Say it isn’t so! (I’m sure they will!)
…Because we’re told that this is what turned the tide against the Conservatives in election ’04! A Conservative MP named Randy White from Abbotsford uttered something vaguely like that and then, we’re told, the Conservatives lost partially because of that! (Of course Randy White, who is now retired from politics, won his riding in ’04 by one of the biggest landslides in all of Canada, tripling his Liberal rival’s votes and getting nearly five times his NDP opponent’s votes…).
Theoretically, and if history repeats, and if the media are even remotely on top of this, this should put a ha-YUGE nail in the Liberal Party fortunes for this election and totally ruin their chances of governing. I’ll stand over here holding my breath!
Chan denies anti-gay stance
Chinese-language newspaper quoted Richmond MP as saying he opposes gays’ right to marry
Peter O’Neil, Vancouver Sun
Published: Monday, January 09, 2006OTTAWA—Multiculturalism Minister Raymond Chan has denied that he advocated using the Constitution’s notwithstanding clause to deny homosexuals the right to marry.
Chan’s advocacy of the clause was reported in late April in the World Journal, a daily Chinese-language newspaper published in Vancouver that targets the Taiwanese immigrant community.
The reporter who wrote the story, now being circulated in an English translation, says he stands by its accuracy.
According to the story, Chan said he would advocate using the clause to stop Bill C-38, which passed in the House of Commons in late June.
However, a new statement issued by Liberal party headquarters quotes Chan as saying: “I have never been willing to use the notwithstanding clause to deny same-sex couples the charter right to marry.”
“This has been my position since the Supreme Court of Canada confirmed same-sex marriage as a charter right and reaffirmed the protection of religious freedom in 2004.”
Roy Ruan, the reporter who interviewed Chan and wrote the April story, laughed when Chan’s new statement was read to him.
Ruan noted that the minister was upset at the time about anti-gay-marriage groups attacking him.
Ruan told The Vancouver Sun that Chan, while still refusing in April to say how he’d vote on C-38, said he’d personally “prefer to use the notwithstanding clause.”
Chan, an evangelical Christian, voted for C-38 when it was passed in the House of Commons.
Now he says he was misquoted and insisted that Ruan is incorrect.
“I have always been very clear” that the notwithstanding clause isn’t a preferred option, Chan told The Vancouver Sun Friday.
Neither Ruan nor Chan has a tape recording of the interview.
Chan was quoted in the article as attacking a group called Defend Marriage B.C. for accusing him of being pro-gay-marriage.
Chan was paraphrased saying he hoped to stop the legislation using the section of the Constitution that allows Parliament to override charter rights for up to five years.
The issue is controversial because Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin has frequently accused the Conservatives and leader Stephen Harper of being too eager to trample on individual rights by invoking the notwithstanding clause, which has never been used by a federal government since the charter came into force in 1982.
Chan is seeking re-election in the Richmond riding, where more than 40 per cent of the constituents are ethnic Chinese.
He is running against Darrel Reid, the former president of Focus on the Family (Canada). Chan has attempted to portray Reid as hostile to the charter.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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