Madam Speaker, I hear them saying, “Oh God, what is he talking about?” I will tell members exactly what I am talking about.
I am talking about their colleagues who go on documentaries and are asked questions like, “Is it possible for us to completely ban abortion, or is it crazy to even think about it?” That question was asked of the member for Peace River—Westlock, who we know to be at the centre of the Conservative Party of Canada's movement, along with one or two other MPs, to do exactly that. This was his answer to that question: “Anything is possible. I thought that overturning Roe v. Wade in the United States was impossible, but yet here we are today.”
Anybody out there who happens to have CPAC on today and is watching this can google the Peace River—Westlock MP and “banning abortion”, go into the video section and find the video almost instantly. Conservatives roll their eyes and say the Liberals, NDP and progressives are just trying to paint them as bad guys, but they would never actually do that. Then why are their MPs making these comments? Why do they have MPs who participate in the pro-life marches in front of this place every spring and get up to the microphone and actually say, “We can do this”? That is what they do. They should not try to dismiss it or suggest it is not the case.
What else do Conservatives do? They continually line up candidates to run for them who have well-known positions of being anti-choice. That is what Canadians are faced with.
For those out there who may want to believe the Leader of the Opposition when he says he would never ban abortion, just look at his track record, and that of Stephen Harper, saying he would never do those kind of things. They will. They might not do it in a very direct form of introducing a bill that says, “We ban abortion”, but they will do it in other ways. They will do it by taking money and resources away from institutions and agencies that educate and inform women, and by providing resources to those who would like to suppress that right. They will do it through private members' bills and say, “Oh, this is just a private members' bill; it is up for anybody to vote on. Members can vote their conscience; that is what private members' bills are all about.” That is how they will do it.
For those out there who think that if the Conservative Party of Canada forms government, they will bring in a bill that says, “We ban abortion,” the Conservatives will not do it like that; they will do it in more calculated ways to achieve their end objective without being so transparent. It is extremely important that this issue be taken seriously.
To give more context to the Conservative Party of Canada, the Campaign Life Coalition has three ratings: green, yellow and red. Green means it totally supports the candidate because they believe in the group's values. Yellow means it does not know but thinks the candidate can be influenced. Red means the candidate would never support the group in this endeavour. The Campaign Life Coalition has 40 MPs currently sitting in the House it has deemed green and another 40 MPs it has deemed yellow. That is 80 sitting MPs. The Campaign Life Coalition deems a majority of the Conservative caucus appropriate to represent its views.
Nobody should be fooled by the false narrative of the Leader of the Opposition. The Conservatives will prohibit and restrict a woman's right to choose. They will not do it in a very transparent and obvious way, like introducing a bill, but they will certainly do it in other ways. We need to stand up to protect the work that my mother's generation did. We also need to stand up for future generations, for my daughter and her generation, so they can live with the same experiences my wife benefited from that came from those who did the work in the 1970s and 1980s.