A new hidden agenda

Ottawa Citizen, April 11, 2011: William Johnson says that “it remains Harper’s ultimate goal … to make the Conservative party with conservative values the quintessential party of Canada. He has moved to that objective by governing with a populist sense of what the people -as opposed to the elites -think and want.”

I disagree. The prime minister has abandoned social conservatives, many of whom are the very same people who brought Harper to power in the first place. These people have been forgotten by Harper. The abortion debate Harper won’t let us have -and that social conservatives thought they’d have with a Conservative government -continues to be silenced.

We used to talk about Harper’s hidden agenda. Many said he would reopen the abortion debate. Now we know that the hidden agenda is real, but different than we expected: Do not talk about abortion.

Do not debate abortion. Do not support private member bills on the subject matter of abortion.

The tragedy is that the so-called conservative values Johnson refers to, do not include all of Canada’s conservatives.

PATRICIA MALONEY, Ottawa