Andrew Scheer and Memes

Posted

in

by

UPDATE August 29, 2019: Abortion rights: Scheer has now announced that he holds the opposing position from Harper. He is willing to allow MPs to bring forward private members bills on abortion and same-sex marriage and allow a free vote.

UPDATE June 4, 2019: Yes, I’ve seen that a number of people are referring back here to try to defend Scheer, however, as you can tell, this was written two years ago, as was the original meme. It only applies to him at that point and before. Everything he’s done since is not covered in this. Look it up, research it, think about it, read actual news rather than commentary or opinion pieces.

Original post, June 1, 2017:

If you’ve read my writings during the last election I was very very critical of the CPC. That being said I hate it when people are deliberately misleading. I saw a meme today about the new leader of the CPC Andrew Scheer.

It seemed to list things that I had heard the opposite about so I looked each item up. Here’s what I found.

Looked it up. The meme is very wrong on some things but right on others.

It’s very wrong on:

Abortion rights: he holds the same position as Harper: personally opposed to abortion but unwilling to re-open debate on it and prefers to let the current standards and policies stand. Believes that any laws against abortion would “not survive a constitutional challenge”. Updated above.

Same sex marriage: ten years ago he opposed it. However, last year he spoke in favour of the proposal at the CPC convention to stop the CPC’s official opposition to same sex marriage. Then went on to vote to stop their opposition. Not sure we should judge him for his stance on this ten years ago rather than his stance on it today. UPDATED Above.

War on drugs: he doesn’t support legalizing marijuana but he doesn’t want to “roll back the Liberals’ new marijuana legislation”. Other than opposing new safe injection sites (but doesn’t support closing already opened ones) I’m not sure how he’s wanting a war on drugs any more than 2/3 of the other politicians in Canada.

Canadian aid based on religious test: I can’t find a single thing about this. I don’t know where they got it from.

Slight misjudgment on:

Climate change: he opposes a national carbon tax, believes it should be provincial jurisdiction. Feels there should be a national plan to curb emissions but that doing it through taxes is “economic suicide”.

Defunding public universites: here’s his quote

“There are a lot of people who come to campus who say things that are outrageous. And I vehemently disagree with them. That I find offensive. Professors or guest speakers who say terrible things about everything from Christianity to capitalism. I just don’t go to them. It’s as simple as that. And it doesn’t bother me. It doesn’t keep me up at night.”

A bit more from National Post:

“Under Scheer’s proposed policy, fostering and protecting free speech would become a criterion on public post-secondary institutions’ grant applications to federal agencies such as the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Canada Research Chairs.”

As someone who works in PSE this will basically add a very thin layer of bureaucracy which won’t end up actually affecting anything. Mostly because the “Anti-Israeli Apartheid Week” group is supportive of it and that would make any attempt to actually bring this policy anathema to the traditional CPC supporters.

On Gun Control:

“I am not in a position to make comments on those specific items. A leader of a party or caucus needs to find common ground. I think before we get into specifics of any different clauses in the criminal code, the most important thing is to tighten up the definitions, remove the subjective power from the RCMP, and just ensure that we are always focused on firearms tied to crime and not responsible gun owners.”

He feels that policies should be made by parliament and provinces, not the RCMP. However he refused to give any opinions on what those policies should be. He supports stronger sentencing for anyone convicted of a crime while in possession of a firearm.

It’s right on:

Voted against the transgender rights bill which makes it illegal to discriminate on the basis of gender identity but has given no statements on it other than to say he has no intention of rolling it back or reopening the debate.

Voted against the doctor assisted dying bill.

Tax breaks for homeschoolers: yep he’s proposing that.

Voted against motion opening study on all hate crime in canada / promotes discrimination against muslim canadians under the guise of “free speech”: these two are actualy from the same thing, a motion studying islamaphobia as a subset hate crimes: he opposed it.

Opposes safe injection sites: yep.
Mandatory  minimums: yep.

So, he’s by no means progressive. But, lets be upset about the things he actually does/supports/opposes and don’t attack a false caricature of him.

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *