Federal Conservative leadership candidate Patrick Brown says calling Social Conservatives “dinosaurs” in a book he wrote about his time in Ontario politics is “wrong terminology.”
“I guess the best way to put it would be to say, ‘I don’t think the Conservative Party needs to reconsider these issues,’ Brown said in an interview Friday.
The mayor of Brampton, Ontario, is attacking longtime lawmaker Pierre Poalievre – a former colleague in the House of Commons when Brown was an MP – for his stance on abortion.
Brown said he believes one of the reasons the party lost the 2019 election was a lack of clarity about its position on the procedure.
During and even after the race, former leader Andrew Shear was haunted by questions about his socially conservative values before resigning in the face of growing pressure to do so.
When asked about his own views, Poalever said he believed in free choice and that a government led by him would not introduce or pass legislation restricting access to abortion – despite the wishes of lawmakers and party members. his organized organization. social conservative wing.
Poilievre said on social media that Brown in his book about his fall from the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party in Ontario because of accusations of sexual misconduct, which he continues to deny, called social conservatives “dinosaurs.”
He added that they were becoming inappropriate and their positions were “insincerely hypocritical”.
“Maybe that’s the wrong terminology,” Brown said Friday when asked about his use of the term “dinosaur” in his book Takedown: The Attempted Political Association of Patrick Brown.
“My brand of conservatism is that I want to see less government. I want to see less government in your small business and less taxes, less bureaucracy … but I also want to see less government in your personal life. “
A draft U.S. Supreme Court ruling suggesting it could overturn Rowe v. Wade, a nationwide decision to defend abortion rights, has breathed new life into Canada and the Conservative leadership race.
One of the problems Tory leaders had to address was how to deal with bills of private members of parliament that aim to restrict access to abortion. Under former leader Erin O’Toole, 81 of the party’s 119 lawmakers – more than half – voted in favor of legislation proposed by Saskatchewan MP Katai Vagantal to ban so-called selective sexual abortion, which she says targets babies. girls.
The bill was easily defeated by the Liberal government, along with MPs from the NDP and Bloc Québécois, who described it as a Trojan horse to undermine reproductive rights.
Brown said Friday that while lawmakers are allowed to present bills to private members on abortion, he will not allow those in his cabinet to vote in their favor.
“This will not be supported by (my) government. And so every cabinet I choose, every government I lead, will not reconsider the abortion debate. “
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on May 28, 2022.
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