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CURRENTLY IN CULTURE
The pro-life caucus

Lloyd Mackey

This year’s speaker during Holy Week services in Ottawa was William McRae, president emeritus of Tyndale College and Seminary in Toronto. Speaking on Good Friday to over 2,000 people, he asserted that the practice of forgiveness among Christians cannot help but lead to more constructive mindsets and less bitter behaviour. That is good advice for Members of Parliament, especially the 70 to 100 who claim that their Christian faith is pretty important to them – advice apparently soon forgotten in the bearpit of parliamentary debates.

Or is it? Liberal MP John McKay is National Prayer Breakfast chair and a founder of the Christian Legal Fellowship in Canada. He talks about the debate being “pure theatre” and suggests that the highly publicized and explosive question periods mask some pretty extensive interparty cooperation and discussion. Some of the best of those linkages are accomplished through Christian MPs who know something about forgiveness.

That is why it is possible to have a pro-life caucus drawing from four parties, with three co-chairs, each one from a different party. It is an intriguing group, begun shortly after the 1997 election. Its first co-chairs were Jason Kenney (Canadian Alliance), Elsie Wayne (Progressive Conservative) and Tom Wappel (Liberal). Now, there are changes at the top. Maurice Vellacott has replaced Kenney as the Alliance co-chair. Paul Steckle has taken over for the Liberals from Wappel. Wayne remains the Conservative co-chair.

Up to 70 MPs, from all parties but the NDP, keep in some contact with the pro-life caucus. With some, it is a matter of faith and/or conscience. Others like to keep in touch with what they know to be the thinking of a substantial number of their constituents.

The changing of the chairs represents a shift that could slightly alter the direction of the caucus. Both Wappel and Kenney are Catholics. Their pro-life stances reflect the teaching of their church, which officially opposes both abortion and contraception. Vellacott and Steckle, like Wayne, associate with evangelical Protestant denominations that do not have explicit teachings on either issue. Moreover, Protestants who oppose abortion are less likely to be anti-contraceptive.

Vellacott is an ordained minister who has pastored both Mennonite Brethren and Baptist churches. He holds a doctorate in ministry from the Evangelical Free Church’s Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Steckle is an Ontario businessman and devout Mennonite. Wayne is a long-time, serious member of an influential Baptist church in Saint John, N.B., where she was mayor for many years.

As the pro-life caucus does its work, its chairs will help MPs to clearly state sanctity of life views – and reach out to those MPs and constituents who hold those views more loosely than they might wish. After all, they recognize that most Canadians want firm controls on abortion, even though few favour an outright ban.

Maurice Vellacott demonstrated this aspect of Canadian politics one day last year. As I sat in the press gallery, I spotted him sitting among the Liberals, far across the floor from his own seat with the official opposition. Queried later, he confessed to be gathering the 100 signatures needed to get debate on a “conscience” bill: legislation that would permit health care workers to opt out of abortion procedures on the basis of their beliefs. He needed – and eventually got – the requisite signatures. Debate on the bill took place, but it was not voted on, as is the case with most opposition bills. Such debates, while not resulting in actual changes in the law, keep the subject alive. Wayne, Vellacott and Steckle are not wasting their time.

This article is a Doing Politics Christianly column distributed by Christian Info Canada. Lloyd Mackey is editor and publisher of Christian News Ottawa.

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Last modified July 10, 2001.

© 2001 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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