(Ottawa) A bill that Liberals believe has the potential to reopen the debate on abortion was introduced Monday by an elected Conservative, not a first in the field. The Conservative Party assures us that this is not the intention.
Posted at 9:27pm
The officer-elect who introduced Private Member’s Bill C-311, Cathay Wagantall of Saskatchewan, has tried several times in recent years to reopen the debate over the legal status of the fetus.
This time she proposes adding two criminal offenses to the Criminal Code “so that the crimes of knowingly assaulting a pregnant woman and causing physical or psychological harm to a pregnant woman may be taken into account by judges in determining sadness”.
The Trudeau government wants to take the time to analyze the bill, but MP Rachel Bendayan is already expressing concern that Cathay Wagantall wants to “open the debate again through the back door”.
“I know a little bit about her background, she has shown on several occasions that this is a priority,” she claims, pointing out that MP Wagantall had backed Leslyn Lewis during the last Conservative Party leadership race, who also did she fiercely opposed to abortion.
The winner, Pierre Poilievre, vowed, like his predecessors, that the abortion debate would remain closed under his leadership and that he would let his MPs vote freely should a private member’s bill go to the vote.
“But I’m worried and the government is worried about losing Rachel Bendayan in an interview. After the fall of Roe c. Wade in the United States, I don’t think we can take that right for granted, even in Canada. »
“Nothing to do” with abortion
Quebec Conservative Party lieutenant Pierre Paul-Hus asserts that C-311 ‘has nothing to do with abortion’ and that its aim is rather ‘to determine an aggravating factor in the attack on a pregnant woman’.
“And I hope that all parliamentarians will support that,” he demands.
Rarely do private members’ bills make it very far into the House of Commons. For example, the last proposal tabled by Ms Wagantall on sex-selective abortions was never discussed in the House.