The PC Leadership Debate

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="499"]Ontario PC Leadership candidates, from http://ici.radio-canada.ca.[/caption]

The Ontario PC Leadership debate aired last night on TVO.  You can watch it here.

The four candidates come with what they're best know for.  Doug Ford is the brother of the late Toronto mayor, Rob Ford.  He's served on Toronto city council, and he was planning for a mayoral run before this position opened up.  Christine Elliot is the widow of the late Jim Flaherty, who served as federal minister of finance under Stephen Harper.  She's served as an MPP at Queen's Park.  Caroline Mulroney is the daughter of a former prime minister, Brian Mulroney.  She has experience in business.  They are the three big fish.

Then there's Tanya Granic Allen.  I anticipated that Doug Ford would dominate, with his typical plain-speech and average-guy appeal.  But I left stunned over how much Tanya Granic Allen said, what she said, and how she said it.  So, in this blog, I'm focusing mostly on her role in the debate.  She shifted the entire conversation in a way that I have not seen happen before in Ontario politics.

Tanya Granic Allen is not a politician, nor is she the daughter of a politician.  So who is she?  She's been painted as a one-issue social conservative who's bent on scrapping Premier Wynne's health education curriculum.  But last night she revealed more of her platform.

At one point in the debate, Steve Paikin asked the candidates what title the candidates prefer.  There was Mr. Ford, yes.  Ms. Elliot, okay.  Ms. Mulroney, got it.  Then he asked Tanya Granic Allen what title she'd prefer.  "Misses Granic Allen," she replied with a smile.  As it turns out, she's married and a mother with four young children.

An advocate for children and parents she has been the president of PAFE since 2016.  PAFE is an acronym for Parents as First Educators.  On their website PAFE describes itself as an organization that "supports the authority of parents over the education of their children through grassroots activism," and, "monitors and intervenes to ensure elected politicians keep their activities transparent and accountable to the public."  A few years ago, I was publicly advocating for more Internet filtration in local schools.  PAFE did assist some in that effort when Mrs. Granic Allen highlighted the issue at least a few times in her newsletters as well as in a rally she held in Cambridge.

With her work as president of PAFE, she has been very outspoken against Premier Kathleen Wynne's health education curriculum.  Many of the sexual aspects of that curriculum are obscene.  I've already written about it here.

When asked about failing academic results within Ontario's public education system, Mrs. Granic Allen quipped that grade 7 children would be better off focusing on math while not being distracted by anal sex (which the curriculum does teach to grade 7 students).  She said the curriculum should be revised, and the radical element taken out.  Only Ms. Mulroney said she wouldn't change the curriculum, but all the candidates looked stunned at Mrs. Granic Allen's comments.  None responded directly to her.

Steve Paikin asked Mrs. Granic Allen if her principles were informed by her religion.  She told him that she is a Christian, but that her principles are supported by a wide array of Ontarians from various religious and non-religious backgrounds.  In saying that she is a Christian, she did not mention what denomination.  While Paikin appeared to infer she's an Evangelical, a simple google search seems to indicate she is a Roman Catholic.

Interestingly, after she was upfront with her religion, Paikin, being prompted by a director, asked the other candidates about their various religions.  Ms. Elliot is an Anglican.  Mr. Ford is a Protestant, although he didn't specify the denomination.  Ms. Mulroney is a Catholic.  Suddenly, for the first time in recent memory religious persuasion has become a discussion point in the Ontario PC leadership campaign.

As the debate was winding down, Mrs. Granic Allen wound up over transgender conversion therapy.  She accused the province of overriding parental choice by forbidding medical treatment options for children who are confused about their gender and sexual orientation when Queen's Park passed Bill 77.  She then criticized Ms. Elliot for supporting the bill as a Progressive Conservative MPP.

Speaking from my own convictions, I question whether medical therapy is the answer to these problems, as I'm under the conviction that only the power of the Gospel can liberate people truly from their slavery to sin, whether it be homosexuality, being a transvestite, or something else.  Nonetheless, in prohibiting the therapy, the province has clearly made a moral statement.  It appears to be saying that children should be left to themselves to figure out whether they're gay, transgender, or not, irrespective of their parents' concerns.  That is an attack on parental rights and inconsistent with scriptural teaching.  With time running out, Paikin shut down the debate shortly after that exchange.

For the above issues, as well as discussion on carbon tax, the legalization and sale of marijuana, the minimum wage and how to handle their former and disgraced leader Patrick Brown, the debate is worth watching.  I can't remember ever seeing religion and sexual ethics being discussed so forthrightly and unabashedly in political dialogue, at least in Ontario.  How this shapes up will be interesting, but what happened on TVO last night was astounding.  The conversation in Ontario has now shifted.