“It’s easy to say you’re in favour of citizens’ choice; much harder to say that your MPs, candidates and party members have unlimited choice too.”

The word “choice” may be one of the most powerful words in politics, and somehow, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau has landed himself on the wrong side of it.

In a bid to stake out the Liberals as the party of choice in the abortion debate, Trudeau declared that members of his party were not free to choose how to vote on the issue: all MPs must commit to voting in favour of pro-choice when it comes to proposed measures on abortion.

In short: a woman’s right to choose trumps the right of MPs to vote their own opinions. As a policy or principle, that’s defensible; some would argue it’s long overdue in a party that ushered in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

But in the realm of practical politics, communication and leadership, Trudeau keeps stepping all over his efforts to present himself as the champion of freedom and choice. No matter where one stands on the abortion issue, this is where Trudeau needs to do damage control in the weeks and months ahead.

A few months ago, Trudeau’s chief strategist Gerald Butts gave an interview to CTV’s Question Period and Ottawa bureau chief Robert Fife. Butts mapped out an interesting goal for Trudeau and the Liberal party, one that revolved around reclaiming some language from the Conservatives.

“One of the things Justin has tried to do since the very beginning, since he ran for leader, is to reclaim the idea that Liberals ought to be about personal freedom,” Butts said.

“I think that one of the mistakes we’ve made as progressive parties, not just in Canada but all over the world, is to allow that idea of freedom to be taken over by Conservatives.”

Liberals, Butts went on to say, should be constantly pointing out that for all the Conservatives’ avowed love of freedom, people aren’t really free to disagree with Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

On this business of abortion, however, it’s looking like Harper still owns the language — not just of freedom, but of choice.

It’s hard to believe now, but a long time ago — March 2005 to be specific — an opposition leader named Stephen Harper convened reporters and columnists for a big media briefing in his office.

The purpose of the gathering was to explain how Harper, as a new leader of the united Conservative party, would not be having any policy at all on matters such as same-sex marriage and abortion. Members would be totally free to hold their views, but the Conservative party would have no stated position on these matters.

Many in the room, sitting around that big wooden table, laughed incredulously. (I didn’t, for the record — it seemed consistent with Harper’s libertarian streak.) On the pundit circuit, commentators opined that no serious party leader could have an official lack of policy on hot-button issues. Seinfeld references were made — a Conservative party about nothing.

Well, we know how that turned out.

The episode is worth revisiting because it forces us to look at how political leaders deal with these notions of freedom and choice.

Notice the pattern in Trudeau’s (alleged or real) missteps over the past months. He abruptly ended the political candidacy of Christine Innes in Trinity-Spadina. Without warning, he terminated his relationship with Liberal senators. In an off-the-cuff remark at a “ladies’ night,” he said that China’s dictatorship regime allowed a certain efficiency in implementing decisions.

Meanwhile, there is ongoing grumbling in Liberal nomination contests that the leader has hand-picked favourites in the races, and the party’s machinery is working to help “friends of Justin” and discourage others.

The thread that runs through all these stories is not freedom, or choice, but about leadership as a constant exercise in setting limits on those very things — and sometimes very arbitrary ones. The lesson? It’s easy to say you’re in favour of citizens’ choice; much harder to say that your MPs, candidates and party members have unlimited choice too.

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Harper has given his pro-life MPs the freedom to hold their views, but not to do anything practical or legal about them. Trudeau, essentially, is proposing the same thing — though he had to do a few days of clarification and back-pedaling to get there. Thomas Mulcair and the New Democrats are avowedly pro-choice.

So where does this leave us? It means that Trudeau didn’t revive the debate about abortion — it’s not going anywhere in the near future.

The discussion he revived was about how leaders handle freedom and choice within their own parties. To lead is to choose, as they say — but the trick is to make those choices in an open, explicable and non-arbitrary fashion. On this score, Trudeau seems to have more to learn.

Susan Delacourt is a member of the Star's parliamentary bureau. She can be reached at sdelacourt@thestar.ca

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