Juno News - Is there a place for social conservatism today？

00:00:00.000 Hi, everyone. Last week, Erin O'Toole became the new leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.

00:00:10.640 And right on schedule, everyone was asking him about his views on abortion,

00:00:14.840 to which he responded point blank that he is a pro-choice MP. However, now the usual suspects,

00:00:20.880 you know, the mainstream media, liberal politicians, activists, are wringing their hands over the fact

00:00:25.920 that he courted the support of social conservatives and is apparently going to enable the opening of

00:00:32.380 the abortion debate because he will allow MPs to raise issues related to conscience rights

00:00:37.900 and allow free votes on those matters. I can't find any evidence of him outright saying that he's going

00:00:44.480 to allow the reopening of the abortion debate. He has said that he will allow ministers and

00:00:50.720 backbenchers to raise the issue of euthanasia. And he also said he would never institute anything like

00:00:56.600 the liberal summer job program thing where organizations asking for funding for the

00:01:03.200 summer jobs program had to check off a box that they were pro-choice or they would be denied funding.

00:01:07.820 So he said he would never violate religious liberties by doing anything like that. And he has also said

00:01:13.900 that he doesn't agree with abortion services being a part of foreign aid funding. So overall,

00:01:19.100 his stance is pro-choice, but with some concessions that will probably please the pro-life side. And I

00:01:26.080 think it's fair to say that he's being tolerant and inclusive of a diversity of opinions. Now, I think

00:01:31.700 it's worth noting also that the pro-life lobby is well organized. That's undeniable. They have retreats,

00:01:37.800 camps, training sessions, all designed with the understanding of a common goal. And so they are

00:01:44.160 mobilized. And that is how they have so much influence, not only within the conservative

00:01:49.420 party, but in other places as well. So that brings me to what I actually want to talk about today,

00:01:54.900 social conservatism. Derek Sloan was one of the two socially conservative leadership candidates in the

00:02:01.960 recent race, alongside Leslyn Lewis. Last week, following Erin O'Toole's election, liberal MP

00:02:08.800 Pam Damoff released a statement condemning Derek Sloan as a misogynist, racist, and bigot,

00:02:16.180 and urged O'Toole to kick Derek Sloan out of caucus and disallow him from ever being a conservative

00:02:22.020 candidate in the future. Damoff argued that Derek Sloan, who, again, is an elected MP for the riding

00:02:29.260 of Hastings-Lenox and Addington in Ontario, should be removed from public life because, for one,

00:02:36.000 he said, in regards to Chief Public Health Officer Teresa Tam, does she work for China or Canada?

00:02:42.520 Which people construed to be evidence of his racism and bigotry, rather than just geopolitics.

00:02:49.920 And Derek Sloan also said, which, you know, Pam Damoff has a problem with, that a lot of the

00:02:55.760 arguments used to defend abortion currently were historically the same arguments used to defend

00:03:02.360 slavery. And he also does not agree with Bill C-8, the bill to ban conversion therapy. Now,

00:03:10.260 what we have to understand about Bill C-8, and the people who criticize it, is we're not talking

00:03:14.800 about defending the practice of sending a gay kid away to a camp that will make them straight. I don't

00:03:20.980 know of any Canadian politician who is defending that. We're talking about how Bill C-8 is written

00:03:26.440 in a way that includes gender identity, which can be interpreted to mean that if you don't indulge a

00:03:32.900 child by letting them take hormones or puberty blockers or get surgeries as they please if they

00:03:39.860 claim that they're transgender, under this bill, you could be trying to convert them to a cisgender

00:03:45.540 person, and therefore you would be in violation of Bill C-8 because you are denying their identity.

00:03:50.860 It's even in the bill, definition of conversion therapy. Conversion therapy means a practice,

00:03:55.600 treatment, or service designed to change a person's sexual orientation to heterosexual

00:04:00.580 or gender identity to cisgender. So let's say you're a health professional, you get this young 0.99

00:04:07.640 girl come into your office and she doesn't like to wear dresses and she prefers playing with trucks 1.00

00:04:12.680 and she seems to think she's a boy, you know, maybe at school they somehow put in her head that

00:04:19.740 she's probably a boy. Well, you're not allowed to dissuade her from that. You have to indulge that

00:04:26.400 idea. Otherwise, you're practicing conversion therapy and trying to make her, um, you're trying 0.59

00:04:32.260 to convert her into a cisgender person. So that's the kind of scenario, potential scenario, that we're

00:04:37.800 worried about here. And it was actually a women's rights organization called COSBAR, Canadian Women's

00:04:43.200 Sex-Based Rights, that first brought this to my attention earlier this year. So circling back to

00:04:48.320 Pam Damoff's statement, my first thought was this is just strange, you know, why do you care?

