Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Uniting the right
OTTAWA -- Stephen Harper may have finally succeeded in uniting the left and right wings of his fledgling Conservative Party. Unfortunately for Mr. Harper, some are uniting in anger against him.
Both camps were fuming yesterday after the party's national executive announced a plan that could keep what it calls "issues of moral conscience" from reaching the floor of a Conservative policy convention next week in Montreal.
The national caucus has introduced a resolution that would allow all of the party's MPs to vote according to their convictions -- and the will of their constituents -- on issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage and euthanasia. If that resolution passes, those issues will not be debated at the convention, nor would they become part of stated party policy -- although Mr. Harper could make them part of a future election platform.
Anti-abortion factions within the party and those that had hoped to prevent same-sex marriage are furious that the Conservatives may not even consider adopting those causes as policy.
And social moderates, many of whom were members of the old Progressive Conservative Party, say the resolution will justify accusations lobbed by the Liberals during the last election campaign that the party has a hidden right-wing agenda on social issues (Link).
