Rodger Cuzner's Bev Oda rap - auto-tuned

This is approaching critical levels of awesomeness. From Operation Maple:

Background:Liberals use green eggs to relish Bev Oda’s 'jam'

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The hand that changed the yes to no, was on the arm of the PMO

Sometimes, it takes humour to highlight the absurdity...

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Kelly McParland and Conservatives: Missing the point on abortion

My conservative friend (small c) Kelly McParland over at the National Post has taken some issue with my post yesterday on the Conservative government’s decision to no longer include access to safe abortion (he doesn’t weigh-in on their also pulling contraceptives) from their otherwise laudable (and not at all political) push to improve maternal and fetal health in developing countries.

Here’s a taste from Kelly:

Even for Liberals, though, this is appalling stuff. The government proposes a program to help improve health care for impoverished women, and the Liberals try to turn it into a question of abortion politics.

(snip)

So just what is the Liberal plan, then? If some impoverished country refuses to guarantee abortion rights, they get nothing? Jeez, way to go Michael Ignatieff! Cut off the needy unless they toe the line with Liberal party values. That's Harvard thinking all right. Or maybe it's Yale thinking, because didn't Bush go to Yale?

Yeah, what? No. It would seem what we have here is a failure to communicate. I only went to Carleton myself (the Harvard of Ottawa South), I don’t know where Kelly studied, but it needn’t have been Cambridge to see that’s not at all what we’re talking about. And I don’t know who is.

Let me break down what we are talking about -- slowly, with Carleton-level words, and bullets – so we can move the debate onto non-fictional grounds and carry on from there with a degree of rationality.

• There are many factors that contribute to maternal and fetal health. Poverty. Access to medical services. Food and water. Education. Proper natal care.

• Part of that is access to contraceptives. Contraception is an important part of family planning. Access to contraceptives is lacking in many poor and undeveloped countries, leading to larger families that are unable to care for them, prolonging the cycle of poverty. That’s why providing access to contraceptives to give these women options and choice is important to improving maternal health.

• So is access to safe abortion services. The fact is, many women will seek access to abortion services, whether it is safely available or not. Forcing them into backalleys and unsafe environments leads to injuries and death, and is a major detriment to maternal health in developing countries. That’s why experts agree giving women the option and choice to access safe abortion services is important to improving maternal health.

• No one is talking about forcing abortions or condoms on anyone. The law and regulations of the host country are obviously the final word. And no one is talking about denying funding to countries that don’t allow abortion. We’re saying it should (continue to) be part of our programs in those countries where it is permitted.

Back to the politics, there is one fundamental fact that Kelly seems to have overlooked, and it exposes his Liberal wedge argument as ridiculous: all Ignatieff and the Liberals are doing is calling for the current policy of the Government of Canada to be continued and respected.

That’s right. Today, as part of its development initiatives in developing countries around maternal and child health, Canada funds access to abortion and contraceptive services in those countries where it’s legally permissible. That’s a policy that predates the Liberal government by the way, because the experts in the field say it’s important and effective and necessary. We think that should be continued.

The wedge is coming from Stephen Harper, Bev Oda and the Conservatives. The Conservatives want to change that policy. Indeed, they have admitted that they are changing the policy, and will no longer include funding for abortion and contraception as part of our development policy and funding for maternal and child health.

I oppose that change. So does Michael Ignatieff, experts in maternal and child health, and millions of Canadians.

And that change isn’t some figment of our fevered Liberal imaginations. Just ask the anti-abortion groups claiming credit for reversing the government policy and raising donations for the Conservatives in gratitude.

It is a conscious decision by the Conservative government, an apparent sop to their socially conservative base, and one that has nothing to do with their stated goal of improving the lot of women in developing countries, and everything to do with their ideological and political views.

Now, you can argue abortion is wrong, and that’s a perfectly legitimate debate to have. My own view is I support a woman’s right to choose, up to a certain point in pregnancy or if her life is at risk, but I think we should all work to make abortion as rare and unnecessary as possible.

