Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rises in the House of Commons during Question Period, on Nov. 20.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
Conspiracy theories these days tend to involve such imaginings as airplanes spraying chemtrails of toxins, or microchips hidden in vaccines. But one very durable bit of nonsense is promoted by the Liberal Party of Canada: that Conservatives would restrict abortion rights if they form government.
While the abortion issue stokes anger and division in the United States and elsewhere, Canada is blessed with a near-total, long-standing consensus at the political level in favour of a woman’s right to choose. Instead of celebrating and reinforcing that consensus, the Liberals irresponsibly seek to create divisions where none exist.
Most recently, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet ministers were peddling the fiction that the Tories are itching to ban abortion, as the government introduced legislation that would strip charitable status from pregnancy counselling centres that don’t disclose whether they provide abortion services or referrals. Many of the centres are operated by faith-based organizations that oppose abortion.
“While we are protecting women’s freedom of choice, the Conservative Party is trying to roll it back,” the Prime Minister told the House of Commons.
Pierre Poilievre derided Mr. Trudeau’s “tinfoil-hat conspiracy theories and misinformation.” As the Conservative Leader pointed out, “it has been our 20-year-long policy in the Conservative Party that there will be no restrictions on women’s reproductive choices or on abortion.”
In the nearly 10 years that Stephen Harper’s Conservatives governed, they never introduced any measures to restrict access to abortions in Canada. They did prohibit foreign-aid funding for abortions in 2010, but that never translated into domestic restrictions, even after the party won a majority in 2011.
During their years as leader, both Andrew Scheer and Erin O’Toole vowed a Conservative government would never restrict abortion access. Mr. Poilievre, who describes himself as pro-choice, has repeatedly made the same promise.
For anti-abortion advocates, that leaves only the faint hope of a private member’s bill limiting abortion rights making it through the House of Commons and the Senate. Dozens of bills that would extend rights to a fetus have been introduced in that way over the decades. None have come remotely close to becoming law.
The Liberals are looking to channel the angst of American women, who have seen right-wing politicians roll back abortion access in the wake of the 2022 decision by that country’s Supreme Court to overturn Roe v Wade.
It’s understandable that Canadians, particularly women, would look at those regressive measures and worry about the same thing happening in this country. What’s not understandable is that the Liberals would take advantage of those worries to create a wedge issue for partisan advantage.
The legal and political landscape in Canada is fundamentally different. This country’s Supreme Court did strike down the existing abortion law in R. v Morgentaler in 1988, saying the legislation was unconstitutional because it violated a woman’s Charter right to security of the person. But it did not say that any abortion restrictions would be unconstitutional.
The Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney attempted to pass a law in 1990 with draconian restrictions on abortion rights. The bill passed narrowly in the House of Commons, but it died in the Senate on a tie vote.
Successive governments, Liberal and Conservative, have since wisely chosen to leave the decision on abortion where it should be: with a woman, and whomever she chooses to consult. That is a political choice, founded on and bounded by a wide consensus among Canadians. A recent poll on the issue found that eight in 10 Canadians favoured a woman’s right to choose whether to have an abortion.
A reversal of abortion rights in the face of that consensus would be a catastrophic mistake by any party, and would amount to political self-immolation. It’s utterly implausible.
There is no lack of Conservative policies that the Liberal Party can run against. They can criticize Conservatives on carbon pricing, housing, deregulation, crime and deficit reduction.
Of course, the Liberals are likely to find out that large numbers of Canadians side with their rivals – explanation enough for why they would prefer to stoke fears about abortion.