Just for fun, and because there is nothing as satisfying as saying "I told you so," let's have a look at Danielle Smith in the media. The way she is spinning her problems now is enacting not just one but two of the things I've talked about in this blog before. One, she says "urban elites" are against her. We can assume the addition of "elite" to urban makes it derogatory, because in the right wing world, there can be nothing worse than being elite, reading Harper's in an independent coffee shop while drinking a non-fat chai latte, or having the kind of social and cultural analysis that can be gained through a Liberal Arts education. Here she goes again with the narratives of persecution. I can't help thinking it's not that smart to point out that smart people don't like you much. The second problem she is once again enacting is her tendency to blame the media. As I've said before, bad policy results in negative media attention; it's not a liberal plot. And in this case, bad policy also resulted in a poor election performance. It's not the urban elites or a liberal bias in media that brought down Danielle Smith. In fact, if we were to go back and study the election coverage, there is a case to be made that if there was media bias, it was favourable to Smith. I also had a good laugh when, the day after the election, Smith admitted she and her party might have to take a second look at their policies. Not their fundamental beliefs mind you, just their policies. I'd suggest you all take a few Liberal Arts courses and look at your beliefs too.
Of course, there is one other I told you so to be had, and that is never mess with abortion in Canadian politics. After the Wildrose loss and the decimation of Stephen Woodworth in Federal Parliament over M312, maybe we will finally be able to move on from this divisive strategy. It is never appropriate to threaten the rights of a whole group of people. All of us in Canada should be secure in our rights whether we are women or gay or immigrants or Liberal Arts students. On that, here is my recap of what abortion meant in the Alberta Election in an April 30 guest blog of mine on Abortion Gang. Of course the media is concentrating on the "bozo eruptions" of the homophobic Hunsperger and the Caucasian Ron Leech as well as Smith's own bizarro decision to out herself as a climate change denier when they tell the story of the fall of the Wildrose. But we all know where it started - abortion, conscience rights and the promise to shut down the Alberta Human Rights Commission. It was this trifecta of issues that created the first chink in the Wildrose armour.
I'm hoping we're past playing the politics of division. Perhaps as long as we have a first past the post system the politics of divide and conquer will win out. But a girl can dream.
Showing posts with label alberta election. Show all posts
Showing posts with label alberta election. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
What to Expect While You're Expecting Motion 312
Lots of people have asked me what this “Motion 312” business is about, and I realize I tend to write this blog as though everyone already knows. So here is my Motion 312 Adviser, also known as “What to Expect While You’re Expecting Motion 312.”
In Canada, we may be fortunate to have the word "persons" so strongly associated with women's rights, something that is not shared by our American sisters. The Famous Five famously ensured that women in Canada were considered persons under the law, and that changed everything for us. As persons, we are entitled to everything a man is entitled to, including security of the person. Most women understand we cannot give that away.
I did an interview for a local Calgary paper about Motion 312. You can hear the audio here, if you are interested. Stephanie Grey and Wendy Lowe, also interviewed, are both anti-choicers. Listen if you feel like getting angry. (caution: trigger warning) Bruce Foster is the final interviewee. If the writer of the piece asked Bruce Foster on to balance out the perspective, it might have been nice if Foster had been a little more clear on whether he thought women had rights. Apparently, his role was to give a political perspective. But I do appreciate his point that this will go where most private members' bills go, which is nowhere, and that it will die on the order paper.
The specifics:
Background: The Big Picture - What is Motion 312?
The motion is a question raised by MP StephenWoodworth, a real piece of anti-choice work. In his motion, he asks Parliament to strike a committee to study whether or not the fetus (or in his words, “the child”) is human. His intentions with this motion are clear to all of us; he wants the fetus declared a person so that abortions will be criminalized along with any women having them. For a full discussion of all the arguments against this motion, please look at the wonderful Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC) site here. To put it in a nutshell, there is one argument that moves me the most. When fetuses are persons, women are not. Two persons cannot exist in one body and both have rights. This means that if the fetus is given personhood, the woman who carries it loses personhood. Not to put too fine a point on it, the woman will be considered only in terms of her capacity as incubator. In Canada, we may be fortunate to have the word "persons" so strongly associated with women's rights, something that is not shared by our American sisters. The Famous Five famously ensured that women in Canada were considered persons under the law, and that changed everything for us. As persons, we are entitled to everything a man is entitled to, including security of the person. Most women understand we cannot give that away.
I did an interview for a local Calgary paper about Motion 312. You can hear the audio here, if you are interested. Stephanie Grey and Wendy Lowe, also interviewed, are both anti-choicers. Listen if you feel like getting angry. (caution: trigger warning) Bruce Foster is the final interviewee. If the writer of the piece asked Bruce Foster on to balance out the perspective, it might have been nice if Foster had been a little more clear on whether he thought women had rights. Apparently, his role was to give a political perspective. But I do appreciate his point that this will go where most private members' bills go, which is nowhere, and that it will die on the order paper.
The specifics:
To understand Motion M-312and the discussion that follows, it’s probably a good idea to read it first, so here it is in full.
"That a special committee of the House be appointed and directed to review the declaration in Subsection 223(1) of the Criminal Code of Canada which states that a child becomes a human being only at the moment of complete birth and to answer the questions hereinafter set forth;
"that the membership of the special committee consist of twelve members which shall include seven members from the government party, four members from the Official Opposition and one member from the Liberal Party, provided that the Chair shall be from the government party; that the members to serve on the said committee be appointed by the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs and the membership report of the special committee be presented to the House no later than 20 sitting days after the adoption of this motion;
"that substitutions to the membership of the special committee be allowed, if required, in the manner provided by Standing Order 114(2);
"that the special committee have all the powers of a Standing Committee as provided in the Standing Orders; and
"that the special committee present its final report to the House of Commons within 10 months after the adoption of this motion with answers to the following questions,
" (i) what medical evidence exists to demonstrate that a child is or is not a human being before the moment of complete birth?,
" (ii) is the preponderance of medical evidence consistent with the declaration in Subsection 223(1) that a child is only a human being at the moment of complete birth?,
" (iii) what are the legal impact and consequences of Subsection 223(1) on the fundamental human rights of a child before the moment of complete birth?,
" (iv) what are the options available to Parliament in the exercise of its legislative authority in accordance with the Constitution and decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada to affirm, amend, or replace Subsection 223(1)?
"that the membership of the special committee consist of twelve members which shall include seven members from the government party, four members from the Official Opposition and one member from the Liberal Party, provided that the Chair shall be from the government party; that the members to serve on the said committee be appointed by the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs and the membership report of the special committee be presented to the House no later than 20 sitting days after the adoption of this motion;
"that substitutions to the membership of the special committee be allowed, if required, in the manner provided by Standing Order 114(2);
"that the special committee have all the powers of a Standing Committee as provided in the Standing Orders; and
"that the special committee present its final report to the House of Commons within 10 months after the adoption of this motion with answers to the following questions,
" (i) what medical evidence exists to demonstrate that a child is or is not a human being before the moment of complete birth?,
" (ii) is the preponderance of medical evidence consistent with the declaration in Subsection 223(1) that a child is only a human being at the moment of complete birth?,
" (iii) what are the legal impact and consequences of Subsection 223(1) on the fundamental human rights of a child before the moment of complete birth?,
" (iv) what are the options available to Parliament in the exercise of its legislative authority in accordance with the Constitution and decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada to affirm, amend, or replace Subsection 223(1)?
For the record, Standing Order 114(2) is about substitution of committee members.
What is the Process?
On April 26, the House will have its first hour of debate on this motion. The first speaker will have 20 minutes with 10 minutes for questions and answers. The government gets the most time here, so there won’t be much time for opposing MPs to speak. So far, I understand that Francoise Boivin, Jean Crowder and Ruth-Ellen Brosseau plan to speak against motion. There may not be time for any others. We cannot, as citizens opposed to this motion, think that many opposition party members and pro-choice members will be given time to say their peace on this issue. Debate is severely limited. However, opposition party members can have 60 seconds to say something in the 15 minutes before question period every day. They could get up every day to present paper petitions, could read off names of individuals who signed the online petition, or just mention the online petition and say that it is growing every day. If you have an opposition member as your MP, it would be a good idea to ask them to raise this issue on your behalf in this short time they have available to them.
The second hour of debate will be scheduled for some time in June or perhaps September. The thinking is that if Stephen Harper is truly embarrassed by this motion, it will be pushed back. My own thought is that the outcome of the Alberta election makes a difference here. Now that the Wildrose Party (a party closely aligned with old Reformers and present day federal Conservatives) has been soundly defeated, Harper has to realize there is still massive opposition to a regressive social agenda, even in Alberta. He has to see that this motion will still alienate the vast majority of Canadians. I think that if Wildrose had won, Harper would have been more inclined to let the M-312 play out and try to appease his base. But as Bruce Foster notes in the audio interview mentioned above, Harper also knows abortion is the third rail of politics. Better to leave it alone.
After the second hour of debate, there will be a vote, and the House will decide if this “Women Can’t Be Trusted Motion” will pass, and a committee will be struck to investigate when “a child” as the motion puts it, becomes a “human being.”
Then What?
At this point, if it gets this far, it is important to take note of the membership of the committee as outlined in the motion. Membership of the committee must be established within twenty days of the committee being struck. Looking back at the text of the motion, we can see how membership will be weighted towards anti-choice Conservatives. The Vice-Chair must be from opposition, but there are anti-choice opposition members. This will be something to watch for. If an anti-choice opposition member is chosen, there is really not much hope. (addendum: April 25. The NDP caucus is unanimously opposed to M 312) The Chair (a Conservative) will not vote unless there is a tie, but again we can assume the chair will be anti-choice. It is quite reasonable to challenge the validity of this committee because of the bias inherent in its membership.
