Know your candidate. Conservatives are running wingnuts

The Conservative Party candidate for Richmond, B.C. is Darrel Reid . On the Conservative party’s website Reid’s qualifications include being president of Focus on the Family Canada for six years which the website refers to as “a non-profit organization that provides help and encouragement to Canadian families”. As a left-leaning, self-described feminist this rang more than a few alarm bells.

So I would like to ask Mr. Reid if he still stands by the following remarks he had made in the past:

Abortion:

Some day, I believed, if enough Canadians felt as I did, we could ask the country to reconsider its current reckless disregard for preborn life.

Role of religion in politics:

I'm left asking myself if there is still room in Canada's public square for people of faith? True democracy cannot function without a vigorous debate about morality and first principles. But what we have seen is an increasingly nasty disregard for people of faith by those who view transcendence as an embarrassment - and maybe even dangerous. From the squelching of prayer and references to Jesus at our official gatherings to Canada's shameful, non-religious response to the Sept. 11 tragedy, Canadians of faith sense something essential is being drained from our national psyche.

Common law marriage:

“The liberalization of divorce laws was the biggest disaster to hit Canada, short of common-law marriage,” asserts Darrel Reid of Vancouver, president of Focus on the Family Canada. But such “trial marriages” carry a high risk: marriages following common-law relationships are almost twice as likely to end in separation or divorce. “The statistical story on common-law marriages is very clear,” says Mr. Reid. “They’re short, they’re dangerous, they don’t promote any kind of social harmony

United Nations:

"Left-wing activists have been using the United Nations for nearly 20 years to impose their kind of anti-life, anti-family agenda," said Darrel Reid, president of Focus on the Family Canada. "Among the leading agitators in that process are Canadians. The problem is that we send delegates to the U.N. who represent small interest groups."

Considering Mr. Reid’s close affiliation with Focus on the Family, it might be interesting to ask him his views about:

Teaching evolution in the classrooms
Discrimination against homosexuals
The role of women in society

My alarm bells are telling me to be afraid, be VERY afraid!