...more Conservative on abortion:
When the Supreme Court struck down the Trudeau abortion laws in 1988, it invited Parliament to draft new abortion legislation to rectify the deficiencies that led its decision. Not only did the Progressive Conservatives under Brian Mulroney take up the challenge by introducing a government bill in 1989, Mr. Mulroney forced his cabinet to support the bill, allowing a free vote for everyone else in his caucus.
...on Capital Punishment:
Similarly with capital punishment, the Mulroney government facilitated a free vote in the House of Commons in 1987 on a motion to restore the measure – abolished in 1976 – to the Criminal Code. Unlike the abortion bill which passed the House of Commons before stalling in the Senate, the motion to restore capital punishment was voted down. At least it was voted on though.
...on all matters fiscal:
Under Mr. Mulroney, federal program spending climbed from approximately $84.2 billion in 1984-1985 to approximately $122.2 billion in 1992-1993, an average increase of 5 percent per year. Under Mr. Harper, program spending grew from approximately $175.2 billion in 2005-2006, to a projected $206.8 billion in 2008-2009, an average annual increase of 4.5 percent.
When it comes to spending, this seems to confirm that Mr. Harper’s government has been more restrained than Mr. Mulroney’s was, but consider that Mr. Mulroney’s government had to contend with an average annual rate of inflation of 4.1 percent and an average unemployment rate of 9.5 percent during it’s time in office. In contrast to this, the current government has been blessed with average annual rates of inflation and unemployment of 2.4 and 6.1 percent respectively.
The bottom line:
...taking all of the objective facts into account, one is forced to conclude that the federal Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney was, both fiscally and socially, far more conservative than the present Conservative government of Stephen Harper.
Well, not really. In Harper's case, most of the social issues mentioned were already off the table when he came to power, and there is no politically survivable way he could put them back on (the most he can do is tolerate things like M. Vellacott's latest side-show, which of course will go nowhere and accomplish nothing).
On the other hand, Mulroney is the guy who got them off the table in the 1st place.
PS. Ben's article draws this response from Bill Donaldson, formerly president of the Nepean-Carleton riding association--2004-2006--and Pierre Poilievre's very first campaign manager:
Being of libertarian mind I was attracted to the Reform Party and the Alliance because in their screeds were explicit elements of libertarianism and what those entailed for individual rights, freedom, smaller government, rational economics, etc. Even with my eyes shut tightly and my nose held hard, it's clear to me that the CPC is steaming well away from any of those ideas. I'm on the verge of doing other things with my time.
Holy shit, its like they're in perfect disarray!
4 comments:
Thank you anonymous spell checking dude.
I don't remember the abortion debate in the 80's being so entangled with the issues of sexuality and sexual liberation. I'm sure people more invested in the issue than I was were aware of it, but the rest of us didn't have LifeShite etc. to make us aware of the fact that anti-choicers are fundamentally, anti-sex...particularly for women. The debate really was much more focused on the issue of whether abortion was anything like murder.
Mulroney was singularly uninterested in what people did in their private lives and in that respect, was not a conservative like Mullah Ben-Ami imagines conservatives are supposed to be. He was a Tory.
Mulroney's capital punishment vote was the 1980s equivalent of Harper's vote on same-sex marriage. The issue had already been settled (although public opinion still favoured capital punishment in theory, if not in practice), but a so-con rump would not let it lie.
To get their votes, Mulroney, like Harper, promised a free vote that he moved heaven and earth to make sure he lost. (In Mulroney's case, unlike Harper with banning marriage, he was not willing to actually pretend he personally supported capital punishment).
In both cases, the tactic worked and took the issue off the table, presumably permanently. The idiots got their free vote under a Conservative government (in Mulroney's case, once with a massive majority and an actual majority of the popular vote) and still lost. Eventually they, as socon MPs always do, realized a gold-plated pension was worth a lot more than getting to decide to kill someone they don't know or preventing a couple they don't know from marrying.
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