How will we know what the committee is doing?
In the past, committee proceedings were often public, and sometimes even broadcast on CPAC, and committee proceedings get put on the web. However, these days, increasingly, committees meet “in-camera,” which is interesting considering the Conservatives claim to be all about transparency.
Further, it is highly likely that people who speak to the committee will only be allowed to speak on the motion itself. The motion is carefully worded to exclude any mention of the woman carrying the fetus. For example, the questions ask the legal impact on “the child” and its human rights, but not on the woman and hers. Also, it asks only about medical evidence. There is no debate about whether medically, the fetus is human. It has human DNA. Case closed. The real question in terms of abortion is if the fetus is a person in legal terms. These are two significantly different issues, and Motion 312 only deals with the first. In other words, the Committee can deny witnesses who wish to speak about the legal issues, because it’s not part of the motion. Witnesses may only be permitted to speak to what medically identifies the fetus as human.
Also, we have no way of knowing who will be called to speak at the committee and give evidence. Again, this evidence will likely be limited to the motion itself, and witnesses who wish to speak about the woman carrying the pregnancy or the legal aspects of personhood may be excluded. Under these circumstances, it is unlikely the committee will find anything they don’t want to find.
Pro-Choice advocates will definitely not speak to the motion if they don’t ask to speak, so it is important that we do ask to submit briefs anyway, even if we expect our requests to be denied. The process for doing so is outlined here. Although I would like to agree with my optimistic fellow blogger at “Fat and Not Afraid” that pro-choice voices will be heard, I am less optimistic. I think this committee, if it is struck, is not going to be transparent and won’t hear the excellent arguments put forward against the motion by allies like ARCC.
To understand what happens to Motion 312 after the committee finishes its "work" and presents its findings, it is probably most instructive to look at the anti-choice’s perspective outlined on this website. (caution: another trigger warning.) If you don't want to go there, which I totally understand, ARCC summarizes their plan in this way. The anti-choice will "bring forward the biology of fetal development as 'scientific evidence' that zygotes, embryos and fetuses are human beings from conception and deserve legal protection. However, this would subordinate women to their fetuses and eliminate many rights and legal protections for pregnant women."
I hope this brings some clarity to the process and explains the myriad reasons for concern. Again, there is plenty of action in the coming days against this motion. Get involved however you can, and don't worry that you have blown it if you don't have something ready for the 26th. All of our actions must continue throughout this process, and certainly to the second hour of debate.
-----
The Abortion Monologues is available as an ebook on Smashwords and through Kindle, Kobo, iBooks or any of your other favourite formats. There are a very few paper copies left for sale, which can be purchased by going back to the website. This will be the last print run.
I hope this brings some clarity to the process and explains the myriad reasons for concern. Again, there is plenty of action in the coming days against this motion. Get involved however you can, and don't worry that you have blown it if you don't have something ready for the 26th. All of our actions must continue throughout this process, and certainly to the second hour of debate.
-----
The Abortion Monologues is available as an ebook on Smashwords and through Kindle, Kobo, iBooks or any of your other favourite formats. There are a very few paper copies left for sale, which can be purchased by going back to the website. This will be the last print run.
Monday, April 23, 2012
My faith in humanity is restored
Wow. Sigh of relief. Never in a million years would I have thought I'd be clapping/singing/dancing happy over a PC majority. But I am. My faith in humanity is restored, particularly my faith in Albertans.
It's not all good news. The barbarians are past the gate, and they have 17 seats in the legislature now. I'll be watching one in particular, our old nemesis Link Byfield. I'm thinking of implementing a Missing Link Watch on the site, (knuckle dragging graphics TBA) but I also threatened to do that once with anti-choice MP Trost and nothing came of it. Too boring.
My most sincere and heartfelt thanks to all the bloggers out there who exposed the truth. Also, my most sincere and heartfelt thanks to all the readers who know that social media is independent media.
I'm going to go have my first good night's sleep in weeks. Tomorrow, I'll be blogging about M-312. Stay tuned for What to Expect When You're Expecting M-312.
Until then, breathe easy Alberta.
Yours,
Some Blogger.
It's not all good news. The barbarians are past the gate, and they have 17 seats in the legislature now. I'll be watching one in particular, our old nemesis Link Byfield. I'm thinking of implementing a Missing Link Watch on the site, (knuckle dragging graphics TBA) but I also threatened to do that once with anti-choice MP Trost and nothing came of it. Too boring.
My most sincere and heartfelt thanks to all the bloggers out there who exposed the truth. Also, my most sincere and heartfelt thanks to all the readers who know that social media is independent media.
I'm going to go have my first good night's sleep in weeks. Tomorrow, I'll be blogging about M-312. Stay tuned for What to Expect When You're Expecting M-312.
Until then, breathe easy Alberta.
Yours,
Some Blogger.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Think Twice, Vote Once
People say when you vote, you exercise your power. I see it slightly differently. I think when you vote, you give away a piece of your power. You decide who to give it to, and that is a bit of power. But the person you vote for gets to wield your power for much longer than the few minutes you are behind the cardboard, marking your "x." I'd like to say the person you vote for will use this new power you've given them on your behalf, but that's not always true. That's why you have to try hard to understand who you are giving this piece of yourself to. You have to make sure they will use it in a way that represents you, in a way you would use it if you still had it.
There's this book I really like called "Bowling Alone" by Robert D. Putnam. It explains social change in America and the collapse of community and how in the past, people used to belong to organizations in the community, the PTA, and bowling leagues, organizations that knitted together our social fabric. To completely simplify Putnam's gorgeous argument, this doesn't happen as much anymore. Now we're bowling alone with our Wii in the basement. We're not connected. And when we're not connected, we start thinking more about our own individual needs and less about the needs of our neighbours. In this circumstance, it is no wonder that libertarian ideals creep insidiously into our governments. I enjoyed the book when Putnam was talking about the United States. I could observe the argument with the cool logic that distance provides. Now it's personal. Now it's about where I live, about my home. Now I'm sitting with the book in my hands reading it in a new way.
I keep saying, Albertans want change, but is Wildrose the change they really want? I can't believe the polls. I thought I was living in a place where people cared about each other, where human rights were respected, where homophobia and racism and other plagues of ignorance were, for the most part, in the past. Occasional outbursts were becoming fewer and farther between. I feel disappointed and disheartened. I feel I have been out of step, living in an idea of community that was only that - an idea. The Alberta I thought I lived in, the one that was moving forward, seems to be a myth.
It's been tempting for me to walk to the solitary Wildrose sign in my immediate vicinity, knock on the door and say, "Really? Explain your thinking to me," and try to engage in a discussion. This is how convinced I am that my neighbours share a commitment to and deep respect for their fellow Albertans. I haven't done it yet. I'm glad because today I talked to their next door neighbour who was raking her yard in this beautiful sunshine and, of course, we started talking about the election. She tilted her head towards the neighbour's yard and their Wildrose sign and said, "I should have known they'd be Wildrosers. When they moved in, we were having work done on the foundation and she said, 'Who is the wop doing your work?' I didn't even know her name yet and she's using words like wop with me. They're a lost cause." Good to know. But still, in other neighbourhoods where Wildrose signs are more plentiful, I find it hard to believe that all those people behind all those front doors are true believers in the firewall, use words I haven't heard since Archie Bunker, and would like to see gay people burn in the lake of fire. But tomorrow I will have to face reality. Either this province is the place I thought it was, or it's not.
A few days ago at my local coffee shop, the owner asked "What's the word?" as he always does. It's his catch phrase. I said, "Apparently, it's okay to be a climate change denier again." He laughed out loud, but then looked around nervously. He doesn't want to piss off any customers. Once he saw the coast was clear, he said, "I can't believe this is happening." We commiserated. Someone else piped in and said, "At this point, Danielle Smith could be an axe-murderer, and voters would say the victim probably deserved it." I have another friend who joked that since Danielle Smith says that climate change isn't real, the rising temperature must be caused by all the gays burning in the lake of fire. It's not funny so much as it is sad that in 2011, someone is giving us material for jokes like this. (If you want some good ones, go on twitter and search the #wildroserumours. Hilarious. Pathetic. Scary. Disappointing.) If they win, we'll be giving John Stewart material for years.
Think hard about who you are giving your power to, who you are giving your vote to. I know if you're reading this blog, you are not inclined to vote Wildrose anyway. Make it your business to change a mind today.
For the record, here are Daveberta's endorsements. I'm lucky to live in one of the ridings he mentions. For the rest of you, think twice because you only get to vote once.
There's this book I really like called "Bowling Alone" by Robert D. Putnam. It explains social change in America and the collapse of community and how in the past, people used to belong to organizations in the community, the PTA, and bowling leagues, organizations that knitted together our social fabric. To completely simplify Putnam's gorgeous argument, this doesn't happen as much anymore. Now we're bowling alone with our Wii in the basement. We're not connected. And when we're not connected, we start thinking more about our own individual needs and less about the needs of our neighbours. In this circumstance, it is no wonder that libertarian ideals creep insidiously into our governments. I enjoyed the book when Putnam was talking about the United States. I could observe the argument with the cool logic that distance provides. Now it's personal. Now it's about where I live, about my home. Now I'm sitting with the book in my hands reading it in a new way.
I keep saying, Albertans want change, but is Wildrose the change they really want? I can't believe the polls. I thought I was living in a place where people cared about each other, where human rights were respected, where homophobia and racism and other plagues of ignorance were, for the most part, in the past. Occasional outbursts were becoming fewer and farther between. I feel disappointed and disheartened. I feel I have been out of step, living in an idea of community that was only that - an idea. The Alberta I thought I lived in, the one that was moving forward, seems to be a myth.
