04.26.2018 10:28 PM

Kids getting Summer jobs don’t perform abortions.

So why is Justin Trudeau still trying to control what they think about abortions?

Can someone explain this to me – a decidedly pro-choice guy – please?

18 Comments

  1. Matt says:

    Do you think Trudeau understands the irony in defending the summer jobs grant program accepting an application for a position that involves “helping to stop the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion” on freedom of speech grounds, yet is denying religious groups applications because of their stance on abortions?

    http://nationalpost.com/news/politics/trudeau-defends-summer-jobs-grant-to-anti-pipeline-activists-on-free-speech-grounds

    “OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Wednesday there’s no problem with a Canada Summer Jobs grant that will fund anti-pipeline activism, arguing his government must stand up for the principle of free expression and advocacy.

    That may surprise the religious organizations who have been battling the government for months over the same summer jobs grants, thanks to a new clause that requires them to attest their “core mandate” respects reproductive rights, defined as the right to access abortions.”

  2. Pedant says:

    No summer jobs for churches that run soup kitchens and homeless shelters.

    But plenty of taxpayer funded jobs for Kinder Morgan protesters.

    http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/kinder-morgan-summer-job-program-dogwood-1.4634498

  3. Lyndon Dunkley says:

    For the same reason his government released a “gender budget”.

    He has to be hemorrhaging any boring, middle aged white guy support he had with his continued government by selfie and sock style, his handling of Trans Mountain risks pissing everyone off and if doesn’t pull off an effective weed legalization this summer without pricing the government out of the market, he won’t get the “legalize” vote out for him in 2019 either.

    Get ready for some serious attempts at exasperating previous non-existent division in this country leading up to 2019, including a resurrection of the mythical “they want to control your womb” boogeyman and continuous “why are Canadians so racist?” tours.

  4. Gyor says:

    Feminist virtue signaling and a misguided desire to bait the Tory leader into a mistake, that could easily back fire. I’m prochoice, that this is a silly waste of time.

    • Miles Lunn says:

      Exactly, all the identity politics and virtue signaling is hoping to bait the Tories and have one make an intolerant remark which he can use against them. The assumption is Harper had iron cast control over his caucus which Scheer doesn’t so he doesn’t need to bait Scheer, just one of his caucus members and hope Scheer doesn’t punish them too hard or if Scheer does that angers the base and hurts their fundraising. I suspect Gerald Butts is pushing this, but quite risky and could backfire.

  5. Mark says:

    I’m one of the large minority of Canadians who think we need some kind of limits on abortion in this country (some law, like most civilized countries, not no law). While I would never counsel a woman to get an abortion, I’m more pro choice in position than not. I’m also one of those former Liberal voters and campaign workers (worked on Chretien’s first leadership campaign in Montreal in ‘84) and I decidedly abandoned the party after JT pontificated from on high that a pro-life Liberal will be red flagged as a candidate. This makes it even worse. The irony is that there isn’t even a right to “free speech” in the Charter. Freedom of expression, yes; freedom of conscience, yes. What hypocrisy.

    • Peter says:

      It may even be a majority, Mark. The decent middle approaching a tough moral issue with the openness and angst it deserves have been drowned out of this debate by the shrill voices of ideologues and offensive rhetoric. It’s not surprising those of us who are torn and open have become gun shy and keep out own counsel. On one side you have the “abortion is murder”, ” human life begins at conception” (which few really believe) crowd with their repulsive pictures. On the other, fanatics railing about “fetus fetishists” and insisting a late abortion (quite rare) is a right only fascist misogynists would object to.

      There was a case in England in the mid-18th century where a woman was charged with procuring or inducing an abortion, a rare occurrence in those times for obvious reasons. At that time, criminal law was case-based, not statute-based, so the judge had to decide what the law was. The decision was that an abortion before the fetus “quickened” (moved discernibly ) was a misdemeanor, and the judge’s language suggested the law (and men, if they knew what what was good for them) would and should be happy not to know about it. After that point, however, it was a serious felony.

