In their last ditch effort to keep the Conservatives from forming government, Paul Martin’s war room is doing its best to try label Conservatives “regressive” social conservatives on the issue of abortion. They’ve gone after Conservative candidate Jason Kenney for attending a pro-life rally. However, the rally was co-attended by Liberal MPs Dan McTeague and Albini Guarnieri.

Let’s consider a few quotes uttered by Liberals on this divisive issue:

Prime Minister Paul Martin on abortion:

“I am personally against abortion on demand, but I believe it is very clear that there must be legislation brought in that will deal with what is becoming simply a mish-mash of approaches” – Paul Martin (Halifax Daily News, July 20, 1989)

Further, according to the same edition of the Halifax Daily News:

“Martin said the prime minister must immediately recall parliament to introduce new abortion legislation”

and finally, Paul Martin on abortion laws and judicial activism:

“It’s very clear that we are going to have 10 different [abortion] laws and that we are going to have these laws made by judges” (Halifax Chronicle-Herald, July 20, 1989)

Joe Fontana said that abortion should be limited to “exceptional extenuating circumstances” involving rape or incest (London Free Press, October 12, 1988). Joe Fontana is the current Minister of Labour

Minister of Veterens Affairs Albina Guarnieri on abortion and judicial activism and a woman’s choice: “The decision as to which life merits protection cannot be left to judges, doctors, or even women themselves. The issue must be dealt with on a national level by Parliament so that we as elected representatives may once and for all establish the supremacy of life and the protection of the unborn as would befit a civilized society. We must not be condemned by a future Parliament for legitimizing the termination of hundreds of thousands of unborn Canadians” (Hansard, November 23, 1989)

“Bill C-43 is abortion on demand with red tape…In effect, the legislation makes it possible for women to seek and obtain abortions for reasons that may have more to do with lifestyle considerations than with actual physical endangerment” – Albina Guarnieri (Hansard, November 23, 1989).

“In fact, the health clause will operate as nothing more than a rubber stamp condonement of abortion on demand. It will allow women to abort their unborn child based on a fleeting notion of immediate convenience” – Albina Guarnieri (Hansard, November 23, 1989).

“To imperiously determine which life should be afforded protection of the law and which should not would leave our society extremely susceptible to the social decision-making characteristic of the genocidal policies of certain Third World nations” – Albina Guarnieri (Hansard, November 23, 1989).

Joe McGuire, the current Minister of ACOA called abortion “the murder of another human being” (Hansard, November 27, 1989)

Consider Minister of Immigration Joe Volpe’s comments on abortion: “The government has contented itself with casting the issue in the context of abortion, a context which invariably favours the rights of those who are present against those who are silent, a context which too often is seen as purely a woman’s issue” (Hansard, November 22, 1989)

and these are just quotes from the PM and cabinet ministers… anybody got any good Tom Wappel quotes?

UPDATE: “There is no legal right to abortion in this country, according to the Supreme Court of Canada.” – Tom Wappel, former Martin Liberal MP

According to Wikipedia: In his nomination speech, Wappel called for abortion to be made a criminal offense with a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

Remember that at their inaugural (and latest) policy convention in March 2005, the CPC approved the following policy:
“a Conservative government will not initiate or support any legislation to regulate abortion.”

Here are some more quotes by Liberal MPs:

Maurizio Bevilacqua:
“Hon. members, everything I believe, everything that I hold dear, my social and cultural make-up, my personal beliefs as a human being, tells me that abortion is wrong. I feel within myself, passionately, that abortion is against the natural order. It negates the essence of our being” – Maurizio Bevilacqua (Hansard, November 27, 1989).

“I do not understand how any of us can accept giving the responsibility and the right to anyone to decide on who will live and who will not” – Maurizio Bevilacqua (Hansard, November 27, 1989).

