O’Toole Refusing to Oppose Sex-Selective Abortion Shows he Lacks a Moral Backbone

Many Conservatives have been trying to calm the waters when it comes to criticism of the current CPC leader Erin O’Toole’s apparent leftward bent, often pushing the notion he is more Conservative than he lets on but right now he is just trying to appeal to more Liberal Canadians in order to beat Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the next election.

Well if you want to figure out if that is just a myth pushed by O’Toole loyalists, look no further than his opposition to the private member’s bill C-233 which seeks to outlaw sex-selective abortion.  

O’Toole stated at a press conference:

As you know I’m pro-choice, and I will be voting against this private member’s bill. I will always as prime minister defend the rights — the human rights — of all Canadians to make this decision for themselves. I’ve been crystal clear on that and will be as prime minister.

Bill C-233 is not trying to ban all abortions, it merely aims at banning abortions based on the sex of a child, which unsurprisingly is an extremely unpopular practice in Canada. Not only is it morally correct to vote in favour of this bill, but polling shows that the majority of Canadians are opposed to sex-selective abortion, and many Canadians would reconsider who they were voting for if a party opposed the practice in their platform.

According to Angus Reid 60 percent of Canadians overall and 66 percent of women believe that abortions conducted solely for the reason of a baby’s sex (usually due to being female) should be outlawed.

Cathay Wagantall MP for Yorkton—Melville who proposed bill C-233 cited other statistics in her press release regarding her private member’s bill.

Wagantall statement read:

It was found that 52% of Canadians would be more likely to vote for a political party that promised to legally restrict sex-selective abortion. Of those who responded, 56% of those with a post-graduate degree would be more likely to support a party with such a policy. In addition, 51% of those who voted Liberal in 2019, and 61% of those who voted for the Bloc Québécois, are ‘moderately’ to ‘much more’ likely to cast their vote for a party committed to curbing the practice of sex-selective abortion.

If Erin O’Toole was only politicking the way he currently is because he’s trying to expand the Conservative Party’s appeal then opposing sex-selective abortion and being the only major party to do so, would be a fantastic way to garner new supporters, and strengthen the CPC base, but he refuses to.

In reality, O’Toole is not a master political tactician. If he was he wouldn’t be in the deep popularity hole he currently is in. 

O’Toole either just doesn’t care about Canada’s current status as being one of just a few countries without any abortion laws whatsoever, or more plausibly he is so scared of mainstream media backlash he refuses to grab onto this obvious winning issue.

Based on the polls, if any decently well-organized party made one of its main platform planks as being opposed to sex-selective abortion they would dominate the social policy debate. Seriously what would Trudeau, Singh, O’Toole, Blanchet, or Paul be able to say in favour of not banning a practice that mainly targets unborn girls for being girls? That would be an optics nightmare for all of them.

Too bad Canadian politics seems to be in a strange transitional phase where everyone is so scared to take a political risk that the most obvious policies to support are considered to be rocking the boat. 

It will be interesting to see if MP Wagantall has fallen out of favour with O’Toole due to her private member’s bill bringing attention to his failure to lead on moral issues. Wouldn’t be shocking if Wagantall wasn’t seen speaking in Parliament as much in the future.