Who is Andrew Scheer?
Even staunch Conservatives have been asking the question since Scheer won the party leadership two years ago.
The basics: age, 40; married, five children; MP for Regina-Qu’Appelle since 2004; previous position, speaker of the House of Commons, 2011-2017; job experience before politics, almost none.
Hon. Andrew Scheer,
Prime Minister-in-Waiting,
Stornoway,
Ottawa
My Dear Mr. Scheer,
The rapture is building across Canada!
No, I am not referring to the Toronto Raptors. (If you haven’t been briefed about the Raptors, Sir, they are a team of unconventionally tall men who play a sport called basketball in a place called Jurassic Park. I’ll explain some other time.)
Andrew Scheer and his Conservatives accuse Justin Trudeau of political cynicism by injecting abortion, a hot issue in the United States, into this country’s election campaign.
Yes. It is true. Cynical, the Liberals are. But if you are prime minister, trailing in the polls (through no one’s fault but your own), and facing the distinct possibility of losing your job in October, you do whatever you have to do to take the mickey out of your opponents.
The current session of Canada’s 42nd Parliament has been a nasty one. Members on both sides have invested more effort arguing over scandals, real or imagined, than they have debating measures that would benefit the people who sent them to Ottawa.
It is only going to get worse in the four weeks that remain before Parliament Hill shuts down for the summer. A mountain of legislation – some major, some minor, some as long as two years in the queue – is still waiting for approval by the Commons or the Senate.
Abortion law is once again a front-burner issue in American politics as that country steels itself for election year 2020.
No fewer than 300 bills to ban or restrict a woman’s access to legal abortion have been introduced in 36 states, and a dozen states have passed one – most notably Alabama where the governor, a woman, has signed into law a new measure that carries a 99-year prison term for doctors who perform abortions, even in cases of rape and incest.