Paul Szabo is a current Liberal MP and gave his opinion on what choice he believes women have:
“Last year there were over 110,000 abortions in Canada with a cost to our health care system of over $10 million. That is over 300 abortions each and every day. It says that each year 110,000 mistakes are made at the expense of all Canadians by those who fail to act responsibly. Is it too much to ask Canadians just to be responsible for their actions? We do have a choice and that choice should be made before we act, not after we have failed to act responsibly” – Paul Szabo (Hansard, November 27, 1998).

Alan Tonks (another current Liberal MP):
“Generally speaking, I opt on the side of life. I don’t support carte-blanche abortion,” Mr. Tonks said. “If there was a motion that was presented to review and send to committee, whatever the nature of the change being asked, I would always support it going to the committee” (Globe and Mail, January 14, 2006).

Liberal incumbent Maria Minna quickly shot back at Beaches-East NDP challenger Marilyn Churley when Ms. Churley questioned her omission of Paul Martin’s name on her election signs on Mike Duffy Live a couple of days ago. Ms. Minna asserted that old stock signs were in rotation in the riding and that no conclusions should be drawn from what might have otherwise appeared to be a snub from the left-of-centre Chretienite Liberal.

The exchange is reminiscent of the 2004 election when the word “Liberal” was dropped from campaign signs to play to what Grits believed to be their strength in the face of Liberal scandal: their new leader Paul Martin. Thus, the campaign signs proudly displayed “Team Martin” and Chretien Liberals scowled at the Martin faction.

However, in the current election, evidence suggests that even some staunch Martin friends are turning away from their leader as pollsters are discovering that Paul Martin is now a hindrance to Liberal fortunes.

Consider Liberal candidate Bob Speller who was Paul Martin’s Minister of Agriculture before he was upset by Conservative candidate Diane Finley. According to the May 4 2005 edition of the Hamilton Spectator, Paul Martin had personally appealed for the former agriculture minister to run again in the riding of Haldimand-Norfolk.

Speller later agreed to take on the task and in the June 20th 2005 edition of the Simcoe Reformer, the local Liberal EDA president boasted “He was a cabinet minister and will be again”.

Speller, however, has released his own “blueprint” for the riding, deviating from the national campaign’s literature and has designed his own signs which, by local reports, have replaced the standard Liberal signs as the campaign has progressed.

If an ally of Paul Martin originally passed on the “Paul Martin Liberals” sign and if he is now ditching the classic Liberal sign to run on his own style in order to increase his electoral chances, this could be another example of the implosion of Mr. Martin’s campaign.

If you turn on the television late at night and catch the evening news you might catch a story about how a regular citizen, perhaps your neighbour, your mailman, or your teacher has broken the latest news through their blog. (“blog” is short for “web log” — a sort of personal online diary of events arranged in reverse chronological order). Now, if you turn on your cable news station at anytime of the day, tune into podcasts or if you actually know what a “blog” is, you already know the news. While Peter Mansbridge and Lloyd Robertson tell you “and that’s the kind of day it’s been”, indeed, the sun has already set on this format of news.

For those of you just catching up, this election has been set by the pulse of blogs. For those of you who have been following the blogs for your election coverage, we’ve been glad to have you along for the ride. For those of you who are still trying to sound out the word and wonder if “the trend” is anymore than disgruntled teenagers talking about how the world sucks and how they like to cut themselves, it’s time to catch up.

Indeed, all three federalist parties in Canada during this election missed the boat on blogs. The Liberal Party mustered up perhaps the best effort in Scott Feschuck’s inane attempt to channel what people think blogs are (see above) as opposed to how blogs can be used effectively to convey breaking news, eyewitness reports and in some cases, brilliant editorial opinion. The Conservatives launched a noble effort which faced criticism in the early days for being too much like a press release. The NDP though has been on record saying that since blogs didn’t have an effect in the 2004 election, they likely would not have an effect during the current election. While all the Liberals and the Conservatives tried to hop on the blog bandwagon, they did so in a way that they tried to capture the trend instead of use it to its full capacity.

