Weekly Politics Thread

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[u/[deleted]]

Silencing scientists and their organizations is one thing, but depriving gay people of rights? What is this inflammatory language? Where are you getting this from?

We were close to getting suppressors and other previously prohibited rifles during his time in PMO. That was around the early 2010s according to some industry insiders but then Trudeau happened. I'd prefer a boring accountant PM over this bullshit we have going on now.

[u/Rook_Defence → u/[deleted]]

You're correct that I did mis-word one element. I should have written "attempted" to deprive gay people of certain civil liberties.

Namely, the December 6 2006 motion to reopen the same-sex marriage debate.

Since the passage of the Civil Marriage Act had provided equal access to civil marriage and divorce for same-sex couples, the (defeated) motion put forward by the Conservative government in December 2006 to "reopen the debate" could only have resulted in the same or reduced marriage equality for same-sex couples. If Harper's government had been committed to equality for these people, what value in reopening the debate?

Also, I don't tend to give governments much credit for being "close to" doing something. I don't cut the Trudeau Liberals slack for being close to fulfilling a 7-year old promise to get boil-water advisories lifted, nor do I give him slack for being close to doing something about cost of living, so I won't give the Harper Conservatives any points for being close to meaningful changes to the Firearms Act, that did not materialize in 4 years of majority government.

Don't get me wrong, scrapping the long gun registry was a big deal, and there were other good things done by that government, but just because I loathe the current government's policies on a lot of things doesn't mean I have to put on rose-tinted-glasses when I look back at the Harper years.

[u/yummybunnybear → u/Rook_Defence]

This whole "anti gay" allegation against politicians in the 2000s needs to be put to rest. Even Obama ran against SSM for both terms (2008, 2012), only to change his tune in the middle of his second term as the courts across the States were increasingly ruling in favour of SSM. The Supreme Court of Canada in the marriage reference never ruled to make SSM mandatory (it only ruled that the federal government had the jurisdiction to change the definition of marriage if it chose to). SSM was very rare around the world in the 2000s and it was considered an experimental idea. Even liberal France didn't have it until 2013. Harper has identified himself as an "incremental conservative" which means a more pragmatic conservative who makes social policy changes incrementally rather than being informed by any particular philosophy or religious dogma. His view on SSM at the time was consistent with his political view and the views of the vast majority of liberal nations. Celebrate the fact that society has moved forward, but it's disingenuous to fault people living through the time as not having the same hindsight as yourself right now.

[u/Rook_Defence → u/yummybunnybear]

I was in favour of same-sex marriage equality at the time as well, to be clear.

I'm not trying to reopen the same-sex marriage debate in a forum about guns, it's just one element of why I thought he was a bad PM. If people are held up on that, then drop the same-sex marriage criticism, and put in bill C-30 in its place.