National Post

Worries over Scheer’s social-conservati­ve agenda overblown

- Chris Selley

CComment onservativ­e leadership candidate ( as he then was) Andrew Scheer gave an interestin­g interview to CBC back in April, in which Rosemary Barton addressed “questions about how (Scheer’s) personal values would factor into his role as party leader.”

Scheer was pretty clear, if long- winded. On same- sex marriage: “It’s not something that’s ever going to be changed.” On abortion: “I would maintain (the Harperera) commitment … that these issues would not be reopened.”

Scheer strongly implied that these positions were not in keeping with his “personal views.” But that’s the basic principle many centrist Canadians have traditiona­lly stuck to: so long as a politician keeps his religious views walled off from the business of government, all is well. “Religion has no room in politics,” Prime Minister Paul Martin told the House of Commons in 2004, and he is the example people most often raise in defending this religious/political firewall.

“Martin struggled as a Catholic with abortion. But as PM he said (the) issue was closed,” The Globe and Mail’s John Ibbitson tweeted a few days after Scheer’s victory. “Scheer says ( the) same. No difference.”

Apparently there is a difference. “That sounds like you’re just going to … live with the fact that gay people can get married,” Barton told Scheer. “But it’s not something you believe in.” That’s a totally fair observatio­n, and it shows people definitely care what’s on the other side of Scheer’s firewall — or reject the firewall outright. It’s absurd to think it’s possible to keep the sources of politician­s’ morality at a safe distance from Parliament Hill

“Even if Scheer doesn’t actively campaign on a socially conservati­ve platform … the fact that he has made it almost explicitly clear that his personal views … do not line up with the law of the land is enough to validate hidden prejudices and embolden bigots,” Emma Teitel wrote in the Toronto Star. “People do have personal views. But public figures don’t.”

In a venomous column at CBC, Neil Macdonald argued we shouldn’t trust Scheer’s firewall because many conservati­ve American politician­s don’t even have one. “I am all for a person’s right to … embrace foundation­al myths of aliens, or miracles, or extreme positions of love or hatred, as long as it remains in a place of worship, with the door closed,” he wrote. “But it usually doesn’t.” That’s an objectivel­y bizarre statement, surely, considerin­g the state of Canadian society.

Some have claimed Scheer’s faith isn’t the problem, but rather his voting record. He voted against samesex marriage several times, the last a little more than 10 years ago. Others who have voted against same-sex marriage include former prime ministers Martin and Jean Chrétien, current Montreal mayor Denis Coderre, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale and ambassador to German Stéphane Dion. And that was only 7½ years earlier.

Times change, and they usually stay changed. In the 1990 Liberal leadership race, every candidate professed to oppose abortion on principle. They split on how to manage it. Sheila Copps, the pro-choice stalwart, proposed restrictio­ns after the first trimester. Now to be considered authentica­lly pro choice in Ottawa you have to oppose even discussing the matter in Parliament. The Liberals demand that of their MPs. Harper, and now Scheer, very nearly do likewise.

After the 2006 marriage vote, nearly a decade of Conservati­ve government passed without a meaningful peep about marriage or abortion rights. The idea that middleof- the- road Canadian conservati­ves want to outlaw abortion or same- sex marriage is about as credible as the idea that middle- of- theroad Canadian liberals want to institute sharia law or turn your kids gay with sex ed.

To be sure, the religious/ political firewall never made much sense — not if you believe there is a moral element to governance. “On abortion, for example, I am uneasy about i t,” Martin wrote in his 2008 memoir. “But I do not believe that I can substitute my own judgment for that of a woman facing a difficult, and very personal, moral decision. I also worry about the back- street abortions that would inevitably occur if we (introduced) legal limitation­s.”

Hmm. Compassion for others, sympathy for the vulnerable. You can learn those values in a lot of secular places — as indeed can you develop concerns about abortion — but I suspect Martin would have picked some of that up at church. It’s absurd to think it’s possible to keep the sources of politician­s’ morality, spiritual or otherwise, at a safe distance from Parliament Hill, and I’m not sure why you would want to: I’ ll trust a priest over a politician any day, and I wasn’t even christened.

But however dubious the firewall principle, it has produced a remarkable result. We have a Catholic prime minister, a Catholic leader of the opposition and a Catholic leader of the third party, and Canadians’ same-sex marriage and abortion rights are as safe or safer than in any other country on earth. They get safer with every passing day religious politician­s of every stripe pledge to keep them safe.

There are several reasons we might choose this moment to intensify our interrogat­ions and suspicions of the faithful, but rational fear certainly isn’t one. The rest look pretty ugly to my eye.

 ?? THE CANADIAN PRESS / FRANK GUNN FILES ?? Andrew Scheer speaks after being elected the new leader of the federal Conservati­ve party as his wife Jill and children look on in Toronto in May.
THE CANADIAN PRESS / FRANK GUNN FILES Andrew Scheer speaks after being elected the new leader of the federal Conservati­ve party as his wife Jill and children look on in Toronto in May.

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