party by having their pro-life, Charter-skeptical comments broadcast widely, all soundly defeated their opponents; in fact, in each case – Merrifield, Gallant and Randy White – the combined vote total of their opponents would not have defeated them.
Merrifield garnered more than 26,000 votes, whereas his nearest competitor managed only 4,400. Gallant received 55 per cent support, while her four rivals combined got 45 per cent. White earned the support of nearly 30,000 voters, but his Liberal opponent garnered less than 10,000 votes.
If the strategists were to do what strategists do and pore over the numbers in detail, they’ll find that holding pro-life views does not hinder one’s chances of electoral success. What hurts is being coy.
If the Conservative party was hurt by the abortion issue, it was because voters received mixed messages about Stephen Harper’s position on it. Voters distrust leaders, parties and candidates who are unwilling to clarify their positions on issues such as abortion, whereas they respect those who are clear, one way or another, on where they stand. This is the lesson of the 2004 election, and not that the abortion issue will lead to inevitable political defeat.
