Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

'Our government will not re-open the debate on abortion, at home or abroad'

by Aaron Wherry on Wednesday, September 8, 2010 1:55pm - 0 Comments

Bev Oda writes to the Citizen to clarify the record. Seemingly on the subject of Planned Parenthood, she explains as follows.

In addition, the suggestion that the federal government is on the verge of funding or re-funding any specific organization is inaccurate. CIDA has neither called for, nor received applications from any organizations for funding under Canada’s G8 initiative, therefore no applications have been considered.

Thing is, it’s not entirely clear what the second sentence here has to do with the first sentence.

Planned Parenthood applied to have its funding renewed in June 2009, a full six months before the Prime Minister announced an intention to focus the G8 on maternal health. Ms. Oda, in an interview with Citizen, confirmed that her department has a proposal from Planned Parenthood. And Planned Parenthood has said that there are presently “active discussions” taking place between it and CIDA.

Tags: abortion, Bev Oda, CIDA, maternal health, Planned Parenthood

More by Aaron Wherry

Emily

Bev Oda is as confused as the rest of her party.

Anon

That could be because people who know Ms. Oda personally were shocked when she announced she was running for the Conservatives. That certainly must lead to a lot of inner turmoil and confusion for the Minister.

Emily

A lot of them seemed to run for whatever party they thought would get them in there, policies be hanged. Probably accounts for much of the confusion.

So we have Bev knowing full well that birth control and abortion are needed yet having to deny that, and Toews born in Paraguay wanting to blow up refugee ships, and Harper denying global warming while trying to be an energy superpower in a warming Arctic.

Pretzels, the lot of them.

Crit_Reasoning

I think Bev Oda was trying to point out that the Planned Parenthood funding renewal application currently being considered by CIDA is totally distinct from the G8 maternal and child health initative. The two issues have been conflated recently as evidence of some sort of government contradiction.

Canada has been funding Planned Parenthood to the tune of $6 million p.a. for many years. It's worth noting that Planned Parenthood funds abortions directly in some countries, but they do so using a separate fund that Canada doesn't pay into (other countries, including the UK, support this fund).

Orson Bean

The nerve of you, trying to insert facts into this discussion.

Emily

The fact is, Oda seems confused herself as to what she and the govt are doing. 'Guessing' at what she meant doesn't mean she did.

Standing By

Perhaps the Minister snuck out during the PMO orientation session called "Swallowing Yourself Whole."
Style

I want to know if the Liberals ever directly funded projects to increase access to abortion. If not, do they intend to make that their policy now?

Crit_Reasoning

I'm pretty sure that they won't make that their policy. As Machiavellian as it sounds, I think that Liberal strategists are probably hoping that Planned Parenthood's funding doesn't get renewed by the Conservative government. The Liberals will then try to use this to their political advantage in the next election campaign, without ever clarifying their own policy.

Style

But, why would they think that would work? Other than their many years of experience using this strategy…

Crit_Reasoning

I think they've figured out by now that the media isn't going to hold them accountable for stuff like this.

Style

It's the journalist's curse – every story needs a good guy in a white hat and a bad guy in a black hat. Here we have two guys with one hat. How do you write that story?
Orson Bean

"It's the journalist's curse – every story needs a good guy in a white hat and a bad guy in a black hat. "

It's not just the journalist's curse — it also seems to be the prevailing mindset of a lot of people who post comments on here. And it's also one of the symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder, according to the DSM. Go figure.

chet

While the leftists in the MSM promised us a radical in Steven Harper who would strangle a "woman's right to choose",

they are now left desperately goading the CPC into giving up some morsel on which they can cry "ahh haa!"

Funny how hard they have to try to find anything in the nature of evidence for what we were told would plain as day.

Agenda journalism anyone?
Mike T.

I am beginning to smell a rat.

I strongly suspect Canada has provided funding which has included abortions in the past, and that Cons are trying to rewrite history on the matter.