00:04:54.300 Think about your own party before you try to dictate what's happening in other parties.

00:04:58.140 But then I realized, you know, she sees this as a free opportunity to look morally superior to

00:05:03.480 conservatives. But the implication of what Pam Damoff said in her statement is actually really quite

00:05:09.360 serious and scary. And, you know, her implication is that if you are a socially conservative Christian,

00:05:15.660 you are not allowed to have a voice, and you don't belong in public life, even if you were elected.

00:05:21.360 And although she didn't say it outright, you know, in these people's eyes, it's even worse that Derek

00:05:27.720 Sloan is a white male. He's a white male socially conservative Christian, which is basically the most 0.57

00:05:33.340 undesirable thing you can be in Canadian society. Now, full disclosure, my relationship to

00:05:39.360 social conservatism is this. I'm not with social conservatives when it comes to their stance

00:05:45.480 on abortion. I'm pro-choice, always have been, been in some heated debates about the subject,

00:05:50.940 but have not ever wavered on that issue. I'm also not religious. So I see marriage as just a commitment

00:05:59.020 and a reason to celebrate rather than having anything to do with God or religion. I never even

00:06:05.020 wanted to get married. It's something I never cared about, but I got married to my husband this summer

00:06:08.940 because I figured, let's just have a fun party. And, um, you know, a wedding would be a nice

00:06:14.680 entrenchment of our commitment and it would bring people together. So let's do it. It is really the

00:06:18.740 abortion issue though, that makes or breaks a social conservative. And so I would never fit the label

00:06:24.820 of, of social conservative, despite agreeing with them on quite a few things. So where I am with the

00:06:30.940 social conservatives is I think schools, mostly public schools are teaching outlandish things about

00:06:37.320 gender identity. I also believe in religious liberty. So for example, I don't think that 1.00

00:06:42.680 Catholic schools should be forced or shamed into flying a pride flag. Um, just this June when it 1.00

00:06:48.520 was pride month, a Waterloo region Catholic school designed an alternate flag to fly during the month.

00:06:55.400 And I'm not religious, but I quite liked this flag. It had a nice Bible verse. Um, it just looked very

00:07:02.200 inclusive with the different colors, um, the design of it. And so I actually thought it was quite a nice

00:07:08.100 flag, but you know, the, the students and people cited in the CBC article about this, they were

00:07:13.640 complaining that this is just so insulting because it's not the pride flag. It's not the rainbow pride

00:07:20.040 flag. And what's interesting is in some circles, the pride flag is not even enough anymore. Among a lot

00:07:25.580 of people, they prefer this, the rainbow pride flag that is intercut with, um, kind of a triangular

00:07:30.820 design of black and brown to represent black and brown people in the LGBTQ community. Um, so I guess,

00:07:38.860 you know, the, the previous rainbow flag was not inclusive enough, didn't lift up the voices of

00:07:45.260 black and brown people enough or whatnot. You know, now not even the pride flag is enough for some people.

00:07:51.520 I also see too many people spending their lives watching violent internet pornography and engaging in

00:07:58.160 non-committal relationships where people just dispose of the people they're dating so easily.

00:08:03.040 Among my generation, at least, that is seen as normal when it's really quite sad and destructive to

00:08:09.320 everyone involved. And when you say that, people label you a prude, a pearl clutcher, you know, you're 0.73

00:08:15.180 not open-minded. Um, but social conservatives are kind of the only ones that don't care about being

00:08:20.200 called those things. Um, I don't care either though. And another issue for social conservatives is the

00:08:27.000 traditional family structure. So they will venerate this idea of a nuclear family with children where 0.53

00:08:34.160 the father is the breadwinner and the mother stays home and is a homemaker. I respect diversity of

00:08:39.700 choice. So I don't see any moral implications as to whether, you know, you have this structure or if

00:08:46.240 you have a stay at home dad and a working mom, or if both parents work, or if they decide not to have

00:08:51.600 children, et cetera. People will do what's best for them. And the dad, breadwinner, mom, homemaker

00:08:57.020 thing isn't realistic or even desirable for perhaps the majority of people. So as someone who is with

00:09:04.000 the SOCONs on some issues, but not so much with others, I see this attempt by Pam Damoff and others

00:09:10.260 before her to silence the voices of social conservatives as an affront to democracy. And especially because 0.92

00:09:16.480 she's trying to get them removed from public life. But, you know, social conservatives, they are 0.98

00:09:22.000 raising awareness on issues that are worth talking about. And we should appreciate a diversity of

00:09:27.920 opinions. I'm Lindsay Shepard with True North. Thanks so much for watching.

Juno News - August 31, 2020

Is there a place for social conservatism today？

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript