OTTAWA — A prominent Canadian pro-life activist says that in 27 years of involvement in politics he’s never seen such strong Catholic leadership on life and family issues.

“That’s wonderful to see,” said Jim Hughes, president of Canada’s Campaign Life Coalition. “And I’ll tell you for a fact that some of the evangelicals have told me, “Thank goodness for the Catholic Church’s stance on these issues.”

A key reason for this mobilization of Catholic opinion in the run-up to the Jan. 23 election: the issue of same-sex “marriage.”

Last summer, the incumbent Liberal party forced passage of Bill C-38, which legalized such “marriages” across Canada. Prime Minster Paul Martin, who is Catholic, pushed the bill through Parliament even though a January 2005 poll reported that 69% of Canadians opposed same-sex “marriage,” as did nearly a quarter of his own party’s members.

Martin has now made support of homosexual “marriage” a key campaign plank, contrasting his party with the opposition Conservatives, who are promising a new Parliamentary vote on the issue if elected.

Canada’s Catholic bishops objected strenuously to C-38 and have continued to highlight the issue in the election campaign through a formal statement issued by the Catholic Organization for Life and Family. The organization is co-sponsored by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Knights of Columbus.

“The recent redefinition of marriage in our country contradicts the reality inscribed in nature,” said the statement, which singles out life, family and religious freedom of expression issues as being key for Catholic voters. “It has become urgent to announce to the next generations God’s plan for human love and marriage between a man and a woman as the foundation of the family.”

As well, the Knights of Columbus have mailed an election letter to all of its 239,000 Canadian members, encouraging them to vote for pro-life and pro-traditional marriage candidates.

The Ontario Conference of Catholic Bishops issued its own statement, which was sent to every diocese in Canada’s most populous province. It cited Church teachings on life and family matters and urged Catholics to “compare the responses of candidates” on these issues.

Martin’s Gamble

Although the marriage issue is getting much less media attention than corruption — it was a no-confidence vote following a corruption probe that led to this election — pro-family activists report that marriage is an equally hot-button issue with many voters.

Ontario Member of Parliament Pat O’Brien is co-chairman of Vote Marriage Canada, a non-partisan group formed to back candidates who favor restoration of traditional marriage. Last spring O’Brien, a Catholic, quit the Liberal party in protest against C-38.

“Candidates at the doors in every part of Canada are hearing in significant numbers that Canadians are unhappy that the definition of marriage was changed, and that it was changed in an unfair, hurried fashion last June,” said O’Brien, who is not running for re-election.

Canada’s House of Commons has 308 seats, and O’Brien estimates the issue could prove decisive in up to 60 ridings (districts) that were decided by fewer than 1,000 votes in the last election in 2004. “We believe we can elect strong, pro-marriage candidates in those ridings,” he said.

Martin and his election strategists are betting that O’Brien is wrong in his analysis that same-sex “marriage” is costing votes.

In the wake of polls conducted in early January that showed the Conservatives surging into a strong lead over the Liberals and the left-of-center New Democrats and the separatist Parti Quebecois, Martin unexpectedly promised during a televised Jan. 9 election debate to abolish the federal government’s right to use the Canadian Constitution’s “notwithstanding clause.”

That clause allows provincial and federal governments to suspend the effect of court decisions made under the Canadian Charter of Rights. The clause has only been employed on a few occasions by provincial governments since it became part of the Constitution in the 1980s, and it has never been used by the federal government.

Challenged by Martin to state his own position during the Jan. 9 debate, Conservative party leader Stephen Harper said that he would not abolish the federal power to invoke the clause.

The Liberals have repeatedly accused Harper of planning to use the clause to overturn same-sex “marriage,” even though it’s not required to reverse that legislation because Bill C-38 came into force by a vote of Parliament, not as a consequence of a Charter of Rights ruling.

Bishop Henry

But while Martin’s notwithstanding clause promise appeared to be aimed at pro-homosexual “marriage” voters, it served to weaken further his standing with religiously oriented Canadians. In an interview Jan. 10, Bishop Fred Henry of Calgary, Alberta, noted that Martin had earlier promised to use the clause, if necessary, to protect the rights of religious organizations that oppose homosexual “marriage” (see Inperson, page 1).

“In the past he’s been saying, ‘Well, I will not use the notwithstanding clause, except in the case where the rights of religious and clergy were being violated at some future point in history by maybe some judicial decision,’” Bishop Henry said. “Now it’s seemingly no longer a concern for him so he is simply — I think rather desperately — kind of tossing that aside, which I think is probably an ill-conceived and not really thought-out decision that could impinge once again on religious freedom.”

The Liberal Party of Canada did not reply to questions submitted by e-mail about Martin’s positions.

Vote Marriage Canada’s O’Brien agreed with Bishop Henry’s analysis, calling Martin’s notwithstanding-clause promise “a reckless gamble by a desperate political leader.”

O’Brien predicts that it will backfire and strengthen the chances of pro-traditional marriage candidates.

“I think Mr. Harper handled it very well,” O’Brien said. “The vast majority of the reaction I’m hearing is that this reckless gamble of Paul Martin’s blew up in his face.”

Tom McFeely is based

in Victoria, British Columbia.