The media, however, has perhaps been the most ignorant of the use of blogs and what they truly represent. While the CBC Newsworld anchor turns it over to the knockoff “inside the blogs” segment to find out what Larry in Flin Flon thinks about the handgun ban (he thinks “it sucks”), your friendly neighbourhood blogger is calling his sources, digging through government documents online and is rounding out his story through tips left by email and via his comments section. CTV.ca and CTV Newsnet have been exceptions to the rule, however. Their electionblog section and Mike Duffy’s sourcing of blogs has been admirable.

Indeed, bloggers have broken countless news stories during this election. Weeks before Christmas, Steve Janke, Matt Braaten and I were digging through forensic financial data from the markets, receiving tips from concerned brokers and were tapping our contacts at the Western Standard, CTV, and the Globe and Mail for leads and information that was “too raw for primetime”. We broke the income trust scandal on our blogs and were aghast when the CBC gave a summary view of the story and called it an exclusive.

Other stories broken by bloggers during this election include the potential truth behind the international spat orchestrated by Paul Martin, Ralph Goodale’s request for a sole-source contract for Earnscliffe, Ralph Goodale’s faxscam, David Smith’s Abotech affair, and Tony Valeri’s land dealings among others.

How did the bloggers do it? After all, many of them haven’t graduated from journalism school, most do not have the resources to follow the various leader’s tours for $1500 a day. How do they do it?

A good political blogger has sources like any other journalist, sources in each party, sources in various news organizations and sources at the local coffee shop. It is quite ignorant to think that bloggers do not have the know-how to make a phone call, the talent to follow up with an email or the ability to set up a meeting or an interview.

This is why I read with not much astonishment that Blogging Tories, as a group, has been forwarded to Elections Canada. My lack of astonishment doesn’t reside in the fact that the group that I co-founded has been libeled; my lack of astonishment is a function of the ignorant parties involved in the persecution of bloggers.

Canada’s election watchdog received a complaint yesterday from a disaffected party member who claims the Tories tried to sway political opinion in cyberspace in the leadup to, and during, the election by setting up the popular “Blogging Tories” website.

This accusation is untrue. The Conservative Party of Canada had no involvement in setting up Blogging Tories. Blogging Tories was founded on December 28th, 2004 by Craig Smith and me. This can be easily verified.

The site appears to be a coalition of like-minded individuals who have met in cyberspace to share their political opinions and express their frustrations with Paul Martin’s Liberals.

Appears to be? Please, you obviously didn’t spend 10 seconds looking at the site. Anybody with two brain cells to rub together would conclude that we are a group of like-minded individuals.

But a Victoria man, Eugene Parks, and Toronto Tory dissident Carole Jamieson allege the venture may be in contravention of the Elections Act and thirdparty financing laws. They say it may have unduly influenced the election coverage and potentially the outcome of this campaign.”

Canwest is quoting a random man from Victoria and a “Tory dissident”? So much for reliable sources. Are we in violation of the Elections Act and thirdparty financing laws? Blogging Tories has no official (read: legal) affiliation with the Conservative Party of Canada. Certainly there are members who hold membership in the party (like me), there are even some candidates from the Conservative Party running for election who are listed in our blogroll. However, Blogging Tories is actually quite a cheap operation to run. It’s hosted for about $16 US per month (that’s right: conservative-ideologues. Canadian friends of Stephen Harper. Running a website. Hosted in the US). The domain registration was about $30 Canadian and lasts the whole year.

In fact, I swear, under the penalty of perjury, that I have not received any financial compensation from the Conservative Party of Canada regarding the website “BloggingTories.ca” or “StephenTaylor.ca” nor have I been promised financial compensation by the Conservative Party of Canada in the future for my work on these two websites.

Am I volunteering for the party? I am under no obligation to the party for volunteering. I would certainly like to see Stephen Harper become the next Prime Minister of Canada, however, I have not been recruited for a volunteer role. To the extent that my blog and Blogging Tories breaks news that helps Stephen Harper become Prime Minister, I suppose I am volunteering in that sense. However, one should note that the finacial investment in Blogging Tories during the writ period has cost less than a good pair of walking shoes that a typical volunteer might buy to go door-knocking in a local riding.