Style

Let's all hold our breath until the Liberal party provides evidence their governments funded overseas abortions and specifically projects to increase abortion access. That way you can stop smelling any rat.

Mike T.

You dodged the specificity before.

But I would be surprised and upset if Canadian funding in the past has not been given to groups where this has been part of their agenda and practice, and did not have accounting measures in place to make sure that only $ earmarked for abortions could be spend on abortions.

Style

That would be entirely consistent with the current Conservative policy. Which is the point people keep trying to get across: the Liberal policy and the Conservative policy are the same, but the Liberals keep pushing the Consservatives to make it worse. The Liberals are not proposing to strengthen the policy they have long-shared with the Conservatives, they are just making it more difficult for the Conservatives to maintain it.

Jenn_

Oh, so what you are saying is that the Conservatives will fund agencies and programs that include abortion as part of an overall service package, but just don't want to tell their base that? Because now it becomes clear.

It's the words "directly" and "included", right?
Style

They don't want to re-open the abortion debate and they don't want to change Canada's long-standing policy. What is so hard to believe about that? I think some of the confusion comes from people assuming the policy under Liberal governments was halfway good.
Mike T.

And i think that if all this is so, harper would say 'we have no problem with Canadian money funding abortions so long as it isn't specifically labelled for that exact purpose."

He's kind of said much different.
Style

Abortion politics in Canada is very sensitive. There aren't many politicians making clear statements about it.
Jenn_

Nothing is so hard to believe about that. It just isn't the spin (whether by the Conservatives themselves, the media, or my own mind) I've been getting.
Style

I don't know – I thought I was repeating the Conservative position almost verbatim there. I do agree that the media, the most vocal Conservative supporters and the Liberals are giving it a different spin though.
Standing By

I noted earlier that the communications strategy arounb the policy seems to be a blend of don't-ask-don't-tell and SFTU. It truly is a signature initiative for Harper.
Mike T.

What you are saying seems to explicity contradict Stephen Harper's statements regarding the African maternal funding issue.
Style

Is there anyway to explain to you that the G8 package is not Canada's entire aid budget, not even its entire aid budget for Africa?
Mike T.

You could see how the matter would be of great concern to a Canadian interested in delivering important maternal health care, though, right?
Style

How much are we spending on this aspect of maternal health? How does it compare to our past spending? Crit has dug up some research on this that suggests the answers are "not much" and "much the same".

Style

I wonder if the apparent lack of connection between those two sentences is why they appear in separate paragraphs in Oda's letter?

I liked this line better: "Canada has never directly funded any project aimed at increasing the availability of abortions in developing countries". As Crit points out above, other countries have. Could we get a clarification of the Liberal policy on this, either historically or presently? My understanding is that the Liberals have never committed any aid funding directly to increasing the availability of abortions and are not willing to say if their policy has changed.
Standing By

You ask: I wonder if the apparent lack of connection between those two sentences is why they appear in separate paragraphs in Oda's letter?

I note you are referring to two one-sentence paragraphs surrounded by other one-sentence paragraphs, so I'm unclear as to how this grammatical structure explains the Minister's connectivity problem. But a good try nonetheless.
Style

Yes, she has short paragraphs. Some are longer than one sentence. All of them relate to the G8 initiative. Is this one an exception? Tell me how it benefits Canadian abortion policy if we find out. If the Conservative party is currently considering funding Planned Parenthood under a different program, will that funding be more or less likely if we clarify that? In my opinion, it depends on whether the Liberal party is able to support a development policy that explicitly funds abortion. If they are unable to do that, the Conservative party will be unable to do that. In that case, resolving the ambiguity in this letter would cost Planned Parenthood whatever chance of funding it currently has.
Standing By

Sounds like an uncomfortable blend of don't-ask-don't-tell, and the STFU.

