Straight thoughts 47

October 9, 2000

The media portrays Stockwell Day as a fundamentalist Christian, and tries to divide the Christian camp into radical Christians and Catholics, by writing about the issue of Capital punishment.

The attack put a doubt in Catholic people's minds. How scary is Mr. Day? Would a CA government introduce capital punishment?

This is the only issue that would give good Catholics a moral excuse to reject the Canadian Alliance.

Even if the Liberals have lost any shadow of moral principles and Chretien declared the Liberal party of Canada officially "pro-choice", even if the Liberals have NOT and would not introduce any Law limiting abortion, Catholics are prepared to compromise their pro-life principles and vote for their traditional party of choice: the Liberals.

Let's look at the issue of Capital punishment in comparison, for example with the issue of abortion.

The Canadian Alliance has, within its policy declaration, as a preamble to its social policy, a statement that a CA government would recognize that all human beings possess certain fundamental human rights, first of all the right to life.

In contrast, the CA policy declaration does not include any statement about Capital punishment.
But would Stockwell Day introduce capital punishment?

Let's continue to look at the issue compared to the abortion issue.

115,000 babies are aborted in Canadian hospitals and abortion clinics every year.

In comparison, if we had capital punishment, we would probably use it in about one case every two to ten years, for people like Paul Bernardo.

Carla Homolka would not qualify.

115,000/year versus less than one per year.

But it is not a question of numbers, you may say,… it’s the principle!

Ok. With abortion we internationally kill an innocent human being without trial. With capital punishment we would kill a guilty human being after due process of law and appeals.

But, of course, it is not even that, it is a question of consistency. If you are pro-life, then you cannot kill another human being. If you have a choice, such as locking the fellow in a prison and throwing away the key, you cannot kill. Fair enough.

Some Christian friends say that capital punishment is admissible according to the Bible. Others do not agree.

Now on this point we Christians may argue for a long time. If we do so, we fall in the trap of the major media.

Many Christians are in favour, others, - mostly the Catholics – are not.

So, if the general population of Canada is against capital punishment, and among Christians, the supposedly extremist people who supported Stockwell Day, there is a large chunk, the Catholic majority, who is against.

Where is Stockwell Day going to find support to introduce this measure?

If the CA is hard pushed on any one of these issues, they will call a referendum. Now you may not agree on calling referenda on moral issues, but the result, on capital punishment, would be a NO.

So my opinion is that the CA would not even worry about the issue.

Finally, I listened to Stockwell Day many times and interviewed him once for my program, and capital punishment is not a priority issue for him.

Please tell people to get off the media band wagon and think for themselves.