Friday 6 April 2012

A New Front in the War on Women (Canadian version)

. . . has appeared in Alberta. It got some attention in the comments here by Jane, Anonymous, and Niles.

But the Alberta Tea Baggers Wildrose Alliance deserves more scrutiny for this brain-fart.
“The legalities of abortion fall under federal jurisdiction. We respect that Albertans view social issues differently, which is why Wildrose would immediately introduce legislation allowing citizens to put issues like abortion of citizen initiated referendum. “

Still doubtful, I called and asked a Wildrose spokesman myself about the matter this evening.

Bill Bewick, the party’s spokesman on health policy, told me that a Wildrose government could not ban abortion, since that’s a matter of federal responsibility. However, he said, the province could opt to delist abortion, so that the service would no longer be covered by the province’s health insurance plan.

“We have no plans to address this issue. We will not legislate on it,” Bewick told me.

On the other hand, he told me, the party does favour citizen-sponsored referenda on a wide range of issues.

“People are free to initiate referenda on any issue they want,” he said.

But when I asked Bewick if the Wildrose campaign would commit not to delist abortion, he declined to do so.

Delist in Alberta = defund in Ontario.

But not to fear, pro-choice Albertans. Top-dog Teabagger is totally reassuring.
Leader Danielle Smith had words of her own Thursday evening.

"Like the Progressive Conservatives, Wildrose has absolutely no intentions of legislating on abortion, and that includes delisting," she said.


Hmm. Just like the federal Contempt Party?

And that's not all Albertans have to worry about. Cliff at Rusty Idols thinks the entire healthcare system will be toast if Wildrose wins.

Albertans: You are familiar with the definition of insanity, yes?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately, those are the choices we have been given for voting day. That we will end up with a PC or Wildrose government is a no-brainer of course. The Left is simply too fractured (and in the case of the two ridings here) irrelevant to have any realistic shot at government. I'm not sure it is entirely fair to blame this all on average Albertans.

fern hill said...

Sorry, didn't mean to blame. The snark has its way with me sometimes. ;-)

A shitty situation for sure, but maybe as on the federal level, a REALLY LOUD wake-up call for 'average' Albertans.

Anonymous said...

I've heard this election summed up as choosing between cancer you have and a new form of cancer....or words to that effect.

fern hill said...

Yeesh.

Must be miserable to be anything like centrist or, gord-forbid, lefty there.

Niles said...

This *is* where they still invoke the NEP to demonstrate the Ebul Librul machinations to destroy Alberta. And it works.

Anonymous said...

Actually, with the left-centre vote splintering into the Liberal and Alberta Party, it seems the Libs have done this to themselves. The PC's and Wildrose have apparently gone from bashing the federal Liberals to bashing each other instead.

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