It is, however, the law of the land in Canada. And I have no indication the Conservatives want to change that law for Canadians. So I don’t think we should deny funding for something that is legal in Canada and legal in the host country and effective with the stated goal of the program, merely on ideological grounds.

That’s what we’re talking about here. Not invented bogeymen, or Ivy League potshots.

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Harper’s “help" for women: no abortions, no contraceptives?

UPDATE: Hello to readers from Full Comment. You can find my reply to Kelly's post here:
Kelly McParland and Conservatives: Missing the point on abortion.

When Michael Ignatieff last week called on Stephen Harper’s Conservatives to pledge that access to safe abortion services will be part of the government’s ballyhooed G8 initiative to generate international support for improving maternal and child care in the developing world, he was attacked by the critics.

Even though he was calling for an affirmation of what has been longstanding Canadian development policy under both parties – not to follow the George W. Bush route of tying development funds to personal moral and religious beliefs – Ignatieff was attacked by the critics for raising irrelevancies, for playing politics and trying to politicize the initiative.

It turns out, however, that his fears were far from unfounded. In a story in Embassy Mag (behind a subscriber firewall, but I’ve pasted the relevant sections below) Canadian International Development Minister Bev Oda confirms safe abortions, and even contraception, will not be part of the Conservative push on maternal and child care:

Oda says no abortion, contraceptives support

But the WHO reports that lack of both contributes to unnecessary deaths.

CIDA Minister Bev Oda says the government's child and maternal health strategy will not address unsafe abortions in developing countries or support access to family planning and contraceptives. Rather, she said that to ensure the aid agency remains effective, "it's the lives of mothers and babies that we are focused on."

But with nearly 15 per cent of all maternal deaths being attributed to such abortions, and up to 40 per cent of maternal deaths preventable with access to family planning and contraception, experts and critics say support for these areas is essential.

On Jan. 28, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that rallying support for maternal and child health would be a major focus of Canada's G8 presidency. In developing countries, more than 500,000 women die each year in pregnancy and 9 million children die before the age of five.

(snip)

When asked about support for contraceptives and family planning in an interview last week, Ms. Oda said: "In order to maintain our focus, again our focus is on maternal and child health and mortality rates.

"We want to make sure that mothers, pregnant women, are healthy and can have safe births, and that the birthing process is made safer because if you look at the number of births during the actual birthing process, that's where a number of maternal deaths happen," she added.

"We also want to make sure when babies are born, they are born as healthy as possible so that they can live through their early age, up to the age of five, with as strong and good health as possible."

The decision by the Harper Conservatives to not include addressing abortion safety as part of their effort would seem to question just how sincere their effort to address maternal and child care really is, not to mention how effective it would be, according to the experts:

A recent report from the New York-based Guttmacher Institute found that 20 million unsafe abortions are performed in developing countries each year, and World Health Organization spokeswoman Olivia Lawe-Davies said 68,000 women die because of unsafe abortions said.

"It is also estimated that up to 40 per cent of maternal deaths could be averted with access to family planning or modern contraception," Ms. Lawe-Davies wrote in an email last week.

A recent Amnesty International report said a lack of safe and confidential access to information and modern contraceptive methods in Burkina Faso, for example, has contributed to early and unwanted pregancies as well as life-threatening abortions.

"Family planning is severely underfunded," the report reads, "partly because, until recently, international donors and the government have concentrated on other public health priorities, notably the AIDS pandemic, polio and malaria."

(snip)

Liberal CIDA critic Glen Pearson says a narrow focus on pregnant women doesn't address many of the root problems associated with high maternal death rates in developing countries.

"The whole problem for women in these countries is they have no access to condoms," said Liberal CIDA critic Glen Pearson. "It's a nightmare out there for a woman to be able to just protect herself from even getting pregnant, or once she's pregnant and complications develop, from her going through her own abortion procedure and other things they do. You can't make it about just once the child is in the womb."

