Effect of historic Canadian election on life and family remains uncertain

An interesting story from www.LifeSiteNews.com about potentially pro-life candidates winning an election in Canada. This follows this post about defunding Planned Parenthood at the state level. For more that you can do to get involved click  HERE and you can also get a very interesting book HERE!

Effect of historic Canadian election on life and family remains uncertain


by Patrick B. Craine


OTTAWA, Ontario, May 3, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The election of a Conservative majority government in Monday’s election may provide pro-life and pro-family Canadians with significant new opportunities to advance small-c conservative agendas and to stem the tide of social liberalism. At the same time, gains could be limited, given Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s adamant opposition to any legislation on the pro-life and gay “marriage” issues, as well as the loss of a small but stalwart group of key pro-life Liberals - casualties of the anti-Liberal wave.



The election brought historic changes to the federal political landscape, with the Conservatives winning their long-sought majority. The NDP swept through Quebec, tripling the party’s seats, all but eliminating the separatist Bloc Quebecois and handing the Liberal Party its most humiliating loss in history.



The official preliminary election results at the time of writing indicate the Conservatives took 167 or 54% of the 308 seats in the House of Commons, the New Democrats took 102 seats, the Liberals 34, the Bloc 4, and the Green party one. The popular vote was Conservatives 39.6%, NDP 30.6%, Liberals 18.9%, Bloc 6.1%, Green 3.9%, Christian Heritage Party 0.1% (total of 19,218 votes across Canada).



The Conservative/NDP polarization is predicted to usher in a new era in Canadian politics due to their radically diverging views.



The Conservative majority will almost certainly lead to some gains for pro-family Canadians, including support for choice in child care and the possibility of income splitting for families. Additionally, under the new government, the euthanasia and homosexual lobbies will have little chance of passing bills through Parliament.



A Conservative majority is, however, a limited victory for social conservatives, given Prime Minister Harper’s oft-repeated commitment to defeat any pro-life legislation brought forward, and the contradictory presence of a significant number of socially liberal MPs in the Conservative party.



The rout of the Liberals included the decimation of the party’s already-reduced contingent of pro-life MPs. The losses included five of the 10 Liberal MPs who backed Roxanne’s Law, which sought to protect women from being coerced into abortion: Ruby Dhalla, Gurbax Malhi, Dan McTeague, Paul Szabo, and Alan Tonks.



Borys Wrzesnewskyj, who had supported pro-life legislation but voted against Roxanne’s Law, was also defeated, and Albina Guarnieri, who had supported Roxanne’s Law, did not run for re-election.



McTeague and Szabo especially were long-time pro-life stalwarts who had been lauded, along with the re-elected John McKay, as pro-life “heroes” in 2010 after they defied the Liberal party whip to vote against Bob Rae’s motion calling for abortion funding in the government’s maternal health initiative. Szabo, however, may have also suffered from disappointing core supporters with his inexplicable Nov. 10, 2010 abstention on Bill C389. The bill, strongly opposed by Canadian social conservatives, proposed adding “gender identity” and “gender expression” to the Human Rights Act and Criminal Code.



The four remaining Liberals who backed Roxanne’s Law are: Jim Karygiannis, John McKay, Kevin Lamoureux, and Lawrence MacAulay.



The only notable pro-life loss on the Conservative side was Gary Lunn, former Minister for Sport. Lunn was replaced by Green leader Elizabeth May, who was adamant during the campaign that she is “very militant” in promoting access to abortion.



At the same time, there may be unknown gains for the pro-life movement from many of the new Conservative MPs whose positions on the life issues are unknown.



Significantly, the NDP surge also brought the defeat of three prominent Conservative cabinet ministers from Quebec - Jean-Pierre Blackburn, Lawrence Cannon, and Josee Verner. Blackburn had opposed Roxanne’s Law, and Cannon and Verner both favor abortion “rights” and same-sex “marriage.” Cannon and Verner were the only Conservatives to back euthanasia and assisted suicide in 2010.



Alongside the historic defeat of the Liberals came the catastrophic collapse of the separatist, extreme leftist Bloc Quebecois, from 47 seats to a mere 4.



The demise of the Bloc Quebecois is significant for the pro-life cause as the party has been intensely pro-abortion - no Bloc member backed last year’s abortion anti-coercion bill (C-510) - and they were the sole driving force behind the euthanasia bill (C-384) that was massively defeated in 2010.