It's been tempting for me to walk to the solitary Wildrose sign in my immediate vicinity, knock on the door and say, "Really? Explain your thinking to me," and try to engage in a discussion. This is how convinced I am that my neighbours share a commitment to and deep respect for their fellow Albertans. I haven't done it yet. I'm glad because today I talked to their next door neighbour who was raking her yard in this beautiful sunshine and, of course, we started talking about the election. She tilted her head towards the neighbour's yard and their Wildrose sign and said, "I should have known they'd be Wildrosers. When they moved in, we were having work done on the foundation and she said, 'Who is the wop doing your work?' I didn't even know her name yet and she's using words like wop with me. They're a lost cause." Good to know. But still, in other neighbourhoods where Wildrose signs are more plentiful, I find it hard to believe that all those people behind all those front doors are true believers in the firewall, use words I haven't heard since Archie Bunker, and would like to see gay people burn in the lake of fire. But tomorrow I will have to face reality. Either this province is the place I thought it was, or it's not.
A few days ago at my local coffee shop, the owner asked "What's the word?" as he always does. It's his catch phrase. I said, "Apparently, it's okay to be a climate change denier again." He laughed out loud, but then looked around nervously. He doesn't want to piss off any customers. Once he saw the coast was clear, he said, "I can't believe this is happening." We commiserated. Someone else piped in and said, "At this point, Danielle Smith could be an axe-murderer, and voters would say the victim probably deserved it." I have another friend who joked that since Danielle Smith says that climate change isn't real, the rising temperature must be caused by all the gays burning in the lake of fire. It's not funny so much as it is sad that in 2011, someone is giving us material for jokes like this. (If you want some good ones, go on twitter and search the #wildroserumours. Hilarious. Pathetic. Scary. Disappointing.) If they win, we'll be giving John Stewart material for years.
Think hard about who you are giving your power to, who you are giving your vote to. I know if you're reading this blog, you are not inclined to vote Wildrose anyway. Make it your business to change a mind today.
For the record, here are Daveberta's endorsements. I'm lucky to live in one of the ridings he mentions. For the rest of you, think twice because you only get to vote once.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Progressive Conservative Party on Abortion
For the Record, the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada
has not answered my three questions on abortion. (Neither have the Liberals or New Democrats.) I doubt they will, and really,
who can blame them. But they are speaking about it in the media. But since I started this storm, I feel compelled to at least try to get information from other parties out there. Right now, all I can do is glean from the media and report.
This is what Alison Redford had to say about abortion and
conscience rights this morning on CBC’s the Current.
Anna Maria Tremonti asked Redford about the Wildrose stance on abortion and conscience rights. (Start at
7:17 if you are listening to the clip above)
Redford: “I think Albertans are shocked to hear that that’s
come back into the discussion. You know these are issues that were decided in
Canada twenty years ago and I think Albertans are very proud of who we are as a
community. It was very unsettling for me to hear this come up last week from
that party as a legitimate policy position and I was just as disappointed to
hear that the party itself would go further with respect to citizen referenda
which really, I think, is something that concerns Albertans. It’s not where we,
I don’t believe, should go. My sense from speaking to Albertans is that these
are discussions that are incredibly divisive. Of course people should have
their own personal beliefs, but when you start to talk about conscience rights
it’s a very slippery slope. It upsets me that we seem to think, or that they
seem to think, that this is something
Albertans want to talk about and quite frankly I think for a lot of Albertans
it’s a little embarrassing for people in the rest of Canada to think that Albertans
are still debating these as serious issues.
Tremonti: You have
spent years working in human rights and constitutional law. Does the concept of
conscience rights even have a chance of going anywhere? Is it a red herring?
Redford: What I see this as is a legal construct that is
brought forward by people with certain political beliefs when they don’t like the
decisions that the courts have made. Now,
that’s a fairly technical legal argument, and I don’t think that we get very
far by turning this into a debate between lawyers. But we’ve certainly seen in
Alberta in the last couple of days commentary from legal scholars from our own
University of Calgary saying that this stuff just doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t reflect the reality of the law in
Canada, of the Courts in Canada, of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Okey dokey. Or is that okie dokie?
I still want to know what you'll do to improve access to abortion services in the north and rural Alberta, but I'm feeling pretty confident you have no plans to de-list or to pose any fundamental challenge to a woman's right to choose or to make access to services worse. Also, in comparison to Wildrose and Danielle Smith's approach to this is in the media, this is very sane. No narrative of persecution here. I point this out to support my own contention that abortion only becomes an issue when you say something dumb about it.
I don't want to be a bummer or anything, but I feel compelled to mention that PC party is the party that brought in Bill 44. Would someone please ask whether or not they plan to repeal this? A watchful eye is definitely necessary here too.
I'm not going to get into health care funding generally and various positions on privatizing delivery. That wouldn't be fair because I didn't do it with the other parties. But if you're interested, it's something to find out about.
As a final note, I just want to point out that at the end of the interview, Tremonti notes that Danielle Smith had been invited to the interview but declined.
I'll try to find something just as concise from the Liberals and New Democrats too, and get that posted sometime soon. They're not getting as much media, so it's a little more difficult. So much for the liberal media bias claimed by Ms Smith.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Smith's Risky History (Part 3) Government Smith Style
This is the third of a three part series about Danielle Smith’s history as a
School Board Trustee. This one has the least to do with reproductive rights
and is completely off the regular topic of this blog, but in terms of the Alberta Provincial Election, it is probably the most vital.
It’s about governance. I can already feel you glazing over.
An issue like conscience rights is something people can wrap their heads around and something they care about with passion. An issue like abortion is like an explosion. Abortion is what I call a “deaf” word, like cancer. People hear it and they go deaf. Although my original questions to all the parties were about abortion, the response from Wildrose made the issue much bigger. It became about using referenda to decide social issues. It became about democracy. It became about governance.
As in my other two posts, Smith’s disastrous history on the School Board gives us some vital information about her. This history matters. On to Part Three.
Part Three: Government Smith Style
As everyone knows, Smith’s only elected political experience is her ten months on the School Board.
I have often wondered why Smith never spoke out against the government's decision to dismiss a democratically elected board. I can't find any evidence of it in the media, and I don't remember her speaking out at the time. For someone saying she's all about democratic rights, it makes me wonder about her definition of democracy, just like I wonder about her definition of pro-choice and pro-gay. Maybe this is another thing she talks a good line on but does nothing about. Other Trustees vilified the government and called the tactic anti-democratic. If the public elected the Board, and the public was sick of them, the public should have been given the opportunity to get rid of them in the next election. Or better yet, someone on the Board could have shown some leadership and found a way through the divisions. No one did. The Chair at the time did not. Smith certainly did not. She was obstructionist, to say the least. I'm not interested in what blame is to be shared among the other Trustees. Smith is the only one of them vying to lead the province right now. Instead of showing leadership, instead of being productive and moving public education forward, she helped tear it apart in Calgary. Having Big Daddy Oberg come in and send the bad girls to their rooms was something almost everyone had an opinion about. Yet, when it happened, Smith was quiet. So was Anderson. Smith did not speak up for democracy.
[addendum April 15. After everyone was fired, Alberta Report said that Lyle Oberg had asked Smith and Anderson to run again which would seem to indicate they were in agreement on many things. Today, Oberg is a key advisor of Smith's, and Oberg just opened a five star private hospital in BC. Neither has a commitment to keeping public education or public health care public.]
The operating budget of the CBE back then was roughly $700,000. That’s not much compared to the provincial budget. And Smith wasn’t keen on getting into the details of it. As I mentioned in Part Two, Jennifer Pollock confirms that Smith and Peggy Anderson took a political stance not to participate in budget meetings. This was part of a broader philosophy about governance and what they felt the role of a Trustee was. Again this tells us something about Smith's style of governing. As a Libertarian, Smith believes there should be less government. Anything that makes less government is justifiable in and of itself. This would include non-participation in budget processes. As a Libertarian, she can say she believes anything. She says she is pro-choice, (See Part One for questions about that) but government shouldn't pay for abortion. But the thing is, Libertarians don't believe government should pay for anything. They don't like taxation. Leave it all to the individual.
In these circumstances, what would happen to public school?
Smith was an enthusiastic supporter of something called the “Carver Model” of governance. (Again, I feel your eyes glazing over, but try to stick with me. I’m getting to the point, honestly.) Right after I was elected, the new Trustees were sent to a weekend of presentations on "How to be a Trustee." I was happy at the time to have any guidance at all. I didn’t know until later it was an indoctrination into how administration wanted us to behave and the Carver Model. I soon learned the job really wasn't what I thought it was, or what it had ever been in the past. It had changed. I thought I had been elected to represent constituents on matters of public education. With the Board moving to the Carver model, I was wrong.
Under Carver, the Board creates policies and something called “Ends statements” that say what the goals of the organization are, but stays out of the details of how to get there. You can see why administrators would approve of this model. They have no elected representatives looking at the gory details of how they do things, the gory details like budget line items. As long as they work within broadly defined policy and meet the Ends Statements, it’s all good.
The Carver model was not designed for use with an elected political body. (I feel you yawning, try to stay with me. This is the part that matters.) It needed to be creatively adapted so that the Board could still do its job as elected officials and achieve goals Smith and others wanted, like less micro-managing by Trustees, a goal that I shared in some respects. We have to trust, to some extent, that administrators know what they are doing. But this has to be balanced against having enough knowledge and input to be accountable to constituents, both in reporting back to them and carrying out their will. Smith was against any kind of creative adaptation to this model and wanted it used in its most orthodox way.
