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Kenney & UCP's subterfuge on their positions on abortion and conversion therapy has been shameful, but also worrisomely effective in letting them off the hook. I thought it would be helpful to offer a rubric of gov't positions on social policies to assess their statements. #ableg
Government positions on particular practices in society can fall into one of four basic categories: A) Support it (meaning provide it, fund it, or enable it in some way): B) Allow it (do nothing); C) Discourage it (opposite of A); D) Ban it.
On ABORTION, Kenney's position as UCP leader has been that they "will not legislate on abortion". By "not legislate", he basically means "not D", as a ban would require legislation whereas A, B and C do not.
And for a lot of media treatment, this has been sufficient. They say "well, they've been clear that they won't legislate on abortion". But D is unconstitutional for Premier: arguably under the Charter (though jurisprudence has not made this definitive), ...
... but decisively under BNA 1867 division of powers: abortion prohibition is a federal criminal matter (i.e., beware Scheer Conservatives). So D was never an option. Conservatives have essentially said: "we will not do what we can't do", and bizarrely mostly got away with it.
The real concern on abortion is making it de facto unavailable by taking our status quo setting under A (providing it), moving toward B or even C. The things that can be done outside of legislation to reduce access for young, disadvantaged, or rural women are innumerable.
[Such measures, if taken too far, would trigger a Charter challenge, without question, but no one knows with any certainty where that would land.]
Now, we know that organized anti-abortion groups have been strong and steadfast supporters of the UCP, despite the "will not legislate" promise. Why? Because they KNOW that D is not within the playing field. It's out of bounds.
So, their enthusiastic support and applause for a UCP government has nothing to do with D. They're excited for attacking our A status quo that we've now held for decades. cbc.ca/news/canada/ed…
On CONVERSION THERAPY, the UCP has been just as consistent on holding to message, this time: "We do not support conversion therapy." This means: "don't worry, despite the various signals we harbour anti-LGBTQ values, we absolutely will not provide or fund (A) conversion therapy."
[On this one, media has been much more skeptical, or at least @edmontonjournal's podcast commentators have been.]
But the public discourse on this topic has nothing to do with A. We are VERY far away from A. Arguably, with education efforts, the status quo is C, and the current political conversation is around whether and how to D. Saying "not A" is taking no stand.
Actually, it might be worse than taking no stand. Whereas the current Overton Window on this issue is around C and D, the UCP may be trying to open it further to the right by staking its position just on the B side of A.
If we are more clear in our own minds about exactly what logical positions are available on a topic, then we can more easily see through the UCP's defensive message track on these topics. Because so far, their red herring answers seem to have worked fairly well.
