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A Conservative MP whose beliefs on abortion prompted her Liberal counterparts to walk out of a hearing last week won't be heading up the status of women committee after all.
Six Liberals and one New Democratic Paty member voted against making Lethbridge MP Rachel Harder the chair of the committee, opting instead for her Tory colleague Karen Vecchio, who opposed her own nomination but was chosen anyway.
Last week, the Liberals walked out of the committee meeting to protest the nomination of Harder, who holds anti-abortion views.
NDP MP Sheila Malcolmson joined them after trying to bring it to a vote.
The Campaign Life Coalition endorsed Harder when she first ran for the Conservatives in 2015 because she filled out a questionnaire saying she believed life begins at conception and would work to introduce and pass laws to ban abortion once elected.
Harder, who had dismissed the walk-out as grandstanding, was nominated in part because of her new role as Conservative critic for the status of women portfolio.
The Conservatives are now accusing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who spoke out in favour of rejecting Harder as committee chair, of using the standoff to distract from his controversial plan for small business tax reform.
"It's disappointing that Justin Trudeau would act this way and his actions demonstrate the intolerance of the Liberal Party of Canada, which claims to value diversity," Vecchio said in a news release.
"Conservatives accept the democratic will of the committee, and unlike Justin Trudeau, we commit to working on behalf of all women in Canada, regardless of their beliefs," she said.
Last week, Trudeau told a news conference that his government supports the independence of committees, and that the Liberals on the status of women committee made the decision to walk out on their own.
Still, he expressed his firm support for their position.
"We will always defend women's rights in this party and in this government,'' Trudeau said.
"Quite frankly, one would hope that the committee for the status of women would have a spokesperson who would be able to stand up and unequivocally defend women's rights," he said. "That's sort of the point of the status of women committee.''
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