It might be hard to believe, but this topic was a hot one among Trustees, and could not have been more boring, less understood, or less cared about by Calgarians. I had no idea when I became a Trustee that I would be spending my time on implementing this new governance model. But the adoption of the Carver model changed everything about the way the board worked and how it related to both CBE administration and citizens. What has never been made clear to citizens, even to this day, is that Trustees don't function anymore as representatives of their constituents. They are not someone parents can call and get help from beyond the Trustees acting as receptionists and referring calls to the appropriate administrative person. I think that the adoption of the Carver model is the reason that now, the Trustees have handed over financial decision making power to Administration and try to limit public input on the school system.
And this is how Smith wanted it. As we all know, the devil is in the details, and most of us looking at a fiasco like the “no meet committee” would agree that the person in charge should have had an eye on that. It’s pretty hard to be accountable to the electorate otherwise. I have never met a person who does not think their elected representative should be accountable to them. This is an issue that goes to the heart of the nature of democracy.
Smith says she wanted to join the CBE board of Trustees in part because she felt the Board had been unresponsive to parents. Yet, she was solidly behind a governance model that could only result in less responsiveness. In the article by Maurice Tougas about Smith’s leadership potential mentioned in Part One, Pollock notes that Smith has a history, one that I can personally vouch for, of not showing any interest in constituent issues she didn't agree with. A lot of people lost faith in the capacity of the School Board to represent them. And once that happens, people start to ask why we even have one. That can only help Libertarians achieve less government.
In the Tougas article, Pollock says that, “Smith went her own way as a trustee.” Smith took “the unusual stand of advocating school closings, suggesting up to 30 schools should be closed.” Danielle Smith and I have met only once that I remember, and I'm sure she wouldn't remember it. It was while she was a Trustee. She was visiting my daughter's elementary school, one of the 30 schools she wanted to close. The other parents and I joked that she walked around it with the eyes of a real estate agent. Remember, Smith had also run on her support for charter schools. In Calgary, closed public schools often get leased to charter schools and sometimes private schools. It's a pretty good deal for them. I've never been convinced it's a good deal for public schools. Finding buildings is a pretty significant way to support Charter Schools. If she was talking to parents, she wasn't talking to us about saving our school.
I quit my job as Trustee a few months before the end of my term, stressed out and ill, disillusioned and disappointed at everything I had learned while I was there. I was often alone in my opinions, but the divisions among Board members when I was there never came close to what happened on the Board Smith was part of. We were divided, but civil. I quit when I realized my job was not to be the representative of the people who elected me, even though they thought it was. I quit when I realized I could no longer support what the Board was doing. My job was to be the yes-woman, and I couldn't do it anymore. I felt like a hypocrite. I couldn’t pretend I was a representative of my constituents when the board had basically eliminated any capacity for that, as far as I was concerned. I couldn’t pretend that what I was doing had anything to do with democracy. I was criticized for my decision, but not by many. Most people understood. I made sure my resignation was close enough to the next election that it wouldn't trigger a by-election. I didn't want it to cost the taxpayers money. And I also knew that there was not a single vote result between my departure and the end of the term for this Board that would have been altered by my presence. By that time, votes were generally going 5-2 or 6-1. The school closure issue was finished and we were moving into summer. To me, what would have been worse for Calgary Public was another divisive, bickering board. I wouldn't be that person. Calgary didn't need that again. Sometimes it's better to walk away.
That’s the end of this series. I hope you found it instructive. I've told this story from my perspective and the interpretations I've given are mine alone. I wish I could find my freaking glasses. Sorry about any typos. Apparently I've called Daveberta a bogger instead of a blogger. Sorry Dave. At least I didn't call him a bugger. I correct my mistakes when I find them. In other words, no one's perfect. I don't expect anyone, elected or otherwise, to be perfect. I do expect some integrity. I just want everyone to understand the history of this school board so they can decide for themselves if Wildrose represents their values, and if they think Ms Smith can represent them well. Like I've said, if the best indicator of future performance is past performance, everyone is entitled to know what I know. Blogs can be useful for that.
Part One is here
Part Two is here
-----
The Abortion Monologues is available as an e-book on Smashwords
An issue like conscience rights is something people can wrap their heads around and something they care about with passion. An issue like abortion is like an explosion. Abortion is what I call a “deaf” word, like cancer. People hear it and they go deaf. Although my original questions to all the parties were about abortion, the response from Wildrose made the issue much bigger. It became about using referenda to decide social issues. It became about democracy. It became about governance.
As in my other two posts, Smith’s disastrous history on the School Board gives us some vital information about her. This history matters. On to Part Three.
Part Three: Government Smith Style
As everyone knows, Smith’s only elected political experience is her ten months on the School Board.
I have often wondered why Smith never spoke out against the government's decision to dismiss a democratically elected board. I can't find any evidence of it in the media, and I don't remember her speaking out at the time. For someone saying she's all about democratic rights, it makes me wonder about her definition of democracy, just like I wonder about her definition of pro-choice and pro-gay. Maybe this is another thing she talks a good line on but does nothing about. Other Trustees vilified the government and called the tactic anti-democratic. If the public elected the Board, and the public was sick of them, the public should have been given the opportunity to get rid of them in the next election. Or better yet, someone on the Board could have shown some leadership and found a way through the divisions. No one did. The Chair at the time did not. Smith certainly did not. She was obstructionist, to say the least. I'm not interested in what blame is to be shared among the other Trustees. Smith is the only one of them vying to lead the province right now. Instead of showing leadership, instead of being productive and moving public education forward, she helped tear it apart in Calgary. Having Big Daddy Oberg come in and send the bad girls to their rooms was something almost everyone had an opinion about. Yet, when it happened, Smith was quiet. So was Anderson. Smith did not speak up for democracy.
[addendum April 15. After everyone was fired, Alberta Report said that Lyle Oberg had asked Smith and Anderson to run again which would seem to indicate they were in agreement on many things. Today, Oberg is a key advisor of Smith's, and Oberg just opened a five star private hospital in BC. Neither has a commitment to keeping public education or public health care public.]
The operating budget of the CBE back then was roughly $700,000. That’s not much compared to the provincial budget. And Smith wasn’t keen on getting into the details of it. As I mentioned in Part Two, Jennifer Pollock confirms that Smith and Peggy Anderson took a political stance not to participate in budget meetings. This was part of a broader philosophy about governance and what they felt the role of a Trustee was. Again this tells us something about Smith's style of governing. As a Libertarian, Smith believes there should be less government. Anything that makes less government is justifiable in and of itself. This would include non-participation in budget processes. As a Libertarian, she can say she believes anything. She says she is pro-choice, (See Part One for questions about that) but government shouldn't pay for abortion. But the thing is, Libertarians don't believe government should pay for anything. They don't like taxation. Leave it all to the individual.
In these circumstances, what would happen to public school?
Smith was an enthusiastic supporter of something called the “Carver Model” of governance. (Again, I feel your eyes glazing over, but try to stick with me. I’m getting to the point, honestly.) Right after I was elected, the new Trustees were sent to a weekend of presentations on "How to be a Trustee." I was happy at the time to have any guidance at all. I didn’t know until later it was an indoctrination into how administration wanted us to behave and the Carver Model. I soon learned the job really wasn't what I thought it was, or what it had ever been in the past. It had changed. I thought I had been elected to represent constituents on matters of public education. With the Board moving to the Carver model, I was wrong.
Under Carver, the Board creates policies and something called “Ends statements” that say what the goals of the organization are, but stays out of the details of how to get there. You can see why administrators would approve of this model. They have no elected representatives looking at the gory details of how they do things, the gory details like budget line items. As long as they work within broadly defined policy and meet the Ends Statements, it’s all good.
The Carver model was not designed for use with an elected political body. (I feel you yawning, try to stay with me. This is the part that matters.) It needed to be creatively adapted so that the Board could still do its job as elected officials and achieve goals Smith and others wanted, like less micro-managing by Trustees, a goal that I shared in some respects. We have to trust, to some extent, that administrators know what they are doing. But this has to be balanced against having enough knowledge and input to be accountable to constituents, both in reporting back to them and carrying out their will. Smith was against any kind of creative adaptation to this model and wanted it used in its most orthodox way.
It might be hard to believe, but this topic was a hot one among Trustees, and could not have been more boring, less understood, or less cared about by Calgarians. I had no idea when I became a Trustee that I would be spending my time on implementing this new governance model. But the adoption of the Carver model changed everything about the way the board worked and how it related to both CBE administration and citizens. What has never been made clear to citizens, even to this day, is that Trustees don't function anymore as representatives of their constituents. They are not someone parents can call and get help from beyond the Trustees acting as receptionists and referring calls to the appropriate administrative person. I think that the adoption of the Carver model is the reason that now, the Trustees have handed over financial decision making power to Administration and try to limit public input on the school system.
And this is how Smith wanted it. As we all know, the devil is in the details, and most of us looking at a fiasco like the “no meet committee” would agree that the person in charge should have had an eye on that. It’s pretty hard to be accountable to the electorate otherwise. I have never met a person who does not think their elected representative should be accountable to them. This is an issue that goes to the heart of the nature of democracy.
Smith says she wanted to join the CBE board of Trustees in part because she felt the Board had been unresponsive to parents. Yet, she was solidly behind a governance model that could only result in less responsiveness. In the article by Maurice Tougas about Smith’s leadership potential mentioned in Part One, Pollock notes that Smith has a history, one that I can personally vouch for, of not showing any interest in constituent issues she didn't agree with. A lot of people lost faith in the capacity of the School Board to represent them. And once that happens, people start to ask why we even have one. That can only help Libertarians achieve less government.