Parks said he was approached by senior Conservative MP Diane Ablonczy in December 2005 after a Tory caucus retreat in British Columbia and asked to head what he described as a preelection initiative on behalf of the party. “At the time I was somewhat willing, but my loyalty to the Conservative Party was somewhat shaky,” he said.

Blogging Tories was up and running (and taking off) in late December 2004 (see above).

Third-party election financing laws state that it is illegal for a group to spend more than $150,000 during an election period related to a general election. It can also spend no more than $3,000 of that money “to promote or oppose the election of one or more candidates in a given electoral district.”

I wish I had that kind of money! For those of you who don’t know me, I’m an independent graduate student studying biochemistry at Queen’s University. If I had $3,000 to spend on promoting the Tories, I’d be more likely to spend it on food and rent instead of accumulating debt.

The law also says that the third party cannot bypass the spending restrictions by “splitting itself into two or more third parties.”

At it’s core, Blogging Tories is a list of links to conservative-minded blogs and an aggregation of entries from these blogs. These blogs do not contribute exclusively to Blogging Tories nor is there any financial obligations between Blogging Tories and the blogs that appear on the blogroll. Blogging Tories is certainly not a venture of the Conservative Party of Canada. Most bloggers that are associated with Blogging Tories have registered for free blogs at blogger.com.

I believe that blogging is perhaps one of the greatest things to happen to democracy. Often, blogging is free if you set up with a host like blogger.com, but blogging is certainly affordable to even the poorest members of mainstream society. Blogging allows the average citizen’s voice to be heard and Blogging Tories enables this for less than the price of a cup of coffee per day. Blogging is market-based reporting and punditry; the success of a blogger is correlated to the strength of their writing and ability to break news. If your national newspaper put together a story on Blogging Tories (without calling it’s founders as sources) then that is just another hill over which the sun will set on the and old and arid landscape that is the mainstream media, Carol Jamison and those that refuse to embrace or understand how blogs are the new tool for bringing free speech and democracy to the average citizen for little to no cost.

UPDATE: To the Liberal Party, who wishes to grab onto these false allegations and report them to smear Stephen Harper: the sun will soon set for you too.

Further reading:

• Elections Canada sees no problem with blogging during the election (Dec 2, 2005)

• Carol Jamieson aka Margaret Jamieson aka M Carol Jamieson aka Trojan Tory (Sept 21, 2005)

According to a new poll in La Presse to hit doorsteps later this morning, Conservatives are making a significant breakthrough in Quebec, while Liberal cabinet ministers are advised to update their resumes.

La Presse describes the results of eight polls done in La Belle Province between January 11th and 15th.

Each poll questioned 300 people giving a margin of error of 6%.

Liberal Minister of Heritage Liza Frulla is neck and neck with her Bloc adversary as the two split the electorate 34-33% respectively.

Lapierre is up by only 3 percent on Bloc competitor Jacques Léonard.

Pettigrew on the other hand is waaay behind the Bloc candidate as the Minister of Foreign Affairs has 27% while Vivian Bardot of the Bloc has 42%.

And now the Conservative news.

Conservative candidate Maxime Bernier is running in the Quebec riding of Beauce and sits at 57% and should take the riding while the Bloc candidate is running far behind at 28%.

In Louis-St-Laurent, Josée Vernier looks like she’s finally poised to be a Conservative MP as she leads the Bloc candidate with a staggering 59%.

In the Quebec riding Pontiac, Conservative star candidate Lawrence Cannon is only one point shy of the Bloc.

Angry posted on this earlier today and commented upon how the prison population overwhelmingly votes Liberal and that we’ve been paying for their ‘inking’ program.

Click to enlarge

Here we see a prisoner sporting a tattoo for his preferred party.

He is quoted as saying:

“We’re all voting Liberal because we all want to keep our vote, we don’t want to lose other rights, like maybe they (the Conservatives) are going to come in and we’re going to start losing our TVs other stuff like that.”

