It didn’t take long, but Rod Bruinooge’s comments to the media about the “secret” Pro-Life Caucus have officially stirred the hornet’s nest.

First the disavowals from the PMO. No, they certainly don’t plan to re-open the abortion debate. That would sound suspiciously like the hidden agenda that they absolutely don’t have, no way, no how.

Err, except that they’re still planning on introducing a bill to makes assaulting a pregnant woman a separate offence, and while they claim this won’t impart legal rights unto a foetus, that doesn’t actually work out logically. In fact, it rather sounds like a convenient legal fiction. But no, there’s no hidden agenda there.

And then come the questions to the other two national parties. Just how many Liberals and NDP members are in this little “secret caucus,” and what do the leaders plan to do about it?

Ignatieff’s spokesperson gave a non-answer about how this is all just hypothetical and the question was settled 20 years ago. The NDP’s Irene Mathyssen said that no one would be expelled for holding such a belief, as they prefer to “talk things through,” but apparently that’s all just hypothetical for them since the two known pro-lifers in the caucus, Bev Desjarlais and Bill Blaikie are both gone. Go figure.

For more analysis, Macleans.ca’s Kady O’Malley breaks down the “secret” caucus in her own blog post, with known members from the past, including several Liberals who went “unpunished” for their participation for years.

In her New Year’s message to the country, Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean offers a pretty important bit of advice: “Be realistic.”

It’s actually probably the message that the world needs to hear right now, given that untold millions seem to be pinning their hopes on the messianic powers of the incoming American President. But closer to home, the message should be just as resounding.

The global recession is just that – global. And while yes, the Conservative government has not exactly helped this country to stay out of deficit, they also can’t shoulder the entire blame. And just as much, it’s unlikely that any party’s plans will be the panacea or magic bullet that will cure our economic woes.

Realism doesn’t preclude a certain degree of optimism that putting a number of new plans into place will be effective, but it also means that we shouldn’t just hope for the best.

The other theme of her message is that of the need for greater solidarity, and of finding new ways of working together.

“The ‘fend for yourself’ mentality has no place in an interdependent world, where the decisions of some have a profound impact on the lives of others; where our fates are inextricably linked,” Her Excellency says.

Could this be a subtle warning to Parliament that she expects them to play nice when the House returns at the end of January? Or perhaps an observation that humanity needs to smarten up if we’re actually going to face the challenges ahead – not only the economic ones, but the environmental ones as well? Either way, both bits of advice are sage, and we should heed them.

You’d think they would find a less menacing way to behave. Instead, it’s like a shadowy cabal that seeks to lurk in the dark corners of the Hill, pulling strings and making secret deals.

Or at least, that’s what they’d like some people to think.

The “secretive Pro-Life Parliamentary caucus” has a new leader, and his name is Rod Bruinooge, a Winnipeg-area MP in the Conservative caucus. Oh, and he wants you to know that he’s ready to re-open the abortion debate at any time.

Bruinooge is an MP on his second term, and in the last Parliament, he served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and Federal Interlocutor for Métis and Non-Status Indians, and he served on the Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development committee.

In his interview with The Canadian Press, Bruinooge gave an illustrative example of his position by saying that a person’s kidney has more rights than a foetus. Which I suspect wouldn’t exactly be the case in an actual courtroom, but that’s beside the point.

What Bruinooge is going to be looking to exploit in the next session, should it actually last more than a handful of days, is for the Conservatives to re-introduce a bill that would add legal rights to a foetus by declaring that it is to be a legally-enshrined mitigating factor in the sentencing of those who commit violence against a pregnant woman. While the Conservative government will swear up and down that it’s not about abortion at all, Bruinooge’s secret crew – most of whom are Conservatives, though they do claim to have members from all parties – are going to nevertheless seize upon it and use it to further their own agenda.

It’s coming up on twenty years since the Supreme Court of Canada decriminalised abortion in this country. But unless the people up on the Hill right now are vigilant, it will only take one shadowy bunch of jackals to turn back the clock.

Say what you will about Stéphane Dion, women were one of his priorities for his party and the country, and it’s one that Ignatieff has recognised and has said he hopes to continue championing. Let’s hope this is one place where he’ll pick up the slack.

In the mail yesterday morning, I received another mailing from my local MP. I’m not going to name any names, but suffice to say, he’s in the top ten Highest MP Printing Costs list printed in this week’s Hill Times. That also explains the sheer volume of printed material that comes through my mailbox on a regular basis.