In the Tougas article, Pollock says that, “Smith went her own way as a trustee.” Smith took “the unusual stand of advocating school closings, suggesting up to 30 schools should be closed.” Danielle Smith and I have met only once that I remember, and I'm sure she wouldn't remember it. It was while she was a Trustee. She was visiting my daughter's elementary school, one of the 30 schools she wanted to close. The other parents and I joked that she walked around it with the eyes of a real estate agent. Remember, Smith had also run on her support for charter schools. In Calgary, closed public schools often get leased to charter schools and sometimes private schools. It's a pretty good deal for them. I've never been convinced it's a good deal for public schools. Finding buildings is a pretty significant way to support Charter Schools. If she was talking to parents, she wasn't talking to us about saving our school.
I quit my job as Trustee a few months before the end of my term, stressed out and ill, disillusioned and disappointed at everything I had learned while I was there. I was often alone in my opinions, but the divisions among Board members when I was there never came close to what happened on the Board Smith was part of. We were divided, but civil. I quit when I realized my job was not to be the representative of the people who elected me, even though they thought it was. I quit when I realized I could no longer support what the Board was doing. My job was to be the yes-woman, and I couldn't do it anymore. I felt like a hypocrite. I couldn’t pretend I was a representative of my constituents when the board had basically eliminated any capacity for that, as far as I was concerned. I couldn’t pretend that what I was doing had anything to do with democracy. I was criticized for my decision, but not by many. Most people understood. I made sure my resignation was close enough to the next election that it wouldn't trigger a by-election. I didn't want it to cost the taxpayers money. And I also knew that there was not a single vote result between my departure and the end of the term for this Board that would have been altered by my presence. By that time, votes were generally going 5-2 or 6-1. The school closure issue was finished and we were moving into summer. To me, what would have been worse for Calgary Public was another divisive, bickering board. I wouldn't be that person. Calgary didn't need that again. Sometimes it's better to walk away.
That’s the end of this series. I hope you found it instructive. I've told this story from my perspective and the interpretations I've given are mine alone. I wish I could find my freaking glasses. Sorry about any typos. Apparently I've called Daveberta a bogger instead of a blogger. Sorry Dave. At least I didn't call him a bugger. I correct my mistakes when I find them. In other words, no one's perfect. I don't expect anyone, elected or otherwise, to be perfect. I do expect some integrity. I just want everyone to understand the history of this school board so they can decide for themselves if Wildrose represents their values, and if they think Ms Smith can represent them well. Like I've said, if the best indicator of future performance is past performance, everyone is entitled to know what I know. Blogs can be useful for that.
Part One is here
Part Two is here
-----
The Abortion Monologues is available as an e-book on Smashwords
Danielle Smith's Risky History (Part 2) Narrative of Persecution
This is Part Two of Smith's Risky History - Part One is Here
As I said in Part One, I was the School Board Trustee for Wards 6 and 7 after Ms Smith. Since the best indicator of future performance is past performance, we need to look at her past as a Trustee.
One of the things I've been blogging about lately is how Smith likes to blame liberal conspiracies for any dissent against her. It's interesting to note her language. She has blamed "eastern Canadian critics" (read liberals) for her troubles, attacking her opponents for doing their best to protect reproductive rights and gay rights, while she herself says she's pro-choice and pro-gay rights. On the one hand, Smith claims philosophical alignment with pro-choice and pro-gay rights folks, and on the other, she blames them for trying to bring her down.
Something doesn't add up. A person who is pro-choice and pro-gay rights doesn't propose or encourage strategies that will harm reproductive rights and gay rights. As Part One makes clear, there's nothing in her history to characterize her as a progressive on these issues except her statement at last night's forum. If there were, the media would have printed it when the stories broke. Progressives with some credibility as progressives understand her "fauxgressive" rhetoric. I think her party knows exactly who she is - someone who can appear moderate compared to the rest of them and won't lift a finger to stop their regressive agenda. Now, on to Part Two.
Part Two: Smith's Narrative of Persecution
Smith's tendency to demonize her critics and portray herself as persecuted was clear while she was a Trustee and continues today.
Here's one example from the School Board days. While on the Board, Smith and Peggy Anderson had their poor attendance reported to the government by a constituent, Donn Lovett. Lovett wanted them removed from the Board in accordance with the School Act. Smith claimed that the daytime budget meetings conflicted with her day job and suggested the scheduling of those meetings was done just so it would be impossible for her to attend. Jennifer Pollock, a Trustee at the time, confirms that Smith and Anderson had a political stance against attending budget meetings. They didn't think the elected board should have anything to do with the details of the budget, except to write general policy or guidelines. (I'll talk more about this in part three, when I talk about Smith's record on governance.) Smith and Anderson said trustees Jennifer Pollock, Liz LoVecchio and Judy Tilston had put Lovett up to the letter. Lovett responded, "Nobody needs to tell me to do anything." (See this source and Daveberta again.) [Addendum April 13, 2012: I've just been able to confirm with Donn Lovett that Smith initiated a law suit against him as a result of this incident.]
More recently, when opposition to the idea of “conscience rights” arose and a former supporter publicly bailed on Wildrose as a result, Wildrose started saying it was a plot against them by a liberals. Their former supporter was labelled a conservative mole. Like Lovett, she affirmed that she acted independently. (As do I, by the way.) Smith and Wildrose deny that their opponents might have brains of our own. To them, we are all puppets on a conspiratorial string.
Here's another example. Smith was well known as the subject of some legendary "mean girl" note passing during school board meetings, a situation widely believed to be the final straw for a frustrated public and the catalyst for the Board's removal. Smith released the notes to the media, and has since called this "good opposition research." She is obviously proud of her work here. Although she denies she retrieved the notes from the garbage, other trustees said that was the only place she could have found them. The point here is that Smith made it an issue, found the notes and made them public. She wanted those notes in the media. The media in turn were delighted to outline all the details of who said what about who's hair and someone's ugly suit. (See Daveberta's blog for excruciating detail on the whole note passing fiasco.)
In this campaign, Wildrose used another "mean girl" comment and made hay out of it. The Globe and Mail reported that Wildrose had used the ridiculous tweet about Smith's family life and childless status so that it played strongly in Smith's favour. At first, media was ignoring the tweet, because it was completely insignificant. Anyone who's ever been on Twitter knows it's full of crap like this. After being unable to light a fire under the tweet, Wildrose sent out a press release just to make sure everyone knew. They wanted it to be an issue. Yes, the tweet was ridiculous and insulting and the woman who tweeted it was idiotic and was dealt with. Similarly, yes, the notes were ridiculous and petty and all involved were publicly shamed. But Smith sure made the most of both of these situations to draw attention to herself. Even I felt sorry for her after the idiotic tweet. What a woman wants to do about a family is no one's business. I'm pro-choice. But I never would have known someone took a pot shot at her unless her people had spent so much time making sure I did. After I learned that, my sympathy evaporated. It reminded me too much of the "mean girl" note incident.
What’s interesting to me is that the "mean girl" notes about bad hair and the recent tweet are genuinely petty compared to saying you’ll put “issues like abortion” to citizen initiated referendum and enact conscience rights that override human rights. But it is this abortion issue and this conscience rights issue that Smith portrays as frivolous. Again, as the Globe and Mail notes, Smith says it's all liberal lies, electioneering and those darned easterners are behind it. (For the record, I'm from Toronto and moved to Calgary in 1988. In Smith's world, that fact alone would seem to be enough to dismiss my concerns about her policies.) If, as Smith says, “It’s typical of liberal politicians to demonize a conservative party using fear-mongering,” it is just as typical for Smith to demonize progressives and use their well-founded concerns to portray herself as hard done by and misrepresented.
This week, journalists are finding out just how little negative opinion Smith and the Wildrose are willing to brook. Another article in the Globe and Mail says that journalists who aren't towing the Wildrose Party line are being rebutted. But Wildrose is not just rebutting what they find to be errors in facts; they are rebutting so-called errors of opinion. They are coming down on people who merely disagree with them. This is all sounding very Stephen Harper to me. When Harper first got into power, he de-funded Status of Women Canada the Court Challenges Program, certainly both venues for dissenters. I could write a book about how Stephen Harper has quelled dissent, and right now the last chapter would be about CBC cuts.
As I've said before, the very idea that Conservatives are the subject of liberal media persecution is hard to buy when you remember that Smith used to work for the Calgary Herald, has had more than enough presence in media in both print and television, and that her husband is an executive with Sun Media. The media is biased? Really? In what direction? Does Smith really want to open up that can of worms?
I don't want a Provincial leader who cries persecution anytime anyone disagrees with them, or a leader who dismisses and derides dissent. And I sure don't want a leader who is going to pick a fight with the rest of Canada. I get a sense that Wildrose could start another persecution narrative, the old one where Alberta is hard done by within Canada. It's already started. Wildrose policy has enough in it to show us how a Wildrose government will relate to the rest of Canada. Wildrose is bothered by the fact that Albertans give more in transfer payments than we get. Oh poor Alberta. No reason for us to help out our neighbours. Libertarians leave that kind of stuff to individuals, remember? Wildrose policy suggests Alberta get its own immigration policy, opt out of Canada Pension in favour of our own, and that Alberta reject any federal legislation that might come to bear on our industry (read environmental rules). If Quebec were saying some of what's in the Wildrose policy book, the word "separatist" would surely arise. Someone else can blog about that.
Part Three: Government Smith Style
-----
The Abortion Monologues is available as an e-book on Smashwords
As I said in Part One, I was the School Board Trustee for Wards 6 and 7 after Ms Smith. Since the best indicator of future performance is past performance, we need to look at her past as a Trustee.