I hope that Elections Canada made sure that they took the necessary precautions and followed the law when this prisoner voted:

166. (1) No person shall (…) (b) while in a polling station, wear any emblem, flag, banner or other thing that indicates that the person supports or opposes any candidate or political party that is listed on the ballot under the name of a candidate, or the political or other opinions entertained, or supposed to be entertained, by the candidate or party; (…)

If a person was in violation of section 166, then section 497(7) should have been enforced:

Where a returning officer, deputy returning officer, central poll supervisor or person appointed under the Act believes on reasonable grounds that a person has contravened the Act, the officer, supervisor or appointed person may cause to be removed from, in the case of a returning officer, his or her office or, in the case of a deputy returning officer, central poll supervisor or appointed person, the polling station, any material that they believe on reasonable grounds was used in contravention of that paragraph.

I hope that Elections Canada made sure that the law wasn’t violated. I certainly have my suspicions.

In another leak from the Liberal war room, the latest Liberal attack ad has been revealed and it is nothing short of the most offensive vile american-style fearmongering election advertising that I have ever seen.

The Liberals must be really desperate if they’re going to try and portray Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party this way.

I’m disgusted!

The most desperate Liberal attack ad ever!
(Firefox users: right click and Save As. Must be played locally for some reason)
(IE users: do your thing)

Kate McMillan has already remarked on the glum faces that currently adorn the front page of the Liberal website.

However, there is something else that stands out. See the Canada Corps t-shirts worn by the young people in the back row?

Click to enlarge

Canada Corps is a federal program with a federal budget.

Did the federal government provide these t-shirts for a Liberal event?

If so, this is a small albeit telling case of abuse by the Liberal party of the resources of our federal government.

Have you ever been made to feel that your opinions reside outside of the mainstream?

… but is this Prime Minister now saying anything to get re-elected?

Consider Paul Martin’s “Hero Fund” announcement today:

A new Liberal government will introduce measures to honour and support Canada’s emergency first responders – who include firefighters, police officers, paramedics and medical personnel – the cornerstone of which is the creation of a Heroes Fund, Prime Minister Paul Martin announced today.

“The creation of a Heroes Fund is a way of giving back to those who bravely risk their lives every day to ensure our communities are safe and healthy places to live and work,” said the Prime Minister. “These people are Canadian heroes.”

The Heroes Fund is designed to compensate the families of first responders who are lost in the line of duty. This Fund is an important step. It’s a way of giving back to those who bravely risk their lives every day to ensure our communities are safe and healthy places to live and work.

Now consider this motion tabled in the House of Commons last year:

“That, in the opinion of this House, the government should: (a) recognize all firefighters who have fallen in the line of duty in Canada by establishing a benefit that would be awarded to the families of the fallen or permanently disabled firefighters; (b) support the proposed Canadian Fallen Firefighters Foundation mandate for the construction of a monument in a prominent position in the National Capital containing the names of all Canadian firefighters who have died in the line of duty; and (c) send a message to the Senate acquainting the Upper House of the decision of this House.”

Who voted against this motion?

Thirty-two members of the Liberal cabinet!

Anne McLellan, Reg Alcock, Mauril Belanger, Carolyn Bennett, Ethel Blondin-Andrew, Claudette Bradshaw, Scott Brison, Aileen Carroll, Raymond Chan, Irwin Cotler, Stephane Dion, Ujjal Dosanjh, Ken Dryden, David Emerson, Joe Fontana, Liza Frulla, John Godfrey, Ralph Goodale, Bill Graham, Jean Lapierre, John McCallum, Joe McGuire, Andy Mitchell, Stephen Owen, Jim Peterson, Pierre Pettigrew, Geoff Regan, Lucienne Robillard, Jacques Saada, Belinda Stronach, Tony Valeri and Joe Volpe.

Paul Martin is running against his own government’s record!

Here’s my contribution to the Liberal attack ad parodies. It’s on the serious side. But please, take a look.

Click here to play video