You might have seen this story a couple of days ago about Carl Urquhart, a New Brunswick Progressive Conservative MLA (provincial elected representative), who said on Facebook, “Girls we need more babies or we will never be able to support our future.” That is true, though he had to understand the firestorm he would unleash. Still, the reaction has been predictably shrill and over-the-top. Liberal MLA Joan MacAlpine-Stiles called the remark “unspeakably offensive” and added:
“To suggest to New Brunswick’s young women that their only role in society and their only contribution to the New Brunswick economy is to have babies is demeaning and outdated thinking which flies in the face of everything this government and previous governments have done to promote equality for women.”
But Urquhart did not say women’s “only role” was to have babies. He was making the common sense argument that an economy needs workers and consumers to be self-sustaining.