      Science and ideology have made such a perspective impossible today. We’d have anti-abortionists hauling out their films showing the fetus starts moving at conception and the other side dismissing it as a superstitious reaction to unconscious electric impulses. Yet that remains the point at which most women ( and their partners) experience a miracle and the question of what being human means jumps to the forefront. Our ancestors really could be more human than we sometimes.

  6. billg says:

    Man that’s a big ego. Its not the overall federal optics of this because most of this stay’s in Ottawa, however, at the local level during the next election the all candidates meetings should be a hoot. To any federal liberal candidate in a small town hall anywhere in Canada….”did you support churches or church groups being unable to hire summer students based on their religious beliefs?”. 10 seats to Conservatives and 10 seats to the NDP in the next election is not that an outrageous prediction. So, ya, what is he thinking?

  7. Kevin T. says:

    This shit happens when one gets too clever by half, which is more and more obviously a defining trait of Trudeau and his government. One only gets so much “at least he’s better than the last guy” benefit of the doubt until one gets their own record.

  8. Derek Pearce says:

    I’m in a minority on this so electorally they’re making a mistake, but I love Churches not getting government grants. Churches should be taxed though that’ll never happen

    • Sandy MacDonald says:

      You’re a minority only in a group of angry old white men – which is now a decided minority in our population. The “every sperm is sacred” crowd is dying out – surprisingly – as their leaders’ habits of diddling children and murdering innocent abortion providers makes it plain that their zygote-focused moral system is at the expense of a larger antisocial agenda

  9. Shawn says:

    Justin Trudea thinks in his childish little mind that the Prime minister has a country when it should be the other way around that the country has a Prime minister.

  10. Pierre Dupont says:

    Warren, it’s not about the kids, it’s about the orgs.

    Say I’m an org that wants to hire kids for the summer to paint fences or whatever. I just sign the attestation, no issues.
    If, along the way, I decide I want to convince the kids to paint pro-life signs, then I should not be able to get government money.

    The Government of Canada should not and can not provide money to any organisation that goes counter to the Charter, which is an elaboration of the country’s principles.
    It’s not just about abortions either, it’s about equality for people. They give examples on their website too. (Paraphrasing)

    “You are an org that helps move people around the city. You have to move a gay dude to Orleans. You refuse because it offends you/is against your principles. No money.”

    That’s basically it. GoC isn’t saying people can’t dislike gay people (perferably people have no issues with gays) or abortions (again, preferably people should be pro-choice) but if they want _government money_ than they _cannot_ promote those views or ask people to promote those views, since those views are in opposition with the Charter, which states that everyone is equal and so on.

    That’s really all there is to it.

    • Fred from BC says:

      “You are an org that helps move people around the city. You have to move a gay dude to Orleans. You refuse because it offends you/is against your principles. No money.””

      Which hypothetical organization might that be? What logic is there in refusing to help someone move because they happen to be gay?

      “they _cannot_ promote those views or ask people to promote those views, since those views are in opposition with the Charter, which states that everyone is equal and so on.

      The Charter says that fetuses are equal? Or that abortion is a right? Where?

      What the Charter of Rights *does* protect is freedom of expression.

  11. Matt says:

    Then rather than trying to force people to conform to Trudeau’s beliefs by making them sign an attestation that at it’s heart a violation of those peoples charter rights of freedom of expression and freedom of religion, the attestation could have been a simple promise not to use the money to hire a student for a summer job that would work against any Canadian laws.

  12. Ronald O'Dowd says:

    Warren,

    In my book, abortion is a matter of health and conscience for the woman who’s pregnant. It’s an individual decision, period. Anything else is nothing more than a blatant attempt to control and dictate to a pregnant woman.

    As for summer jobs, does one category of charter rights allow for a funding litmus test that supersedes another category of charter rights? Looks like a matter for the SCC. Trudeau is perhaps on shaky ground here.

  13. Patricia Morfee says:

    We have a Church in our City that collects more money than any Church should and do not have a homeless shelter nor soup kitchen yet I am sure they would ask for this Student Jobs money. As for the ones saying anti-abortion people are not protesting. They have recently stood on the corner of a major hospital where there is a Children’s Hospital and carried signs with fetuses on them. We have a lot of churches who would abuse this. I agree with some people, who say Churches and religious organizations should not receive this money as it has been in past governments.

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