CHP leader pursues Calgary seat in federal by-election
CALGARY, AB–Ron Gray, national leader of the Christian Heritage Party (CHP), visited Calgary in mid-January to launch his campaign to succeed Preston Manning as Member of Parliament for Calgary Southwest.
"It's normal in Canadian politics for any party leader who does not have a seat in the House of Commons to seek one in the next by-election," Gray told CW. "The only exception to this tradition that I know of was Joe Clark in 1999-2000. He waited so long before contesting a seat in Nova Scotia that the media began to quip, "he can hide, but he can't run."
"Should I win in Calgary Southwest, I will have a home in the riding," says Gray, a 68- year-old resident of Hull, Quebec.
The Christian Heritage Party was founded in 1986, shortly before the Reform Party came on the scene. In the 1988 federal election, the CHP ran candidates in 63 ridings thereby earning official party status. Soon after, an offer by founding president Ed Vanwoudenberg to fold his party into the Reform Party was rejected.
Unite the right
Gray, who became party leader in 1995, made a second attempt to "unite the right" at the United Alternative's Ottawa convention in 2000. His motion asking the UA to commit itself to the two principles in the preamble of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms–"the supremacy of God and the rule of Law"–was soundly defeated.
Unprepared for the call for the federal election of November 2000, Gray's party ran only 46 candidates, temporarily losing official party status. Gray reports that since then, membership in the CHP has doubled to around 6,000.
Gray says the most important issue he sees in the upcoming vote is national in scope. "The results of this by-election cannot change the composition of Parliament," he notes, "but the voters of Calgary Southwest have an opportunity to inject a completely new voice into the House of Commons.
"In an era when party discipline in Ottawa is so tight that Christian politicians in the other five parties are not allowed by their caucuses to bring their deepest convictions into the debates–they are told what they will say and when–it's important to have an unfettered voice for Christian principles in Parliament."
Gray underscores the fact that the CHP is Canada's only pro-life political party.
"Our party would not have run promoters of abortion-on-demand as the Canadian Alliance (CA) has done in Victoria and Edmonton, for example. The CHP is truly pro-family–we would not have run candidates who are known as pro-homosexual activists, as the CA did in Montreal."
He points out that the CHP has proposed a "family-friendly tax credit" of $1,000 per month for families with children school age or younger if either parent chooses to stay home and raise them.
Generational benefits
"The benefits of such would be felt for generations, strengthen families and eliminate the spurious 'need' for the Liberals' planned national day-care program that would add $12-15 billion per year to our tax burden," Gray maintains.
"Our plan would open 1.5 to 2 million currently existing jobs, mostly entry-level positions," he adds, "relieving unemployment in the youth sector where it is most severe."
For the past six years, the CHP has advocated a policy to limit Canada's trade with nations that use slave labour or exploitive child labour and/or oppress political and religious minorities (e.g. China, Indonesia, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Egypt and Cuba).
"Under our plan," explains Gray, "those who want to import products from such nations would have to obtain from the Canadian Trade Commissioner Service a certificate attesting that the specific goods to be imported are not made using slave or exploitive child labour."
Vote-splitting vetoed
Potentially splitting the small-c conservative vote in Calgary Southwest is of no concern to Gray. "Vote-splitting is a sham and a deception that assumes certain votes are pre-determined," he claims.
"In fact, that's what democracy is about–candidates tell voters what they stand for and the media, if they're doing their job, inform the electorate as fully as possible about the options. The electorate then 'splits the vote' according to its convictions. Strategic voting actually destroys true democracy."
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