Global News published this video item, entitled “O’Toole opposes Conservative MP’s bill on sex-selective abortion, says he’s “pro-choice”” – below is their description.
Conservative Leader of Canada Erin O’Toole said on Monday that he opposes and will personally vote against a bill put forth by one of his part’s MPs, Cathay Wagantall, that seeks to restrict abortion access on the basis of sex.
He said he was a “pro-choice MP” and was elected with that stance. But he added there was “freedom of speech” for backbench MPs. When asked if he will direct his shadow cabinet to vote against the bill, O’Toole said “there will be no law passed that will restrict the rights of Canadians.”
O’Toole was elected leader after campaigning that he would not whip votes on moral issues and could face criticism should he choose to do so on this bill.
Wagantall said that she respected O’Toole’s decision to vote against her bill, saying she appreciates that members of the party can present bills as they should be put forward and that they can debate them within the caucus.
The bill put forward by Wagantall came after a poll conducted on the issue, of which 84 per cent of Canadian adults polled in the survey said that they think abortion should be illegal for families that do not want their baby to be a certain sex. If passed, the onus would be on medical practitioners to determine why the woman is having an abortion, but pro-choice activists say this would cause a barrier for women and transgender people wanting an abortion.
Canada is a country in the northern part of North America. It extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering 9.98 million square kilometres (3.85 million square miles), making it the world’s second-largest country by total area.
Its southern and western border with the United States, stretching 8,891 kilometres (5,525 mi), is the world’s longest bi-national land border. Canada’s capital is Ottawa, and its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.
Various Indigenous peoples inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years before European colonization. The Canada Act 1982, which severed the vestiges of legal dependence on the British Parliament. Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy in the Westminster tradition, with a monarch and a prime minister who serves as the chair of the Cabinet and head of government.
As a highly developed country, Canada has the seventeenth-highest nominal per-capita income globally as well as the thirteenth-highest ranking in the Human Development Index. Its advanced economy is the tenth-largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources and well-developed international trade networks.
Voting is a method for a group, such as a meeting or an electorate, in order to make a collective decision or express an opinion usually following discussions, debates or election campaigns. Democracies elect holders of high office by voting. Residents of a place represented by an elected official are called “constituents”, and those constituents who cast a ballot for their chosen candidate are called “voters”. There are different systems for collecting votes, but while many of the systems used in decision-making can also be used as electoral systems, any which cater for proportional representation can only be used in elections.
In smaller organizations, voting can occur in different ways. Formally via ballot to elect others for example within a workplace, to elect members of political associations or to choose roles for others. Informally voting could occur as a spoken agreement or as a verbal gesture like a raised hand or electronically.