Paul Tuns:

Campaign Life Coalition gave a green light to 152 pro-life and pro-family candidates across the country in its final Voter’s Guide which rated the party platforms, leaders, and individual candidates.

Candidates are given a green light when their voting record, survey information, and public comments on abortion, euthanasia, and LGBQT are collected and that data aligns with the pro-life and pro-family values of CLC.

The CLC questionnaire asks candidates “Do you believe life begins at conception (fertilization)?” whether there are “any circumstances under which you believe a woman should have access to abortion?” and “If elected, would you vote in favor of a law to protect all unborn children from the time of conception (fertilization) onward?” and “vote to pass laws protecting people from euthanasia and assisted-suicide, and vote to reject laws that would expand euthanasia and assisted-suicide?”

The Liberals, NDP and Bloc Quebecois all have officially pro-abortion party platforms and the Conservative Party of Canada policy book states that a Conservative government would not introduce legislation on abortion.

While no Liberal, NDP, Bloc, or Green candidates were given a green light, 56 Conservatives were green lighted by CLC, including 36 incumbents, 18 new candidates, and two former MPs seeking to return to Parliament, Ted Ovitz and Wladyslaw Lizon, both running in their former ridings in Toronto.

The People’s Party of Canada had 56 green lighted candidates despite the leader’s own mixed record on abortion (Maxime Bernier received a C+ grade as leader of the PPC, compared to the Fs given to the Conservatives’ Pierre Poilievre, the Liberals’ Mark Carney, and the NDP’s Jagmeet Singh).

Only two party leaders were given the green light: Rod Taylor of the CHP (Skeena-Bulkey Valley) and Grant Abraham of the United Party of Canada (Ponoka-Didsbury).

The CHP had 28 green lighted candidates while the UPC had 10. One Libertarian candidate was given a green light, and there was one independent candidate, Jeffrey Halsall in Dufferin-Caledon, just northwest of Toronto.

There were 35 ridings with more than one green lighted candidate, including three with three such candidates and one with four. There were three green lighted candidates in Middlesex-London (Ontario), Northumberland-Clarke (Ontario), and Ponoka-Didsbury (Alberta), all of which had pro-life Conservatives.

In Parkland (Alberta), incumbent Conservative Dane Lloyd faced pro-life CHP, PPC, and UCP candidates.

CLC national president Jeff Gunnarson told The Interim that the long-term goal of passing legislation that protects all human life from the moment of conception requires the election of a pro-life majority, regardless of party affiliation. “We will never get any closer to protecting unborn babies,” Gunnarson said, “if we keep electing pro-abortion politicians because we are focused on party labels rather than the pro-life or pro-abortion views of the individual candidates.”

The Canadian Anti-Hate Network, a frequent critic of CLC, published an article alarmed that there were candidates who answered “no” to the CLC survey question, “Are there any circumstances under which you believe a woman should have access to abortion?” The CAHN contacted each of the candidates given a green light by CLC and eight responded and affirmed their pro-life bona fides: six People’s Party candidates, one Christian Heritage Party candidate, and one Conservative, Lita Cabal (Vancouver East), who said, “I still stand on these positions as I believe in the sanctity of life and value of the life itself, based on my values both cultural and spiritual.”

People’s Party of Canada candidate Deborah Perrier (Prescott-Russell-Cumberland) told CAHN, “I believe that every life is a sacred gift from God, from conception, to natural death, regardless of the circumstances of conception, and deserving of protection.”

CHP candidate David John Bohonos (Edmonton Centre) told the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, “I am against the hate that is directed against pregnant women and their babies, they need much more love, care, support, assistance, guidance and reassurance to choose well, to choose life.