What? Are you calling my idea "nonsense?!?" I thought it was perfectly reasonable, in that the death penalty issue would never need to be raised again. (Which it could, if the Conservatives ever get a majority...you never know)
I don’t see that happening even if Harper gets a majority, countryboy. As I have said before, he is only pretending to govern from center right; he may actually belong to the far right.
So it is not inconceivable that he will try to bring it back. In that, he will fail miserably. First, not all Conservative MPs support death penalty. My guess would be that significant number of MPs from Ontario and perhaps all the MPS from Québec will be opposed to it.
Seeing that almost all the opposition MPs will be opposed to it, chance are very good that the legislation will get nowhere. When Mulroney tried to bring back death penalty with a Conservative majority, he failed miserably.
However, even if by dint of threats, bullying and intimidation Harper can get it through the Parliament, the Supreme Court will quash it in an instance. Death penalty is not in keeping with what the developed countries in the world do, it probably violates the Charter, and I don’t see Supreme Court agreeing to setting the clock on human rights back by 50 years, just to make Harper happy.
Plus, if he digs up the settled issue of death penalty, that is tantamount to committing political suicide and next election Conservatives will be lucky if they don’t end up in the third place, behind NDP.
I am sure Harper realizes all this, he is not stupid. So no matter how much he may want to bring back the death penalty, I seriously doubt that he will try to.
But in a way you are right. If religious right and some extremist right wingers have their way, Harper will ban abortion, bring back generous use of death penalty, ban homosexuality, restrict availability of contraception, mandate teaching of Book of Genesis in schools etc. Does that sound like Utopia to you?
I seriously doubt if Harper will try any of these, if he knows what is good for him (and he does).