One of the things I've been blogging about lately is how Smith likes to blame liberal conspiracies for any dissent against her. It's interesting to note her language. She has blamed "eastern Canadian critics" (read liberals) for her troubles, attacking her opponents for doing their best to protect reproductive rights and gay rights, while she herself says she's pro-choice and pro-gay rights. On the one hand, Smith claims philosophical alignment with pro-choice and pro-gay rights folks, and on the other, she blames them for trying to bring her down.
Something doesn't add up. A person who is pro-choice and pro-gay rights doesn't propose or encourage strategies that will harm reproductive rights and gay rights. As Part One makes clear, there's nothing in her history to characterize her as a progressive on these issues except her statement at last night's forum. If there were, the media would have printed it when the stories broke. Progressives with some credibility as progressives understand her "fauxgressive" rhetoric. I think her party knows exactly who she is - someone who can appear moderate compared to the rest of them and won't lift a finger to stop their regressive agenda. Now, on to Part Two.
Part Two: Smith's Narrative of Persecution
Smith's tendency to demonize her critics and portray herself as persecuted was clear while she was a Trustee and continues today.
Here's one example from the School Board days. While on the Board, Smith and Peggy Anderson had their poor attendance reported to the government by a constituent, Donn Lovett. Lovett wanted them removed from the Board in accordance with the School Act. Smith claimed that the daytime budget meetings conflicted with her day job and suggested the scheduling of those meetings was done just so it would be impossible for her to attend. Jennifer Pollock, a Trustee at the time, confirms that Smith and Anderson had a political stance against attending budget meetings. They didn't think the elected board should have anything to do with the details of the budget, except to write general policy or guidelines. (I'll talk more about this in part three, when I talk about Smith's record on governance.) Smith and Anderson said trustees Jennifer Pollock, Liz LoVecchio and Judy Tilston had put Lovett up to the letter. Lovett responded, "Nobody needs to tell me to do anything." (See this source and Daveberta again.) [Addendum April 13, 2012: I've just been able to confirm with Donn Lovett that Smith initiated a law suit against him as a result of this incident.]
More recently, when opposition to the idea of “conscience rights” arose and a former supporter publicly bailed on Wildrose as a result, Wildrose started saying it was a plot against them by a liberals. Their former supporter was labelled a conservative mole. Like Lovett, she affirmed that she acted independently. (As do I, by the way.) Smith and Wildrose deny that their opponents might have brains of our own. To them, we are all puppets on a conspiratorial string.
Here's another example. Smith was well known as the subject of some legendary "mean girl" note passing during school board meetings, a situation widely believed to be the final straw for a frustrated public and the catalyst for the Board's removal. Smith released the notes to the media, and has since called this "good opposition research." She is obviously proud of her work here. Although she denies she retrieved the notes from the garbage, other trustees said that was the only place she could have found them. The point here is that Smith made it an issue, found the notes and made them public. She wanted those notes in the media. The media in turn were delighted to outline all the details of who said what about who's hair and someone's ugly suit. (See Daveberta's blog for excruciating detail on the whole note passing fiasco.)
In this campaign, Wildrose used another "mean girl" comment and made hay out of it. The Globe and Mail reported that Wildrose had used the ridiculous tweet about Smith's family life and childless status so that it played strongly in Smith's favour. At first, media was ignoring the tweet, because it was completely insignificant. Anyone who's ever been on Twitter knows it's full of crap like this. After being unable to light a fire under the tweet, Wildrose sent out a press release just to make sure everyone knew. They wanted it to be an issue. Yes, the tweet was ridiculous and insulting and the woman who tweeted it was idiotic and was dealt with. Similarly, yes, the notes were ridiculous and petty and all involved were publicly shamed. But Smith sure made the most of both of these situations to draw attention to herself. Even I felt sorry for her after the idiotic tweet. What a woman wants to do about a family is no one's business. I'm pro-choice. But I never would have known someone took a pot shot at her unless her people had spent so much time making sure I did. After I learned that, my sympathy evaporated. It reminded me too much of the "mean girl" note incident.
What’s interesting to me is that the "mean girl" notes about bad hair and the recent tweet are genuinely petty compared to saying you’ll put “issues like abortion” to citizen initiated referendum and enact conscience rights that override human rights. But it is this abortion issue and this conscience rights issue that Smith portrays as frivolous. Again, as the Globe and Mail notes, Smith says it's all liberal lies, electioneering and those darned easterners are behind it. (For the record, I'm from Toronto and moved to Calgary in 1988. In Smith's world, that fact alone would seem to be enough to dismiss my concerns about her policies.) If, as Smith says, “It’s typical of liberal politicians to demonize a conservative party using fear-mongering,” it is just as typical for Smith to demonize progressives and use their well-founded concerns to portray herself as hard done by and misrepresented.
This week, journalists are finding out just how little negative opinion Smith and the Wildrose are willing to brook. Another article in the Globe and Mail says that journalists who aren't towing the Wildrose Party line are being rebutted. But Wildrose is not just rebutting what they find to be errors in facts; they are rebutting so-called errors of opinion. They are coming down on people who merely disagree with them. This is all sounding very Stephen Harper to me. When Harper first got into power, he de-funded Status of Women Canada the Court Challenges Program, certainly both venues for dissenters. I could write a book about how Stephen Harper has quelled dissent, and right now the last chapter would be about CBC cuts.
As I've said before, the very idea that Conservatives are the subject of liberal media persecution is hard to buy when you remember that Smith used to work for the Calgary Herald, has had more than enough presence in media in both print and television, and that her husband is an executive with Sun Media. The media is biased? Really? In what direction? Does Smith really want to open up that can of worms?
I don't want a Provincial leader who cries persecution anytime anyone disagrees with them, or a leader who dismisses and derides dissent. And I sure don't want a leader who is going to pick a fight with the rest of Canada. I get a sense that Wildrose could start another persecution narrative, the old one where Alberta is hard done by within Canada. It's already started. Wildrose policy has enough in it to show us how a Wildrose government will relate to the rest of Canada. Wildrose is bothered by the fact that Albertans give more in transfer payments than we get. Oh poor Alberta. No reason for us to help out our neighbours. Libertarians leave that kind of stuff to individuals, remember? Wildrose policy suggests Alberta get its own immigration policy, opt out of Canada Pension in favour of our own, and that Alberta reject any federal legislation that might come to bear on our industry (read environmental rules). If Quebec were saying some of what's in the Wildrose policy book, the word "separatist" would surely arise. Someone else can blog about that.
Part Three: Government Smith Style
-----
The Abortion Monologues is available as an e-book on Smashwords
Smith's Risky History (Part One) The "Fauxgressive" Ms Smith
Last night at a forum in Okotoks, Danielle Smith said she supported gay rights and was pro-choice. If actions speak louder than words, it's time to look at actions.
I wasn't going to talk about Smith and the School Board. The focus of this blog is abortion and reproductive rights. But this is about reproductive rights. It's about protecting them. Here is part one of a three part series.
In Smith's ten months as a Trustee on the Calgary Board of Education, (Oct 19, 1998 to Aug 19, 1999) she told us some important things about who she was. Her actions in this present election period and the policies she has put forward indicate she hasn’t changed. Since the best indicator of future performance is past performance, the past is worth bringing up.
Danielle Smith, as everyone knows, was part of the infamous CBE Board of Trustees that got removed from office in 1999. Colloquially, people say they got fired. I know quite a bit about this time. My daughter was in elementary school and I was paying attention. I was a member of a parent activist group supporting public education and after the Board was sent packing, I thought I should try to help. I ran for Trustee in Wards 6 and 7 and won. I was the Trustee for Wards 6 and 7 after Smith.
Part One: The "Fauxgressive" Ms Smith
Tell me who you walk with and I’ll tell you who you are, goes the saying. In 1998, Danielle Smith and another Trustee, Peggy Anderson, were Reformers/neo cons elected to a board that had been made up of Liberals and non-partisans (sometimes referred to in the media as moderates). Seemingly joined at the hip, they shared a campaign manager who was also Jason Kenny's Executive Assistant. Smith campaigned with Rob Anders. They waved at traffic together on 17th Ave. S.W. Both Kenny and Anders are anti-choice/pro-life. Smith and Anderson were elected on narrow margins based on a platform of support for charter schools, back to basic education, and increased school discipline among other things. Anderson's day job was in Jason Kenny’s office. She also worked with some joint I think was called the Family Values Coalition, a group espousing the kind of values that say only straight and patriarchal families have value. In her first week in office, she put a poster up on her door that said, “Abstinence works every time.” This was no surprise. She spoke in candidate forums in favour of abstinence only education.
There were glowing reports written about them both many times in the now defunct Alberta Report. The message was always the same. The right finally had someone on the school board to put those progressives in their place.
The conflicts that this board was so famous for were, in part, generated by a conflict of values around human rights.The previous Board of Trustees, three of whom were returned to the Board in that same election, had managed to bring forward new policy ensuring the safety and security of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual staff and students. This was contentious. Remember back in the day when it was okay to say homosexuals didn’t deserve protection, security of the person and all the human rights straight people have? If you don't, don't worry. We might get to re-live it soon.
Today, Smith is interested in protecting “conscience rights.” That means she is interested in allowing certain people, like public marriage commissioners, to discriminate against LGBTI persons.Wildrose is trying to convince us that conscience rights are a progressive notion, even a way to protect rights. In a Libertarian view of the world like hers, the individual is everything. As my fellow blogger Pedgehog would say, it's "fauxgressive." It's a way of co-opting the language of progressive people and using it to establish regressive policies.
