| Pro-Lifers need a say; Levant |
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| Local Content - Local News |
| Written by Trevor Busch |
| Wednesday, 10 February 2010 20:25 |
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Right now in the province, social conservatives are witnessing the best opportunity in decades to bring their arguments to bear on their elected representatives. That’s according to Ezra Levant, a writer, lawyer, blogger and conservative political activist who was the keynote speaker at the Taber Pro-Life Banquet held at Taber Christian School Friday. Levant began his address by discussing recent statements made by federal Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff regarding Canadian aid to Haiti. “I have a few stories to tell tonight, but I’ll start with some headlines from this week’s news. We’ve all been watching, or trying not to watch, the images on TV from Haiti. We don’t have the vocabulary — one death that way is a tragedy. What about 150,000? All these injuries, all these orphans. Not just the tragedy of being in the earthquake itself, but then the other problems that kick in. No clean water, disease, the breakdown of law and order, what little there was to begin with. What’s your instinct? I think Canada was actually pretty helpful. We were the first on the ground, we were the first country with a response team there less than a day after the quake hit. Canadians were incredibly generous. I think the world recognized that we’re the best. Stephen Harper, I think to his credit, said from now on we’re going to focus our foreign aid on helping new moms in Third World countries. I think that’s a pretty good idea. So that’s the first thing a lot of Canadians thought. That’s the first thing our government thought. What’s the first thing that Michael Ignatieff thought? He insisted that abortion be a part of that foreign aid provision. He said that he would support Harper’s plan on the condition that abortion be one of the programs that Stephen Harper pushed in Third World countries.” Levant exposed to the crowd the background and beliefs of the founder of the Planned Parenthood movement. “But nothing’s shocking in 2010, because for those of you who are unaware of the nature of the genesis of the Planned Parenthood movement, you should study their founder. Her name is Margaret Sanger. She basically built Planned Parenthood into the mighty international corporation it is today. What motivated her? What made her want to provide abortions around the world? Don’t take my word for it — read her books. They’re available online and in the library. She was very specific about her reasons. It wasn’t birth control that she was after, it was population control. And not just any population — she had specific groups of society she wanted to have less of. She had a project called the Negro Project — two guesses what that’s about. She said that blacks were ‘breeding recklessly’ and she wanted to have a program to have fewer black kids, more black abortions. The same with anyone who wasn’t perfect by her definition, so if you were unhealthy in some way, if you had some disability, if you maybe weren’t quite as bright. She was a believer in eugenics, and this was popular in the early part of the last century.” Levant pointed out at one point in his life, Tommy Douglas, the father of Canadian Medicare, had been a believer in eugenics. “In fact to his great discredit Tommy Douglas himself, his master’s thesis in university was about eugenics. He believed in sterilizing anyone, not just the defective, but anyone who was poor. He thought anyone who was poor or in poverty was a genetic problem. To Douglas’ credit when he went to pre-Nazi Germany and saw how eugenics gets carried away, he came back to Canada and renounced that belief. But not Margaret Sanger.” What Ignatieff is asking for and the views of Margaret Sanger are not dissimilar, according to Levant. “And to this day, there’s reports by undercover journalists who called up Planned Parenthood and said, ‘Can I make a donation to your abortion clinic if it will only be used to abort black babies?’ And they’ve said, ‘Yes, we’re happy to accept the money.’ So it was bizarre and grotesque, the memory of the foul origins of Planned Parenthood. When Michael Ignatieff looked at Haiti, looked at the poor faces, looked at the orphans, and didn’t think they needed help, didn’t think of adoption, didn’t think of easing the pain. The first thing he thought of was more abortions. That’s Canada in 2010.” Levant gained notoriety in the previous decade for his stance against the Alberta Human Rights Commission who attempted to prosecute him for publishing cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed. Levant spoke at length about the need to defend freedom and democracy as well as putting a stop to these types of prosecutions. Recent headlines concerning the University of Calgary Pro-Life Club are illustrative of the pressure that can be brought to bear against social-conservative efforts, added Levant. “I tell you this because you’re Christians. You believe in pro-life, I know. I tell you this because this tactic is now being used against pro-lifers. Example A is the U of C Pro-Life Club. They had their display not only shut down by the student’s association — that’s OK, they’re a bunch of Marxists, but the administration itself. And not just that. These girls, teenagers, had Calgary Police Service cops go and knock on their doors at home and serve them with warrants. Disgusting. Why? Instead of having a debate, they wanted to silence. To pre-empt. Because if you can stop debate before it even happens, it’s a lot easier to de-legitimize, and de-normalize and de-humanize. And that was certainly the way of Margaret Sanger, to de-humanize. The tactic against pro-life of this decade will be to stop you from talking or opening your mouth. That’s censorship and a loss of liberty.” Levant closed his discourse by attempting to make people aware there is a window of opportunity for activists in the province who desire to get their views across to elected officials. “There is a new dynamic in this province. And for the first time in 40 years, it’s a little bit easier to get the government’s attention. There are about 75 MLAs right now who are very, very worried about a new party called the Wildrose Alliance. And for the first time, you’re getting calls back from them a little quicker than you did before. I think you have to make the case that if you don’t get what you want from party number one, you might just go to party number two. The Wildrose Alliance have some people who have been active in pro-life circles for many years. The new leader of the Wildrose Alliance, Danielle Smith, is a bit of a libertarian. I’m not quite sure where she stands on abortion herself, but I’ll bet you a dollar that she’s for debudgeting it. That’s the libertarian view. You don’t have to be a social conservative to be against abortion, to believe that taxpayers ought not to be compelled to pay for it. So what I’m saying is, instead of justly trying to persuade, to force your ideas, I think you can persuade through the fear of a large voting cohort going to someone else. And I think right now you have the best ear of a Conservative government that is more attuned to conservative pressure than they have been in 40 years.” |
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