Meet Maurice Vellacott. He's the Conservative MP for Saskatoon-Wanuskewin, a riding close by Saskatoon-Humboldt, represented of course by noted Harper-basher and women's-rights-denier Brad Trost. Vellacott shares his fellow MP's views on Planned Parenthood, the international non-profit dedicated to sexual education, reproduction rights, and generally helping the poor of the earth to make good decisions when it comes to their sexual health. The International Planned Parenthood Foundation offers a diverse array of programs and educational services, all of which, in the stunted intellectual capabilities that Saskatoon is apparently offering the nation, equal out to mean "abortion". It's the sort of disingenuous nonsense that the Tea Party members of the American Republican party have been spouting, sent north and given a good ol' prairie boy packaging.
Paul Bell, a spokesperson for IPPF, states unequivocally that funding received from the Canadian government does not and will not be used to fund abortion-related services and education in countries where such practices are illegal. Vellacott, of course, calls them lying liars with burning pants, claiming at the language used in the press release is "deceitful" and that IPPF is trying to "con" the Conservatives into funding their evil baby-killing practices. He goes on to say that he imagines them fleeing back to their glittering modern abortion multiplexes and laughing maniacally, tenting their fingers with schemes gleaming in their eyes. Quoth he: "It exposes what this abortion giant is surreptitiously trying to achieve worldwide". In further news, Vellacott thought that that Onion article was an eye-opening experience.
It's a depressingly familiar cycle that really gained strength since the dawn of neo-liberalism. A progressive individual or organization says something rational using an argument appealing to logic. A reactionary proceeds to sneer through an attack on said argument, building up the opponent to be an Other with malicious intent and implying high crimes and misdemeanors - an argument based largely on emotion. Appeals to ersatz populist ideas about morals and religion play well in the American political scene, but until the rise of the Reform Party in the early 1990s it wasn't a major factor in our elections. I think Harper is politically savvy enough to realize that this is the public opinion of a minority of his party (and of the country as a whole) but the fact that these people are elected officials in 2011 (and part of a majority government) is odious. The people of Canada made this decision decades ago. Has something changed so significantly that we need to revisit this decision?
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