Only two Bloc members opposed Bill C-384, while it was overwhelmingly opposed by the Conservatives, Liberals, and New Democrats - including both Prime Minister Stephen Harper and newly-minted Opposition Leader Jack Layton.



The Bloc was also at the forefront in advancing openly anti-Christian sentiment in Parliament (See here for example).



The election has produced an unprecedented partisan pro-life divide in the House, with the vast majority of pro-life MPs coming from the Conservative Party and an overwhelming pro-abortion presence in the opposition parties.

US Elections: Why Social Issues Matter

An interesting story from http://www.lifesitenews.com/ about U.S. elections, such as the one on June 8. This follows this post about forced abortions in China. For more interesting stories like this click here to follow this blog.

US Elections: Why Social Issues Matter
Chichester believes that present fiscal crisis is direct result of left's war on life and family

AUSTERLITZ, New York, (LifeSiteNews.com) - The upcoming November US elections are being held under the shadow of unprecedented global economic turmoil. As the chaos striking European nations deepens and threatens to spread, American conservatives are concerned that the politicians they support comprehend the origins and implications of this economic crisis and are willing to combat it effectively.
Tim Chichester, a candidate in the GOP primary for the US Senate seat occupied by Democrat appointee Kirsten Gillibrand, is working with the New York state Tea Party movement to educate voters on the true origins of the present crisis. An unapologetically pro-life veteran of the culture wars, Chichester believes that the present fiscal crisis is a direct result of the left's war on life and the family.
Chichester says, "Frederick Engels focused on social issues as the key to transforming society to the socialist model; he firmly held that religion, traditional marriage and family structure must be destroyed so as to bring about social conditions that would usher in socialism."
According to Chichester, "These economic dislocations and disasters are the exploding assets of Western civilization. They are the by-products of social assaults, collateral damage in socialism's unrelenting war on the family. Every major economic ill we have can be directly traced to social policies. The promotion of divorce, promiscuity, abortion, pornography are all heavy artillery shells aimed at creating disconnected, disaffected and malleable individuals with no moral anchor or foundation."
"All of these policies", continues Chichester, "have enormous economic side effects as the individuals are severed from normal and natural social connections. Those policies that attack the family produce declining populations.
The American economic effects of abortion alone are estimated at over $50 trillion of lost GDP. Adam Smith noted that prosperity was associated with growing populations and poverty with declining populations. We must reverse these trends if we are to survive as a republic."
And Chichester sees a philosophical war emerging as a result. "What I see at stake in these elections goes far beyond balancing of the federal budget, desirable as it is. What is at stake is whether or not we will still have our republican form of government by the time these troubles pass - whether or not our children will grow up truly free. I see this as a last stand against what is coming. I do not expect to go down to Washington and come away unscathed, or have a long comfortable career. I expect to go to the Alamo, to fight to retain the Constitution during what is to be the Second Civil War: A war against the idea that man has unalienable rights. A war between Socialists who see man as property of the state and those who see property as inextricably bound to individual liberty and creativity. A war between the violent sterility of Socialism and the creative prosperity of a Godly people protected by a Divinely inspired Constitution."
Chichester believes that those claiming that the current recession is almost over, with economic recovery on the near horizon, are delusional. He likens the current market indicators to the receding waters preceding an economic tsunami. "As a Catholic, I understand the moral implications of abortion, population control, etc. I understand in greater detail the economic and social penalty to be paid in adhering to behavior that is inherently evil. When a society adheres to a great evil, the impact is obvious. Our world is ready to see the enormous economic and social penalty that has accrued over the years because of our disregard for the life ethic."
A vocal minority of Tea Party conservatives, primarily among the small libertarian faction, is insisting that social conservative issues be set aside in this election cycle to focus solely on "fiscal conservatism."
The fiscally conservative Libertarian Party is even threatening to run a candidate in the Kentucky Senate race against one of their own, Rand Paul, because of his support for a federal abortion ban and his opposition to gay marriage. In this election, Chichester is urging social conservatives not to be deceived by "fiscal conservatives" seeking to forge a larger coalition based on marginalizing social issues, because this war is one which fiscal conservatism alone simply cannot win.
Dr. Brian Kopp has written articles for L'Osservatore Romano, The Wanderer, New Oxford Review and World Net Daily.