The federal Conservatives have abandoned conservatism, says the leader of the Christian Heritage Party, and it's time for someone step up to fill that void.
Jim Hnatiuk, leader of the Christian Heritage Party, spoke before 17 people at the Morinville curling rink Monday night as part of his tour of western Canada. The son of a blacksmith, Hnatiuk has led the party since 2008 and lives in Nova Scotia where he is a deacon of the Emmanuel Baptist Church.
The Christian Heritage Party is a federal political party that ran in the last federal election. It is best known for its emphasis on Christian values and its opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage. Sip Hofstede, the party's candidate in Westlock-St. Paul, got about 1.35 per cent of the popular vote in 2008. The party has no seats in Parliament.
The House of Commons is full of fiscal conservatives and supporters of traditional marriage, Hnatiuk said, but party leaders have silenced them. He criticized Prime Minister Stephen Harper for racking up huge debts and for forbidding his cabinet from supporting anti-abortion legislation. "He'll force his cabinet ministers to choose his government over their conscience."
He also criticized Harper for agreeing to follow the Americans' lead on climate change. "Canadians will be paying a carbon tax under the guise of cap and trade," he said. "Does this mean our government has bought into the global warming hoax?"
He urged party supporters to reach out to fiscal and social conservatives. "There's a political void in Canada, and some political party is going to fill that void," he said.
"Let's take back Canada."
Little recognition
That will be a big challenge, Hnatiuk admitted: roughly 70 per cent of Canadians don't even know the party exists and many are turned off by the "Christian" part of their name. Party members have started using the acronym "CHP" to make themselves more marketable and party brochures only make oblique reference to the party's stance on abortion.
When asked how his party would have handled the recent economic slump, Hnatiuk said he would not have bailed out the big three automakers despite the job losses that would cause. "They should have been recession proof."
When asked what evidence he had that climate change was a hoax, he said that the famous Michael Mann "hockey stick" graph (which shows strong correlation between rising temperatures and CO2 levels) had been disproven and referred to the "Climategate" e-mails, which critics say show scientists manipulated climate data. "It begs one to question, where is the debate?" He also referenced literature published by the Fraser Institute.
The Gazette notes that Mann's temperature-CO2 graph has, in fact, been proved accurate by many other studies. Several investigations of the Climategate e-mails, including one by the British House of Commons, have found no evidence of academic misconduct or data manipulation in them.
When asked how the party's stance on climate change reflected Christian values (given the repeated calls for action on it from Pope Benedict XVI, which he bases on Christian values), Hnatiuk said that the Pope did not represent all Christians.
Ernest Chauvet of Legal was one of several party supporters at the speech. "There's too many games going on," he said of the mainstream parties, singling out the Conservatives for criticism, and no other party supported his views on abortion.
The CHP has little chance of winning an election, Chauvet admitted, but that's not the point. "Whenever you vote for someone who represents you, you win your vote," he said.