The idea of a major push to address maternal and child care is a noble one. But ideology can’t be allowed to dictate the program and the help we’re going to give to women in need. We should listen to the experts on the ground about what is needed and what will be effective to meet the goals we’re trying to achieve and let them direct the resources accordingly.

That has always been the Canadian policy, and if the Conservatives desire to address this challenge is legitimate, it shouldn’t change it now. Sadly, though, it seems that the trend of the Harper Conservatives allowing ideology to guide development and aid decisions is ever expanding.

UPDATE: In this YouTube clip, Conservative backbencher Shelly Glover confirms that, in a reversal of longstanding Canadian policy, safe abortion will not be part of the government program. And conservative anti-abortion groups are claiming credit for the policy reversal, using the clip to encourage donations to the The Harper Party.

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Layton and NDP side with Conservatives on Coderre's Afghan trip

As I wrote last week Liberal defence critic Denis Coderre is staging his own fact-finding trip to Afghanistan after the Conservative government, playing politics, refused to extend to the defence critic of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition the privilege of an official trip. He leaves Pakistan for Afghanistan today on a UN flight.

Mr. Coderre told CTV NewsNet in an interview Saturday he's been asking for months to go, but repeated calls to the defence minister asking for permission were ignored or rejected.

So he said he decided unilaterally to go on the fact-finding trip and report back to Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion in preparation for his own future trip to the war-torn country.

“I took my responsibility. I have a duty, I have a job to do. I am the critic for... the official Opposition,” he said. It's important, I would say, to make sure that we fully participate and contribute to the debate. So I'm gonna let them play their petty politics and I'll do my job.”

There were two interesting developments on this front this week.

Firstly, while the Conservatives continually ignored Coderre’s requests through official channels for official visit, a visit the Cons have continually attacked Liberals for not taking, they sent ministers Maxime Bernier and Bed Oda over to Afghanistan this week for a visit. It would seem this is Harper’s personal war, and while government photo-ops are a-ok, factfinding visits by opposition politicians are verboten. Mustn’t mess with the government narrative, after all.

One of the cabinet ministers visiting Afghanistan to meet with that country's leadership and Canadian troops says that roadside and suicide bombings in Kabul indicate that the situation is improving in the country.

Umm, yeah. I’ve not since being surprised by Conservative hypocrisy and classlessness, so it’s hard to be to be too surprised by their willingness to play politics with the war in Afghanistan. To send Bernier and Oda just after stories about they’re blocking Coderre’s trip does display a surprising level of both arrogance and political tone deafness, however.

The second development this week was more surprising, and at the same time not. But it would seem NDP leader Jack Layton has sided with the Conservatives on this issue:

In Toronto, federal NDP Leader Jack Layton had criticism for Mr. Coderre's solo trek.

“Involving individual MPs in a sort of ‘stunt-like' visit does pose risks.... I'm not on the ground to assess that. But you have to respect the judgement of our military leadership,” Mr. Layton told CTV NewsNet.

I’m sure our military leadership would be surprised to learn Layton feels we should respect their judgment. I won’t bother expanding on the obvious hypocrisy of that statement. I know I’m surprised to hear Layton parroting Blogging Tory talking points.

And like them, he’s wrong. The blocking of Coderre was not a military decision. It was a political decision made by the Conservative defence minister and, more likely, Stephen Harper’s office. That’s who you’re providing political cover to here Jack. Are you that desperate to score points against the Liberals you're getting in bed with the Conservatives on an issue where they're obviously full of crap?

No matter how petty the Conservatives and NDP may be back in Canada, I’m certain our military leadership in Afghanistan will respect Coderre’s position and his purpose and let him see what’s happening on the ground. I look forward to his report.

UPDATE: Steve is on the same page.

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Get to work Ben Mulroney

I know you're all totally excited about the Juno awards tomorrow on CTV, and of course Ben Mulroney's always enlightening red carpet coverage.

I hope he's working hard to get the scoop though because there's only one thing Canadians really want to know Ben, and I hope you'll have the answers for us tomorrow:

How did Bev Oda get to the Junos, and who is she wearing?

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