By BILL CURRY

January 14, 2006

From Saturday's Globe and Mail

Ottawa — Dozens of Conservative and Liberal candidates have offered an anti-abortion lobby group a written pledge to support a law banning abortion if elected, indicating that the highly divisive issue could be revived in the next Parliament.

The pledges come even though Conservative Leader Stephen Harper has said the issue would not be pursued and Liberal Leader Paul Martin has said only that his party would protect women's right to abortion.

The issue has been dormant since the Conservatives adopted a position at a policy convention in March, 2004, repeated in the party's election platform, that “a Conservative government will not initiate or support any legislation to regulate abortion.”

But many Conservative candidates are making a different pledge.

The Campaign Life Coalition has posted on the Internet the responses it received from candidates of all political stripes to a nine-question survey dealing with abortion, same-sex marriage, euthanasia and research on human embryos.

Although the organization is accusing Conservative Party headquarters of urging candidates not to respond, many MPs and candidates provided answers and the numbers suggest an appetite to reopen the debate after the Jan. 23 vote.

When asked, “If elected, will you support measures to introduce and pass a law to protect every unborn child from the time of conception (fertilization) onward?” 18 Conservative MPs replied Yes, as did 24 Tory candidates, 10 Liberal MPs and two Liberal candidates.

Liberal MP Ray Bonin did not say whether he would vote to ban abortion, but answered Yes to the question: “If elected, will you support legislative or regulatory measures to explicitly exclude abortion as an insured health service under the Canada Health Act?” Most of the individuals who said they would support a ban on abortion also said they would support removing it as an insured service.

Mary Ellen Douglas, president of Campaign Life, said yesterday she is optimistic the large number of responses will mean MPs will work together across party lines in the next Parliament to outlaw abortion.

“I'm encouraged by the Liberals and Conservatives who have signed favourably. The thing is, we have pro-abortion Conservative candidates. So it's not like if the Conservatives win we're ecstatic here. We need candidates in all parties and then we'll see what we have to work with after the 23rd,” she said.

“That's what we're hoping for in this election, that there be that core in each party that you can work with, and then you can get somewhere. . . . We won't rest until there actually is a law to protect the unborn.”

Ms. Douglas said her organization will push the MPs who signed favourably to support “incremental” measures, such as ending public funding for abortions and banning abortion pills. More than a dozen Tory candidates have told the group that party headquarters told them not to answer the survey, she added.

“I think this is very sad. This is an open party that's talking about free votes and then telling candidates not to sign a questionnaire.”

Mr. Harper's spokesman, William Stairs, said a Conservative government would oppose any private member's bill aimed at changing the status quo on abortion, as would the Bloc Québécois, the New Democratic Party and most Liberal MPs.

“The position that was taken was that we would not support abortion legislation, and given that the other three parties are against abortion legislation, I don't see how abortion legislation would make it through the House of Commons,” he said.

Liberal MP Alan Tonks, who responded to the survey by saying he would support a ban on abortion and a prohibition on abortion-inducing drugs, said Mr. Martin has stated that matters of conscience are free votes.

“Generally speaking, I opt on the side of life. I don't support carte-blanche abortion,” Mr. Tonks said. “If there was a motion that was presented to review and send to committee, whatever the nature of the change being asked, I would always support it going to the committee.

“But what I would do would be very much dependent on how it cross-referenced with the kind of principles that I've outlined.”

Mr. Tonks said he suspects euthanasia is more likely than abortion to be raised in the next Parliament.

“We've crossed the bridge on the abortion issue. There's been a national debate. There's still disagreement about how that issue was resolved, but I think before that comes up, whether it's a Liberal or Conservative government, there will be other life issues that will come up first.”

Earlier this month, it was reported that the president of the Conservative Party, Don Plett, said in an e-mail that a backbench MP likely would introduce anti-abortion legislation if the Conservatives were to form the next government.

“When we form a government, we can rest assured that there will be a private member's bill on this,” he wrote in a November e-mail to a party member in Quebec.

Canada has essentially had no law on abortion since the Supreme Court ruled that the Criminal Code provisions dealing with the procedure violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.