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Yet Scheer, like Harper, promises his government will keep same-sex marriage and abortion off its agenda. And in this respect, I think social conservatives might have made a tactical error in preferring the family man Scheer’s so-con bona fides to the rakish Maxime Bernier’s parliamentary libertarianism.

Last week, Huffington Post’s Althia Raj asked Scheer if he would be content to allow socially conservative MPs to pursue their causes through private member’s motions or bills. “It is the leader’s job to encourage people to bring up issues that unite us rather than divide us,” he responded, obliquely. He called the question “hypothetical.”

Bernier’s answer to the same question has been, essentially, “yes.”

That said, either Bernier, the non-social conservative who understands what Parliament is for, or Scheer, the proud but pragmatic social conservative, was a reasonable choice to follow Harper’s stifling, paranoid leadership. Both are much more cheerful, much more comfortable in their own skins, and show far more confidence in their party. In different ways, each proposed thinking of its social conservative wing as it should be thought of: not as a problem to be managed, but as a natural feature of any big-tent conservative party.

The opposition and the media consider so-con beliefs utterly anathema, if not unsuitable for debate, and that is their right. Many voters simply do not agree.

An Ipsos poll conducted in March found 53 per cent of Canadians thought abortion should be available whenever a woman chooses, but 24 per cent thought there should be restrictions. An Angus Reid poll last year found monolithic support (84 per cent) for extending human rights protections to transgender Canadians, but not inconsiderable opposition (33 per cent) to bathroom choice.