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Beaches-East York Riding Report

By Tony Gosgnach
See 2-page PDf version at http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006_docs/BeachesEastYorkrep...

She has held it since 1993, but incumbent Maria Minna may have difficulty keeping the Toronto riding of Beaches-East York Liberal red in the federal election Jan. 23. The spectre of a Conservative “blue tide” sweeping Ontario this time around could impact the Toronto area, taking Minna along with it.

At least one independent election-watching website, electionprediction.org, is calling Beaches-East York “too close to call” as Minna takes on Peter Conroy of the Conservative Party and Marilyn Churley of the NDP as other front-runners. Voter concerns over life and family issues, as well as over various scandals that have plagued the Liberal Party, may injure Minna. She has been an ardent supporter of same-sex “marriage” and was dropped from cabinet in 2002 after she was accused of breaking election laws.

Conroy, on the other hand, is being lauded by residents as the only true local candidate, with life-long roots in the riding and a history of charitable work there. Churley, while enjoying a background as a prominent MPP, is being criticized as a candidate “parachuted” into the riding by the NDP.

Beaches-East York is bordered to the south by Lake Ontario, to the north by Sunrise Avenue and the Don River, to the east by Victoria Park Avenue and to the west by Coxwell Avenue.

The Candidates and Life and Family Issues

Conservative Peter Conroy	Liberal Maria Minna	NDP Marilyn Churley	Green Jim Harris
Pro-life and pro-traditional marriage without exceptions.	"Pro-choice" on abortion and has been a leader in the Liberal Party in promoting same-sex "marriage."	"Pro-choice" on abortion and a supporter of same-sex "marriage" and trans-sexual "rights."	Pro-abortion and pro-same-sex "marriage."

Conservative – Peter Conroy

Conroy, a first-time candidate, is married with three children and works as a senior business development manager for the Toronto Stock Exchange. He spent four years working as an executive and legislative assistant for a member of Parliament and has helped raise tens of thousands of dollars for dozens of charitable causes.

Conroy is the only Beaches-East York candidate supporting the traditional definition of marriage and human life at all stages. He describes himself as “a strong advocate of conservative principles.” In a speech at the Conservative nomination meeting on May 14, 2005, Conroy also made it clear that, “I support the traditional definition of marriage. That marriage is the union of one man and one woman.”

Conroy’s advocacy for traditional marriage, and lack of support for the homosexual agenda, has garnered him an “F” (failing) grade in a candidate assessment by Equality for Gays And Lesbians Everywhere (EGALE), a national homosexual lobby organization.

Conroy has been classified as “pro-life” by Campaign Life Coalition, the national political arm of the Canadian pro-life movement, after answering in a pro-life manner on all nine points of a questionnaire sent to him by the organization.

Liberal – Maria Minna

A consultant by profession, Minna is married with two children and has been an MP since 1993, serving as minister of international co-operation between 1999 and 2002. Labelled a “staunch left-winger” by the Toronto Star newspaper, she was a member of the national advisory committee of the Women’s Legal, Education and Action Fund, which has received millions of taxpayers’ dollars over the years to assist in launching Charter of Rights based legal challenges based on feminist ideology.

Minna’s website features an endorsement from Judy Rebick, a leading Canadian feminist activist who was instrumental in helping establish Henry Morgentaler’s first freestanding abortion clinic in Toronto during the 1980s. EGALE, meanwhile, has praised Minna for speaking on behalf of the Liberal Party in pledging that the Liberals would never use the notwithstanding clause in the Constitution to overturn same-sex “marriage.” Minna’s backing for homosexual causes has won her a top (A) grade in a candidate assessment by EGALE.

She has told both the insidetoronto.ca website and Maclean’s magazine that disregarding her Catholic faith to support same-sex “marriage” has been an easy decision to make. “If my faith depended entirely on the behaviour of the (Catholic Church) institution, I don’t think we’d have too many Catholics left,” she said in Maclean’s.

Minna has long been a pro-abortion advocate. As early as 1993, she told Campaign Life Coalition: “I’m pro-choice … If it’s her choice, she has to be the one to make that choice.” In the years since, she has voted in favour of research upon embryonic humans and against a motion to investigate whether abortions are truly medically necessary.

NDP – Marilyn Churley

Churley has one daughter and has been in politics since 1988, when she was elected to Toronto City Council. She was first elected provincially in 1990 and served as Ontario minister of consumer and commercial relations under the NDP government between 1991 and 1995. As she began her term in cabinet, It was discovered that she was living in subsidized, co-op housing despite making a $90,000-a-year salary. This is her first taste of federal politics.

Churley has been described as “a passionate feminist” by the National Post newspaper and has been named “best MPP” a number of times by the left-wing Toronto “alternative” magazine NOW. She has also been prominent in working for “equality rights for women.” Toronto Sun columnist Christina Blizzard in 1996 described Churley as “a crusader for birth control,” noting that the MPP was active in promoting “emergency contraception,” which in many cases causes an early-term abortion.

In 1995, Churley told Campaign Life Coalition that she was “pro-choice” on the abortion issue and the next year, spoke in the provincial Legislature to urge the government to support clinical trials into the abortion-causing RU-486 drug. She also spoke in the Legislature against the merger of Toronto’s Wellesley Hospital with the Catholic St. Michael’s Hospital, out of concern over what she saw as the threat it posed to the “right to choose” and “access to safe, legal reproductive and sexual health services.”

Churley has received a top (A+) grade from EGALE in a candidate assessment for her overall support of the homosexual agenda. She attended the first same-sex “weddings” in Toronto in 2001 and has advocated in the Legislature for trans-sexual “rights.”

Green Party – Jim Harris

Harris is married, an author of six books and a public speaker. He ran provincially in 1990 and has run federally in 1993, 1997 and 2004. He was elected leader of the federal Green Party in 2003.

Harris told the London Free Press newspaper on Dec. 15, 2005 that his party is unequivocally in favour of gay “marriage” and “a woman’s right to choose” on abortion. Those sentiments were repeated in a January 12, 2006 interview for the insidetoronto.ca website, where he said his party supported “a woman’s right to choice in the matter of abortion (and) same-sex ‘marriage.’”

On February 14, 2005, the Green Party issued a press release declaring that it supports gay “marriage” and has been doing so for more than 10 years. Harris was quoted as saying that his party’s leader between 1990 and 1996, Chris Lea, was himself a homosexual. The release added that a country that is not afraid to debate moral issues and to challenge established beliefs is “a strong country.” Harris has received a solid “A-“ grade from EGALE for his support of the homosexual agenda

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