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TORONTO, June 8, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Canada’s largest pro-life and pro-family political lobby group is celebrating the majority sweep of Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative Party in Thursday’s Ontario election.

Campaign Life Coalition lauded the end of the Liberal “reign of terror” under Premier Kathleen Wynne, and claimed that Ford had social conservative voters to thank for his victory.

“Thousands of pro-life and pro-family Ontarians got involved in this election campaign through their volunteerism, donations, and voter recruitment amongst friends, relatives and church members,” said Campaign Life Coalition vice president Jeff Gunnarson in a Friday press release.

“Hundreds of thousands voted PC because of Ford’s overtures to socially conservative minded voters. Now we wait for Premier Ford to prove that he is a man of his word,” added Gunnarson.

The Tories captured 40.6 percent of the vote and 76 of the province’s now 124 ridings in the June 7 election. 

That’s up from 27 they had going in, and the most seats the party has won since Mike Harris's 1995 victory, noted the CBC.

Voters also resoundingly rejected openly lesbian Wynne’s Liberal Party, which after 15 years in power was reduced from 58 seats to seven — just one short of the number required to have official party status.

Wynne, who predicted last weekend her party would lose and who announced her resignation as party leader Thursday, barely kept her seat in Don Valley West, winning by 181 votes.

Andrea Horwath’s NDP came in with its second best result since the party’s formation, with 33.7 per cent of the vote and 40 seats.

“We remain optimistic that Premier Doug Ford will uphold his campaign promises to repeal and replace Kathleen Wynne’s radical sex-ed curriculum as an ‘early priority’ in his administration,” said Campaign Life Coalition national president Jim Hughes. 

“Additionally, we look forward to working with the new government on realizing some of Ford’s leadership campaign promises, which included conscience protection legislation for medical practitioners, measures to protect free speech on campus, and free votes on private members bills on social issues like parental consent for abortion,” he said.

Tanya Granic Allen, president of Parents As First Educators, also lauded the Conservative victory.

“Parents across Ontario have reason to celebrate today: Kathleen Wynne's war against the family, the children, and people of faith in Ontario has come to a screeching halt,” she said in an email to PAFE supporters.

Granic Allen, who ran for the PC Party leadership on a platform to repeal the Liberal sex-ed curriculum, says she too will hold Ford to account on his promise to do likewise.

“There’s a lot of work to be done to undo the damage of the hateful, bigoted, anti-family, anti-religion sex-ed agenda of Kathleen Wynne,” Granic Allen told LifeSiteNews.

“Parents want this sex-ed gone by the start of the new school year in September,” she said. “I hope Doug Ford will keep his word for the parents and for the children.”

Ford said he’d repeal the sex-ed curriculum, but would not commit to doing so by September, when asked in a Friday press conference. 

“Well, again, I’ll sit down with our new cabinet and the minister of education and discuss that with them. But I can tell you one thing, we’re repealing it,” he said, adding that the Tories would keep their promise.

“We’re aren’t going to flipflop, we have a clear mandate from the people,” Ford said. “We’re going to make sure over the next four years our mandate is fulfilled, based on the people voting us in.”

As is well known, Granic Allen and Ford have a history that dates back to her candidacy in the hasty four-way PC Party leadership race touched off after leader Patrick Brown abruptly resigned in January amid allegation of sexual misconduct he has denied.

When Ford emerged victorious March 10, the consensus was he owed his triumph to Granic Allen’s supporters backing him as their second choice. 

Granic Allen was subsequently easily elected PC Party candidate for Mississauga Center. However, Ford angered social conservatives when he turfed her from the party May 5, after the Liberal Party posted online past videos of Granic Allen speaking about abortion and sex education in a way that Ford characterized as disrespectful.

Campaign Life Coalition backed Granic Allen in both her PC Party leadership and candidacy bids, and was foremost among those blasting Ford for kicking her out of the party.

Indeed, “some social conservatives still sat out the election because they lost trust with Ford after Tanya’s firing,” maintains Jack Fonseca, senior political strategist for Campaign Life Coalition.

“While the results were amazing for the PC Party, had Doug not fired Tanya, they would have had a lot more seats,” Fonseca told LifeSiteNews.

He pointed as examples to Scarborough Guildwood, where Liberal Mitzie Hunter squeaked by PC Party candidate Roshan Nallaratnam by a mere 81 votes, as well as Wynne’s narrow victory over PC Party candidate John Kieran.  

Campaign Life green-lighted Nallaratnam as pro-life, and gave Kieran an “educable” rating, which indicates candidates are “open to be educated on life and family issues, and have some values that are shared with those of CLC,” he said.

Of the 36 candidates Campaign Life Coalition green-lighted as pro-life, nine were elected, all PC Party members. 

They are: Paul Calandra, Markham-Stouffville;Belinda Karahalios, Cambridge; Darryl Kramp, Hastings-Lennox and Addington; Monte McNaughton, Lambton-Kent-Middlesex; Christina Mitas, Scarborough Centre; Sam Oosterhoff, Niagara West; Billy Pang, Markham-Unionville; Dave Piccini, Northumberland-Peterborough South; and Daisy Wai, Richmond Hill.

Fonseca lamented two notable losses for the pro-life, pro-family movement.

In Niagara West, PC Party candidate and well-known radio host Andrew Lawton lost to NDP Peggy Sattler.

In Carleton, two pro-life candidates, Jay Tysick of the Ontario Party and independent Mike Dickson lost to PC Party Goldie Ghamari, who has a red-light rating from Campaign Life.

Two former PC Party leadership contenders, Christine Elliott and Caroline Mulroney, former PC Party leadership contenders, won seats in the June 7 election, Elliott in Newmarket-Aurora, and Mulroney in York-Simcoe. 

Both have a red-light rating from Campaign Life Coalition.

CLC rated 35 candidates as “educable”; of these 12 won, again, all PC Party members. 

They are: Aris Babikian, Scarborough-Agincourt; Will Bouma, Brantford Brant; Rudy Cuzzetto, Mississauga-Lakeshore; Doug Ford, Etobicoke North; Parm Gill, Milton; Randy Hillier, Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston; Robin Martin, Eglinton-Lawrence; Kaleed Rasheed, Mississauga East-Cooksville; Greg Rickford, Kenora-Rainy River; Donna Skelly, Flamborough-Glanbrook; Kinga Surma, Etobicoke Centre and Vijay Thanigasslam, Scarborough-Rouge Park.