All I know for sure is that Harper found a way to reintroduce abortion as an international development issue after Bush lost the White House and could no longer champion the causes of the American religious right internationally. I'm sure the GOP and Tea Partiers appreciate Harper's efforts on their behalf, even if Canadians don't.
Standing By

Sounds like an uncomfortable blend of don't-ask-don't-tell, and STFU.

All I know for sure is that Harper found a way to reintroduce abortion as an international development issue after Bush lost the White House and could no longer champion the causes of the American religious right internationally. I'm sure the GOP and Tea Partiers appreciate Harper's efforts on their behalf, even if Canadians don't.
Style

You'll have to remind me when Mr. Harper brought up abortion. My recollection is he announced a maternal health initiative and Mr. Ignatieff then raised the issue of abortion. Which was strange, considering that the Liberal policy on development assistance for abortion is…crickets…
Standing By

Do you think when the PM and PMO looked into the maternal health as a potential G8 signature initiative, that no-one noticed that their plan would entail reversing Canada's long-standing policy of seeing abortion and family planning as part of the overall approach to maternal health?

I would find it to be surprising, maybe even alarming, if the PM and PMO were surprised by the obvious implication of this "signature initiative", or did not know that this initiative was tailor made to help the post-Bush American religious right shove the question of abortion back into international development policy discussions.
Crit_Reasoning

If I follow your logic, the whole maternal and child health initiative was nothing but a cunning ruse so that Harper could donate billions to the world's neediest without directly funding projects aimed at increasing the availability of abortions in developing countries, which Canada wasn't doing anyway and in fact has never done.

It was never about helping women and children. It's regrettable that billions of dollars in new funding will now be used to help the world's neediest, but this was unavoidable because it was necessary for the subterfuge to work.

Really, it was all about sucking up to the American religious right and the Tea Party (who are profoundly interested in Canada's foreign aid spending) by announcing that we would continue to do nothing on that controversial file, even though we had never done anything in the first place.

And it was a clear reversal of the longstanding Liberal policy of not actually having a policy on this issue, which means that even though they did nothing they didn't actively exclude doing something, as long as they never actually did it.
Style

Does Mr. Ignatieff know he's still working for the post-Bush American religious right? I thought he quit after he finished his Iraq war advocacy.
Standing By

You are not accurately characterizing Canada's traditional stance on this. Canada has traditionally focused on public health as a major part of its approach to international development, including aid specifically aimed at maternal and family health. It's always been a major part of our profile abroad. We have also seen abortion and family planning as part of the mix, when and where needed and possible.

As for Harper serving the American right, yes, I've noticed more and more, that his politics and issues seem to reflect more what one reads on right wing American blogs than you'd read, say, in a report on Canadian public opinion, for example.

Odd that, eh? As we get closer to the next election, Harper's interests seem to be matching up better with Tea Baggers than Canadians.

Makes one wonder if he might have a personal post-election plan of some sort that explains all this.
JustinWordswrth

Clearly, something needed to be not done.
Style

We have not seen abortion as part of the mix. Abortion is never mentioned. Apparently, projects to increase access to abortion have never been funded. Why did previous Liberal governments feel the need to align themselves with the radical American right in the way you suggest? What was their hidden agenda and did we thwart it?
Mike T.

Google isn't helpful right now because all the search terms come up with recent news article.

But I would bet money that the cons are attempting to rewrite historical by using the weasel word "directly".
Jenn_

Exactly my thought. If we fund the building of a hospital–and in that hospital they came to provide abortions along with other services, is that "directly" funding abortion? If we fund the wages of doctors and nurses in a village, and if the doctors and nurses provide abortions on occasion, is that "directly" funding abortion? What would constitute "direct" funding of abortion?
Style

I believe Bev Oda already answered that question explicitly when she said Canada provides funding to support specific country's health budgets and the exact disposition of those funds is up to the country themselves.. I'm very grateful to Mr. Ignatieff that, this time, he hasn't pretended this is secret code for eliminating a woman's right to an abortion.