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

'Still reviewing'

by Aaron Wherry on Thursday, April 21, 2011 9:08am - 127 Comments

Conservative incumbent Brad Trost boasts that anti-abortion advocates convinced the government to defund Planned Parenthood.

The Prime Minister’s Office says it can’t comment on specific applications. A spokesman for International Cooperation Minister Bev Oda says Planned Parenthood’s application is still being reviewed.

That application was submitted in June 2009.

For the rather long history of this government’s dancing around the question of Planned Parenthood, see here.

Tags: abortion, Bev Oda, Brad Trost, maternal health, Planned Parenthood

More by Aaron Wherry

LdKitchenersOwn

I know that when Congress was discussing the funding of PP in the States recently (they're still going to fund it btw) that Senator John Kyl claimed that well over 90% of what Planned Parenthood does is abortions. Later it came out that the actual number is slightly lower (3%). I presume that this number represents either PP's American operations or their global operations. Anyone have any idea what the number in Canada might be?

I know I've seen a lot of PP public service ads on the bus on the way to work lately, but I haven't seen one talking about abortion yet.

Also, back to the Kyl thing, I should point out that I LOVED the response from the Senator's office to the fact that his number was off by a factor of 30. The Senator's office simply issued a release explaining that the Senator's comment, in a speech on the floor of the Senate mind you, was "not intended to be a factual statement". LOL. That's got to be one of the funniest lines from a Congressional office in the history of the Republic! Of course, it led to this, and the invention of a new Twitter hashtag: #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement It's great fun actually. Tweet any nonsensical, completely factually incorrect thing you want, and by simply adding "#NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement" you can get away with it!!!

As Colbert said of Kyl “You can’t call him out for being wrong when he never intended to be right. … That is an amazingly liberating defense.”
LdKitchenersOwn

I can't for the life of me understand how Emily's rating is so high, but that number aside, I do question that she is a "respected commentator". On a lot of issues she's probably ideologically closer to me than many other commenters who are more on the right, but I respect those other commenters a LOT more. I'd even go so far as saying that I respect Dennis_F (whom you discuss below) more, and that guy drives me NUTS sometimes.

Anyway, allow me to also add a note of thanks for a great reply to gottabesaid.
Yanni

You're a history grad and you still think Engels is worth paying attention to?

Richard… as a fellow history grad, you made me sad.

Richard_S_Argent

Yes, that specific book is a wonderful historical document that gives us a detailed glimpse into the mind of 19th Century socialism and the conditions they were so desperate to solve.

You don't have to agree with Engels to see its historical value.

Yanni

Oh, I thought you were enamored of Hegel/Marx's/Engel's view about zeitgeist and development of society as evolving to higher levels of consciousness.

I'm happy again.

Richard_S_Argent

Nah, not so much. I used to be a fan of Structuralism, but seem to have turned into a bit of a technological determinist of all things :)

cheers!

LdKitchenersOwn

It is ironic that some people can't get past Sanger's 1920s racism, and put it in context, in a country where most of the founding fathers were slave-owners.

bergkamp

I love founding father discussions, they are my heroes, and would like to point out my two fav ff's – J Adams and B Franklin – were both anti-slavery.

LdKitchenersOwn

Yeah, the American founding fathers were pretty cool.

The slavery issue is interesting too in this context. Take Thomas Jefferson for example, a man known as a fierce champion of liberty, but who owned hundreds of slaves in his life and relied on them for his businesses, but who was also anti-slavery, but who freed none of the slaves belonging to him except for those believed to be related to him by blood (the children of Sally Hemmings were apparently the only slave family set free from Monticello).

It was a complicated time (but then, aren't they all?).

bergkamp

Jefferson tried hard to ban slavery but he was not successful in his agenda during Constitution talks. I think Jeffferson was anti-slavery but he was also broke his entire adult life and could not afford to free his slaves and hire people as labourers. Finances before principles.

Richard_S_Argent

I can't remember, how long did it take the Conservatives to review the long form census?
noob_goldberg

Apparently they were preparing that idiotic move for two months prior to making it public!

I thought it was a poorly thought-out spur of the moment policy, but it turns out that they had put some thought into it.

Now, why they weren't able to tell us what their thoughts actually were and had to hide behind StatCan bureaucrats, I have no idea.
tobyornotoby

Again I remind everyone that we have a sophisticated modern government that makes its decisions methodically and that takes time. All the options are examined, all the implications are carefully weighed and then the best policy ideas are rejected one by one in order to implement the ideologically correct solution.
noob_goldberg

It's surprising how many people think exactly the way you suggest. My spouse gets annoyed with me because apparently I have no respect for 'why the government's rules exist the way they do'. And my retort is that 'you have no idea how those rules came to be, and if you did you'd become a staunch libertarian'.

She thinks I'm too full of myself (guilty as charged). I think she's too trusting.