OTTAWA, July 11 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Social liberal columnist Thomas Walkom writes in today’s Toronto Star that Stockwell Day is definitely a strong contender for the Prime Minister’s office because of, not in spite of, his social conservatism.
Walkom says that small-l liberals have “portrayed Day as a Christian weirdo .. but what the liberal left forgets is that the new Canada of visible minorities is much like the old one. Some people are liberal, but many aren’t.” Walkom quotes Star liberal writer Haroon Siddiqui, a follower of Islam, who wrote that “the social conservatism that so bothers the Toronto-centric media clearly did not hurt Day. … His appeal to many devout Christians, Jews, Sikhs and Muslims must transcend his promise to help fund their private schools. It may be a harbinger of what’s happening in America.”
Walkom points out that Mike Harris came to power in 1990, not because of his fiscal conservatism, but “rather, his crusade against welfare won him that election – a crusade couched in moral rather than economic terms. In effect, social conservatism won Ontario for Harris. Who knows what it could do for Stockwell Day?”
See today’s Special Report, “Social Conservatives Come Out of the Closet”, on social conservatism where it is pointed out “that so many Canadians are, at the very least, open to what social conservatives have to say has left many commentators dumbfounded.”