Big news on the front page of the Charlottetown Guardian today, which reported the following:
A Liberal MP in Prince Edward Island says he expects to be permitted to vote pro-life in any future votes on abortion, but an official with leader Justin Trudeau’s office says that’s not the case.
Cardigan MP Lawrence MacAulay says his understanding of Trudeau’s “grandfathering in” exception for sitting MPs would allow him to vote with his conscience if an abortion vote were held in the House of Commons.
“He’s indicated that I can vote whatever way I choose. I’m, I guess, what you call grandfathered,” MacAulay said in an interview with The Guardian.
“I have voted pro-life all the way through.”
Trudeau announced last month all candidates who run for the Liberal nomination in the 2015 federal election campaign must support the Liberal party’s pro-choice stance.
But he included a caveat for MPs elected before he became leader.
“The existing MPs who have been grandfathered in, to a certain extent, will be respected to a certain extent in their choices,” Trudeau told reporters in Ottawa last month.
MacAulay says he believes this will allow him to vote pro-life as he always has on the abortion issue.
“It does not affect me. I have done and voted the way that I wish to vote and will continue to do so.” ….
MacAulay, a former cabinet minister, is the longest-serving MP in Trudeau’s caucus and the second longest-serving in the House of Commons. One would assume he knows his way around, how politics works, and what you should and should not say to reporters. And yet, hours after telling reporters he “can vote whatever way I choose”, his Twitter feed had these three missives:
I’d like to clarify my comments to the Guardian from the other day. I am personally pro-life, and have long held these beliefs; however
— Lawrence MacAulay (@L_MacAulayMP) June 18, 2014
I accept and understand the party position regarding a woman’s right to choose. Despite my personal beliefs, — Lawrence MacAulay (@L_MacAulayMP) June 18, 2014
I understand that I will have to vote the party position should this issue ever come up in the House of Commons.
— Lawrence MacAulay (@L_MacAulayMP) June 18, 2014
I’d say these tweets are pretty good evidence that Trudeau has command of his caucus.