I don’t object to MP mailings in principle. Rather, what I do object to are the kinds of mailings that only serve a partisan purpose. Usually it’s those torqued Conservative mailings that give an inflammatory statement and invite the recipient to check a box that says either they agree with the Conservative talking point, or they’re favour of higher taxes under the Liberals. In this case of my MP’s mailing today, it was a single check box that said, “I want Parliament to work.” As opposed to what? Saying that I want paralysis, delay, and obfuscation? What kind of survey is that?

Not that the check boxes really matter in the end, or even whether you scrawl abuse on the mailing before you send it back (free postage) to the MP who sent it. Because they’re really not surveys to canvas your opinion. Often, they’re just used for data mining purposes, sent to the party’s research bureau where your address and any information you put on there is input into a giant database so that they can figure out your demographics.

But it didn’t always used to be like this. I remember back when I lived in Calgary, Joe Clark was my MP. And every so often, I’d get an MP mailing from him, but here’s the thing—it was full of stuff that he was actually doing. About positions he’d taken on issues in the House, or with photos of him attending events in the community, or what have you. But there was something of substance in it, and in retrospect, where the mailings and “ten-percenters” have devolved to this level, I miss those kinds of mailings.

Granted, in this age of the internet, most of those kinds of things are on an MP’s website, where they have transcript and videos of speeches and the photos of them attending community events. Which is great. But not everyone who votes is on the internet, and these partisan mailings are still being used for data mining purposes.

The issue of “ten percenters” sent to other ridings has come up repeatedly in Parliament in the past couple of sessions, especially as Conservatives have driven up the costs with mass printings and bulk mail-outs (amidst other complaints that it’s impossible to get other important printing jobs completed on time on the Hill any more because they’re too busy spitting out more ten percenters). But perhaps, in this internet age, we need to see that our Parliamentarians revisit the concept of free mailings to prevent partisan abuses and a free means of mining data.

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It looks like Mike Duffy’s senate appointment just might be illegal. He’s been appointed as a Senator from PEI, as that’s where he’s from. But because he doesn’t own property there, and doesn’t currently reside there, it might actually make the choice invalid according to at least one Constitutional expert. I’m going to be very curious to see how they get around this one.

It was quite the day for the Governor in Council to be making appointments. Eighteen senators plus a Supreme Court of Canada puisine justice – that’s a lot of decisions to scrutinise, and a lot of chances to demonstrate some progressivity. Chances that were largely squandered.

Of the eighteen new senators, a mere five were women, and only one of those a woman of colour, in this case, a Korean-Canadian. For a Chamber that is supposed to be more reflective of the minorities and diversity of this country (and yes, that includes sexual minorities), Harper didn’t take the opportunity presented.

Of the thirteen men appointed, the only one that stands out as not being a middle-aged straight white man is Patrick Brazeau, who was up until this point the National Chief of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples. What is especially interesting is that Brazeau and his organisation – largely made up of off-reserve and urban aboriginals – are known to oppose the Assembly of First Nations in many of their positions on aboriginal issues.

Two CTV broadcast journalists – one current, and one former – were appointed in the form of Mike Duffy and Pamela Wallin. While Wallin had previously served on diplomatic appointments made by the Liberals and more recently the Afghanistan panel with John Manley, Duffy has been a fixture on Parliament Hill for a couple of decades. Cynics might even suggest that this appointment is thanks for some of his more ethically questionable tactics during the election (like slagging Elizabeth May in conversation with Peter MacKay, and airing the Dion interview where he asked to restart because of a grammatically nonsensical question).

And while the attention was focused on the new senators and all the talk of pork, hardly anyone batted an eyelash when it came to the appointment of Thomas Cromwell to the Supreme Court. While this is and of itself is not much of an issue – agreement all around seems to be in favour of Cromwell’s credentials – what they are talking about is Harper’s penchant for short-circuiting his own stated processes for appointments. He swore he would only appoint Senators that won (unconstitutional) “consultative elections” in their home provinces. Well, that didn’t exactly work. He also swore to have Parliament involved in consulting on Supreme Court nominations, and that didn’t happen either – first because he shut down the process prematurely for an election, and again when he shut down the process prematurely to prorogue Parliament rather than face a confidence vote. (Notice any pattern there?)

(Incidentally, I’ll offer a shameless plug about my piece on the Xtra.ca national page about Thomas Cromwell).