The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada is
backing the call by Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth to reopen the abortion debate – entirely through
the back door – by debating the Criminal Code definition that a child is not a
human being until birth. Of course, Woodworth wants to talk about “medical
science” – but doesn’t want to use medical terms like “fetus.” For what it’s
worth, Harper isn’t going to let this go ahead, so we’ll let them have their
moment on a slow news day.
Proposed amendments to the Liberal Party
constitution to be debated at the party’s convention next week include a bunch
of baffling resolutions around devaluing membership to create “supporters” for
their proposed system of primaries (which we’ve discussed before as a really
bad idea in the long run), as well as some half measures on reducing a leader’s ability to appoint candidates. Of course, none of this
really does anything to strengthen the role of the grassroots membership, which
any serious attempt at party reform should really be considering.
In a not unrelated note, over in the National Post, Andrew Coyne reminds us why primaries work in the States, and why they’re a bad fit for Canada.
A former Bloc MP wants the courts to block the government’s decision to pull out of the Kyoto Protocol, saying it’s
unconstitutional and citing the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act passed in 2007.
Sylvia Bashevkin, one of the country’s
leading scholars on women in politics, looks at the NDP leadership and says
that Peggy Nash and Niki Ashton will have to do more than just talk about how
they’ll do politics differently; they have to translate that into policy terms if they
hope to get ahead.
While there are new concerns about our
coming free trade agreement with Honduras, here’s my story that looks back
at how Scott Brison got a human rights treaty as part of the agreement with
Colombia.
And Peter MacKay has tied the knot with an Iranian-born
former beauty queen and current human rights campaigner. Apparently James Moore also got married just before New Year’s. That’s two fewer bachelors
in Cabinet – when can we hope for John Baird’s announcement?
Why you can trust Xtra