[Addendum: April 14, 2012. Thanks to Warren Kinsella for researching Smith's conscience in her own words. Read her record on these issues here.]
It is not progressive or gay friendly to give people a means to discriminate against gay people. No one is going to give Smith a rainbow pin for that.
Where would this right to discriminate end? The Globe and Mail in it's main editorial yesterday derides the idea and asks if it would extend to being allowed to refuse to marry inter-racial couples. Could doctors refuse to prescribe birth control, or could pharmacists refuse to dispense it? In many towns throughout Alberta, there is only one pharmacy. This could seriously affect people's capacity to access birth control and emergency contraception like Plan B.
I'm interested in how conscience rights would apply to teachers. Would teachers who objected to the idea of evolution be forced to comply with the curriculum? Would a policy like the one mentioned above, the one that protects gay students and staff be enforceable in a world where conscience rights can trump human rights protections?
Conscience rights could be used to justify all sorts of nonsense in schools. For example, once I joined the Board, I met with a group of parents concerned that an anti-choice group related to American Crisis Pregnancy Centres, an outfit called the Pregnancy Care Centre, was being invited into schools to provide sexuality education. They said they had not been able to make any headway on the issue and had been unable to get a response from their Trustee in the past. This did not surprise me. I met with many constituents who had been unable to get a response from Smith while she was in office and were frustrated by this. In an article by Maurice Tougas for Alberta Views about Smith’s leadership potential, Tougas interviewed Jennifer Pollock, who indicated that, "Smith had no interest in attending meetings with the public, and claims that Smith told people: 'We’ll tell you what we want you to know.' Smith and Anderson, Pollock says, only wanted to hear opinions from the public that reflected their own views, and were not interested in more 'esoteric' matters, such as art education." This parent group I met with had a well-founded concern that the CBE was not living up to its responsibility to offer comprehensive sexuality education according to Alberta Curriculum. One parent reported that the representative from the anti-choice group was in her child's class. She held out an oreo cookie and asked the class who wanted it. Hands shot up. Then she opened it, licked the filling, put it back together and asked who wanted it now. Groans and gags ensued. The representative said that's what the students would be like if they had sex before marriage.
Will conscience rights bring us back to abstinence lessons like this? Conscience rights will not move us forward. They invite discrimination and the kind of thinking that we have spent decades evolving beyond.
In a column written by Smith in 2000 and reproduced here, (go to the bottom) Smith mentions the Pregnancy Care Centre to say they seem to be doing things right because they want to help youth with sexual decision making. Yes, they do, as long as the decision isn't pro-choice. If Ms Smith is pro choice and stands for gay rights, her actions do not reflect it, then or now.
Looking at the potential candidates for a Wildrose Cabinet noted by blogger Daveberta, I’m concerned that protecting the human rights of LGBTI persons is going to be contentious again. Link Byfield (candidate in Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock) is the former publisher of Alberta Report, a magazine remembered by my gay and lesbian friends for the hateful nonsense it obsessively printed about homosexuals. Another potential Cabinet Minister is John Carpay (candidate in Calgary-Lougheed). He thought Ralph Klein should have used the Notwithstanding Clause so Alberta could continue to discriminate against gays and lesbians. Carpay has defended Bill Whatcott against charges in Saskatchewan. Whatcott recently delivered disgusting homophobic flyers door to door in Calgary. The Charter protects his right to free speech. He doesn't need a conscience clause for this. He does need a conscience clause if he wants to take this ideas one step further, become a marriage commissioner and refuse to marry gays or lesbians.
Moving on to reproductive rights rights, as Daveberta notes, potential Cabinet Member Carpay also defends the University of Calgary Campus pro-life group, a group discussed on this blog many times. They bring the CCBR's GAP presentation, also known as the fetus porn show, to campus. Many of the same faces from campus pro-life show up at various Calgary locations like Stampede to share their fetus porn with unsuspecting families and passersby. The GAP presentations compare abortion to the Holocaust. The CCBR also operates the dreadful fetus mobile that drives around Calgary. Many Calgarians despise this truck. Even Bishop Henry finds the tactics of this group offensive.
One way to test if policy is in any good is to apply specific cases and see what happens. For example, we have learned, thank goodness, that the application of the case of abortion in the Wildrose policy of citizen initiated referendum shows how the policy fails and fails spectacularly. Such a case would violate Charter rights. Worse, while it was fought, it would leave women vulnerable.
Smith is on the record stating that she doesn't think the public should have to fund abortions. Again, the column is reproduced here. In it, she says much more than that. She says:
How can someone who is pro-choice attack those who protect choice? From this, it is clear Ms Smith is very supportive of changing the status of abortion in law (admittedly out of provincial jurisdiction) and by extension, I think it is clear she would support citizen based referendum about changing the way it is delivered in Alberta Health, something that would be within her jurisdiction if she were to win. She has given every indication in the past that she would be happy to see abortion restricted, if not ended.
If Ms Smith looks progressive, it's only because she associates with the most regressive politicians in Canada. It has been made clear that de-listing could happen through a referendum and she has not definitively ruled that out. Meanwhile, the campaign to de-fund abortion has already started at Alberta Pro-Life. They seem pretty pumped. I wonder what they know?
If Ms Smith really is pro-choice and supportive of gay rights, I for one would like to see her act on those beliefs. Until then, I'll remain unconvinced.
Part Two of Smith's Risky History - Creating a Narrative of Persecution
Part Three of Smith's Risky History - Government Smith Style
-----
The Abortion Monologues is available as an e-book on Smashwords
I wasn't going to talk about Smith and the School Board. The focus of this blog is abortion and reproductive rights. But this is about reproductive rights. It's about protecting them. Here is part one of a three part series.
In Smith's ten months as a Trustee on the Calgary Board of Education, (Oct 19, 1998 to Aug 19, 1999) she told us some important things about who she was. Her actions in this present election period and the policies she has put forward indicate she hasn’t changed. Since the best indicator of future performance is past performance, the past is worth bringing up.
Danielle Smith, as everyone knows, was part of the infamous CBE Board of Trustees that got removed from office in 1999. Colloquially, people say they got fired. I know quite a bit about this time. My daughter was in elementary school and I was paying attention. I was a member of a parent activist group supporting public education and after the Board was sent packing, I thought I should try to help. I ran for Trustee in Wards 6 and 7 and won. I was the Trustee for Wards 6 and 7 after Smith.
Part One: The "Fauxgressive" Ms Smith
Tell me who you walk with and I’ll tell you who you are, goes the saying. In 1998, Danielle Smith and another Trustee, Peggy Anderson, were Reformers/neo cons elected to a board that had been made up of Liberals and non-partisans (sometimes referred to in the media as moderates). Seemingly joined at the hip, they shared a campaign manager who was also Jason Kenny's Executive Assistant. Smith campaigned with Rob Anders. They waved at traffic together on 17th Ave. S.W. Both Kenny and Anders are anti-choice/pro-life. Smith and Anderson were elected on narrow margins based on a platform of support for charter schools, back to basic education, and increased school discipline among other things. Anderson's day job was in Jason Kenny’s office. She also worked with some joint I think was called the Family Values Coalition, a group espousing the kind of values that say only straight and patriarchal families have value. In her first week in office, she put a poster up on her door that said, “Abstinence works every time.” This was no surprise. She spoke in candidate forums in favour of abstinence only education.
There were glowing reports written about them both many times in the now defunct Alberta Report. The message was always the same. The right finally had someone on the school board to put those progressives in their place.
The conflicts that this board was so famous for were, in part, generated by a conflict of values around human rights.The previous Board of Trustees, three of whom were returned to the Board in that same election, had managed to bring forward new policy ensuring the safety and security of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual staff and students. This was contentious. Remember back in the day when it was okay to say homosexuals didn’t deserve protection, security of the person and all the human rights straight people have? If you don't, don't worry. We might get to re-live it soon.
Today, Smith is interested in protecting “conscience rights.” That means she is interested in allowing certain people, like public marriage commissioners, to discriminate against LGBTI persons.Wildrose is trying to convince us that conscience rights are a progressive notion, even a way to protect rights. In a Libertarian view of the world like hers, the individual is everything. As my fellow blogger Pedgehog would say, it's "fauxgressive." It's a way of co-opting the language of progressive people and using it to establish regressive policies.
[Addendum: April 14, 2012. Thanks to Warren Kinsella for researching Smith's conscience in her own words. Read her record on these issues here.]
It is not progressive or gay friendly to give people a means to discriminate against gay people. No one is going to give Smith a rainbow pin for that.
Where would this right to discriminate end? The Globe and Mail in it's main editorial yesterday derides the idea and asks if it would extend to being allowed to refuse to marry inter-racial couples. Could doctors refuse to prescribe birth control, or could pharmacists refuse to dispense it? In many towns throughout Alberta, there is only one pharmacy. This could seriously affect people's capacity to access birth control and emergency contraception like Plan B.
I'm interested in how conscience rights would apply to teachers. Would teachers who objected to the idea of evolution be forced to comply with the curriculum? Would a policy like the one mentioned above, the one that protects gay students and staff be enforceable in a world where conscience rights can trump human rights protections?
