Federal Conservative candidate Patrick Brown says calling social conservatives “dinosaurs” in a book he wrote about his time in Ontario politics was “the wrong terminology.”
“I guess a better way to articulate that would be to say, I don’t think the Conservative Party needs to review these issues,” Brown said in an interview Friday.
The mayor of Brampton, Ontario, has attacked MP Pierre Poilievre, who was a member of the House of Commons when Brown was a Member of Parliament, for his position on abortion.
Brown said he believes one of the reasons the party lost the 2019 election was a lack of clarity about its position on the procedure.
Throughout the race and even after, former leader Andrew Scheer was haunted for questions about his conservative social values, before resigning in the face of growing pressure to do so.
When asked about his own point of view, Poilievre said he believed in free choice and that a government led by him would not introduce or pass legislation restricting access to abortion, despite the wishes of parliamentarians and party members who belong to your well-organized organization. conservative social wing.
Poilievre has pointed out on social media that Brown, in his book on his downfall of the leader of Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Party on allegations of sexual misconduct that he continues to deny, called social conservatives “dinosaurs.”
He added that they were becoming irrelevant and that their positions were “falsely hypocritical”.
“Maybe that’s the wrong terminology,” Brown said Friday when asked about his use of the term “dinosaur” in his book “Takedown: The Attempted Political Association Of Patrick Brown.”
“My brand of conservatism is that I want to see less government. I want to see less government in your small business and less taxes, less bureaucracy … but I also want to see less government in your personal life.”
A leaked U.S. Supreme Court draft opinion suggests it could overturn Roe v. Wade, a ruling advocating for abortion rights across the country, has given new life to the issue in Canada and to the Conservative leadership race.
One of the issues that Conservative leaders have had to deal with is how to deal with private MPs’ bills that seek to restrict access to abortion. Under former leader Erin O’Toole, 81 of the party’s 119 deputies – more than half – voted in favor of legislation passed by Saskatchewan MP Cathay Wagantall to ban so-called sex-selective abortion, which she said direct the girls.
The bill was easily defeated by the Liberal government, along with members of the NPD and the Bloc Québécois who considered it a Trojan horse to erode reproductive rights.
Brown said Friday that while lawmakers can introduce private members’ bills on abortion, he would not let his cabinet members vote in favor.
“I would not have the support of (my) government. Therefore, any cabinet I select, any government I lead would not re-examine the abortion debate.”
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on May 28, 2022.