Scape Scape:
What matters is when a whipped vote is on the floor that the opposition tabled that their own party defeated the motion. That speaks to crediblity of the queens loyal opposition. Like it or not this was a confidence motion the opposition party sprung on itself and ended up caught in their own trap by rank amature leadership. How can they be trusted to lead a country when they can't even lead themselves?
It wasn't whipped was it. In fact as a matter of law it was a bill concerning out of Canada affairs and thus members are granted more freedom of latitude. This wasn't a non-confidence motion (that was the budget earlier). Although I lament the result it is hardly surprising that the Libs have both pro and cons for abortion and hardly surprising that the CPC is all con and the NDP is all pro.
The objective was to get legislation and support for womens reproductive rights in 3rd world countries. That failed and that sucks.
The "Trap" if it exists was to expose Harpers CPCs true position on abortion since they have made herculean efforts to avoid addressing that issue since 2006. They did that in spades.
We now know who supports womens rights and who doesn't. On the surface this will hurt the Libs but only because of a knee jerk reaction. In the long run they gained the abortion chip to use against them and that issue will above all prevent a CPC majority and might cost them the next election.