Conscience rights could be used to justify all sorts of nonsense in schools. For example, once I joined the Board, I met with a group of parents concerned that an anti-choice group related to American Crisis Pregnancy Centres, an outfit called the Pregnancy Care Centre, was being invited into schools to provide sexuality education. They said they had not been able to make any headway on the issue and had been unable to get a response from their Trustee in the past. This did not surprise me. I met with many constituents who had been unable to get a response from Smith while she was in office and were frustrated by this. In an article by Maurice Tougas for Alberta Views about Smith’s leadership potential, Tougas interviewed Jennifer Pollock, who indicated that, "Smith had no interest in attending meetings with the public, and claims that Smith told people: 'We’ll tell you what we want you to know.' Smith and Anderson, Pollock says, only wanted to hear opinions from the public that reflected their own views, and were not interested in more 'esoteric' matters, such as art education." This parent group I met with had a well-founded concern that the CBE was not living up to its responsibility to offer comprehensive sexuality education according to Alberta Curriculum. One parent reported that the representative from the anti-choice group was in her child's class. She held out an oreo cookie and asked the class who wanted it. Hands shot up. Then she opened it, licked the filling, put it back together and asked who wanted it now. Groans and gags ensued. The representative said that's what the students would be like if they had sex before marriage.
Will conscience rights bring us back to abstinence lessons like this? Conscience rights will not move us forward. They invite discrimination and the kind of thinking that we have spent decades evolving beyond.
In a column written by Smith in 2000 and reproduced here, (go to the bottom) Smith mentions the Pregnancy Care Centre to say they seem to be doing things right because they want to help youth with sexual decision making. Yes, they do, as long as the decision isn't pro-choice. If Ms Smith is pro choice and stands for gay rights, her actions do not reflect it, then or now.
Looking at the potential candidates for a Wildrose Cabinet noted by blogger Daveberta, I’m concerned that protecting the human rights of LGBTI persons is going to be contentious again. Link Byfield (candidate in Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock) is the former publisher of Alberta Report, a magazine remembered by my gay and lesbian friends for the hateful nonsense it obsessively printed about homosexuals. Another potential Cabinet Minister is John Carpay (candidate in Calgary-Lougheed). He thought Ralph Klein should have used the Notwithstanding Clause so Alberta could continue to discriminate against gays and lesbians. Carpay has defended Bill Whatcott against charges in Saskatchewan. Whatcott recently delivered disgusting homophobic flyers door to door in Calgary. The Charter protects his right to free speech. He doesn't need a conscience clause for this. He does need a conscience clause if he wants to take this ideas one step further, become a marriage commissioner and refuse to marry gays or lesbians.
Moving on to reproductive rights rights, as Daveberta notes, potential Cabinet Member Carpay also defends the University of Calgary Campus pro-life group, a group discussed on this blog many times. They bring the CCBR's GAP presentation, also known as the fetus porn show, to campus. Many of the same faces from campus pro-life show up at various Calgary locations like Stampede to share their fetus porn with unsuspecting families and passersby. The GAP presentations compare abortion to the Holocaust. The CCBR also operates the dreadful fetus mobile that drives around Calgary. Many Calgarians despise this truck. Even Bishop Henry finds the tactics of this group offensive.
One way to test if policy is in any good is to apply specific cases and see what happens. For example, we have learned, thank goodness, that the application of the case of abortion in the Wildrose policy of citizen initiated referendum shows how the policy fails and fails spectacularly. Such a case would violate Charter rights. Worse, while it was fought, it would leave women vulnerable.
Smith is on the record stating that she doesn't think the public should have to fund abortions. Again, the column is reproduced here. In it, she says much more than that. She says:
"Any politician who challenges the status quo gets pilloried by the media, abortion-rights groups and opposing politicians.
Yet when the courts struck down the Criminal Code sections that dealt with abortion in 1988, they never said, 'And ye shall never pass laws on this matter again.'
What they did say was that the process for approving the procedure, through therapeutic abortion committees, was flawed and cumbersome, and denied a woman her right to security of the person.
However, writing in favour of striking down the legislation, Justice J. Wilson also said that the protection of the fetus 'is a perfectly valid legislative objective' and that 'Section 1 of the Charter authorizes reasonable limits to be put upon the woman’s right.'
In fact, the court said a fetus should be treated differently depending on its level of development, suggesting 'a permissive approach to abortion in the early stages where the woman’s autonomy would be absolute and a restrictive approach in the later stages where the state’s interest in protecting the fetus would justify its prescribing conditions.'
And where does the line get drawn?
The esteemed court said it 'should be left to the informed judgment of the legislature.'"
If Ms Smith looks progressive, it's only because she associates with the most regressive politicians in Canada. It has been made clear that de-listing could happen through a referendum and she has not definitively ruled that out. Meanwhile, the campaign to de-fund abortion has already started at Alberta Pro-Life. They seem pretty pumped. I wonder what they know?
If Ms Smith really is pro-choice and supportive of gay rights, I for one would like to see her act on those beliefs. Until then, I'll remain unconvinced.
Part Two of Smith's Risky History - Creating a Narrative of Persecution
Part Three of Smith's Risky History - Government Smith Style
-----
The Abortion Monologues is available as an e-book on Smashwords
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Alberta Wildrose party on Abortion
Well, as I always do, I contacted each of the major political parties in the upcoming Alberta election to do a little check up on choice. These are the questions I asked:
Does your party support a woman's right to choose? What will your party do to expand access to abortion services in Alberta, especially in rural areas and the north? Does your party believe in fully funding all medically necessary health services, including abortion?
Here is the response from the Wildrose, deleting the salutations:
"Wildrose is committed to Alberta values of free enterprise, less government, increased personal freedom and democracy. We also recognize that views about social and moral issues are diverse, and we believe that individuals ought to be able to hold, and express, their opinions.
See also More on Wildrose and Abortion
Does your party support a woman's right to choose? What will your party do to expand access to abortion services in Alberta, especially in rural areas and the north? Does your party believe in fully funding all medically necessary health services, including abortion?
Here is the response from the Wildrose, deleting the salutations:
"Wildrose is committed to Alberta values of free enterprise, less government, increased personal freedom and democracy. We also recognize that views about social and moral issues are diverse, and we believe that individuals ought to be able to hold, and express, their opinions.
The
legalities of abortion fall under federal jurisdiction. We respect that
Albertans view social issues differently, which is why Wildrose would
immediately introduce legislation allowing citizens to put issues like abortion
to a citizen initiated referendum. This open and democratic process allows
Albertans to tell government what they believe is important.
Thank
you again for your email. We look forward to your support on April 23rd."
Well, thanks for that, but NO, you will not have my support on April 23rd. For the purposes of this forum, I'm going to state my objections to the Wildrose only in terms of the questions I asked here.
First off, none of the questions were answered. Instead, they say they'll put social issues to a referendum. Remember when the good old boys of the Reform/Alliance party decided that a referendum was the best way to settle everything? Remember how Rick Mercer mercilessly mocked the idea in the famous "Doris Day" skit? He got a bunch of Canadians to sign a petition to have Stockwell Day change his name to Doris. That's the kind of ridiculousness that government by referendum enables. Referendum is for those who can't be bothered with policy.
Government by referendum is government by special interest. Whoever can mount the most effective campaign on any issue, abortion or otherwise, and has the funds to make a dent in the fickle public psyche wins. That means the good citizens of Alberta could decide, if they see fit, to defund abortions, to keep abortions from being performed in Alberta, to prevent women from accessing medically necessary care, to decide some people aren't deserving of human rights. Or, the good citizens of Alberta, the majority of whom are pro-choice, could go the other way. They could say, "Hey, it's pretty crazy a woman can't get an abortion if she lives in Fort Mac." We could all decide that this is a situation that has to be resolved, insist more doctors and clinics are available and that no woman be forced to travel or wait for an abortion. But the point is, neither of these things should be decided by referendum. Why? Because it's about human rights, as the Supreme Court has said over and over and over again.
If a citizen wants to put the human rights of any particular group at issue, say GLBTI, green people, or in this case WOMEN, to see if the preservation of their rights wins the popularity contest of the referendum, that's unacceptable. Human rights, my friends, can't be decided by referendum. That's why political parties need policies, specific policies, not this kind of baloney. But that's what libertarians do - they abandon the responsibility of policy making and call that policy instead.
The Wildrose isn't conservative. It is libertarian. Their beliefs can be summed up in the phrase, "I'm all right Jack, and if you're not, that's not my fucking problem." They care about private interest, not public interest. On the surface, libertarianism seems like the ultimate kind of government for the pro-choice person. Anyone can do what they want. But our choices are always socially constructed. If government decides not to, say, support midwifery, guess what? Most of us can't afford it privately, and midwifery gets this sense about it that it's not "legitimate." Sure, no one is stopping us from using midwives, but when there aren't any available and no one can afford them anyways except rich folks and midwives can't make a living and leave the province in droves, the choice has still been made for us. That was the status of midwifery in Alberta for decades. This is the side of libertarianism that matters here. If we're all just looking out for number one, who builds the roads? If we're all just looking out for number one, who protects human rights?
Further, abortion is and isn't a federal issue. Yes, legally it is under federal jurisdiction, but that's not what I asked, is it? That's just an excuse not to deal with the questions. The Canada Health Act outlines broad parameters. There is a lot of room within them for interpretation by the provinces. How health care is delivered, what gets delivered, how much, in what space of time, and all that, is a provincial issue. Provinces can make a host of decisions on their own that can affect care for many people. That's one reason why some provinces have long wait lists for hip replacements and others don't. That's one reason why some provinces cover podiatry and others don't. And the federal conservatives have shown no interest in protecting women's rights to access medically necessary services including abortion in PEI, where no abortions are available at all, or in New Brunswick, which is currently violating women's rights as well. For more on this, see earlier posts about New Brunswick and PEI.
So if you care about protecting existing access to abortion in Alberta or even making it better, the Wildrose is not your party, unless of course you want to save your $300 Danielle bucks for a quick trip to BC or SK.
I'll post responses from the other parties too, if and when I get them.
----
The Abortion Monologues is now available as an e-book on Smashwords.
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