08.13.2011 10:18 AM

People for a Circa-1800s Ontario

The Star broke a story yesterday that a front group calling itself People For A Better Ontario has been created to oppose the Ontario Liberals of Dalton McGuinty. The group is vehemently anti-abortion. anti-gay and anti-separation of church and state.

And they support Tim Hudak because he shares their vision for Ontario – anti-choice, anti-equality, anti-fairness.

What I found most interesting in the Star story is that a leader of the shadowy group is far right extremist Tristan Emmanuel. That Tim Hudak would seek the assistance of Emmanuel should concern everyone. Here’s a few reasons why, courtesy of a work colleague:

  • Toronto Sun, March 31, 2009 – MPP Randy Hillier officially joined the race for leader of the Ontario PC Party yesterday with a pledge to abolish the Ontario Human Rights Commission and outlaw mandatory union membership…Hillier’s spokesman is Tristan Emmanuel, a political and religious activist who has organized protests against same-sex marriage.
  • Toronto Star, May 15, 2009 – The federal Conservatives are crying foul against their provincial cousins in Ontario for alleged misuse of the national party’s membership list…The missive was sent to Andrew Boddington, Tristan Emmanuel, Mark Spiro and Paul Sutherland, senior campaign officials with candidates and MPPs Christine Elliott (Whitby-Oshawa), Randy Hillier (Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington), Tim Hudak (Niagara West-Glanbrook) and Frank Klees (Newmarket-Aurora), respectively.
  • Wikipedia – Emmanuel was a candidate for the socially conservative Family Coalition Party in the Lincoln electoral division in the 1995 Ontario provincial election. He was quoted as saying, “It’s time to have a principled party that understands there’s a higher power than the government, a power we believe is God.”
  • Wikipedia – Emmanuel ran against prominent federal politician Sheila Copps in a 1996 by-election as a candidate of the Christian Heritage Party of Canada. He argued that Canada’s Young Offenders Act should be abolished and corporal punishment reintroduced to schools, and was quoted as saying, “If an eleven-year-old murders someone, I think his life should be taken.”
  • Wikipedia – In April 2003, he organized a “Canadians for Bush” rally in Queenston Heights, Ontario, to support the American invasion of Iraq. The rally was attended by several prominent federal and provincial politicians, including Stockwell Day and provincial cabinet ministers Jim Flaherty and Tim Hudak.
  • Wikipedia – [The release quoted] excerpts from several of Emmanuel’s writings, asserting that he had described gay men as “sexual deviants” and Islam as “as far from peace, as hell is from heaven” in separate articles written in 2002.
  • Wikipedia – Emmanuel campaigned against the legal recognition of same-sex marriage in Canada in 2005, organizing several rallies across the country, including one outside Parliament Hill in Ottawa and another at Queen’s Park outside the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.
  • Wikipedia – In a 2005 interview with the Hamilton Spectator, Emmanuel described homosexuality as “a choice,” said that he regarded it as “the wrong choice, a bad choice,” and further argued that “the state shouldn’t sanction wrong choices.”

21 Comments

  1. Bob LeDrew says:

    Broken link, warren.

  2. bigcitylib says:

    Interesting to see who else is on their Board of Directors.

  3. DL says:

    I noticed that about that crackpot Tristan Emmanuel as well and I was surprised that the Star was asleep at the switch and didn’t draw attention to his involvement and past hateful pronouncements. I think that Hudak’s connections to the loony right need to be played up as much as possible…and of course I will add that for all those people who had flirted with Hudak just because they didn’t like McGuinty – there is an alternative – yes, you can have your cake and eat it too! Vote for Andrea Horwath and you can cast a protest vote against McGuinty while NOT having to vote for “Tea Party North” under Hudak.

    I am starting to think that there is about an 80% chance that we will have a minority government after this election. Pretty soon the speculation will grow as to what that will mean and especially what happens if the Tories end up as the largest party but the Liberals and NDP together have more seats than they do?

    • Iris Mclean says:

      At this point it’s looking like we could end up with a Con minority. Way too soon to predict, but if it comes about, a Dipper/Lib coalition sounds good to me.
      I wonder whether Tim has Charles McVety on board yet.

    • RN200 says:

      Not much to speculate about – the expected coalition of the leftards would materialize just as it did federally

    • A. Cynic says:

      Sure vote NDP, split the vote & give Hudak a majority. Have you forgotten what happened on May 2 already?

      • Iris Mclean says:

        In my riding, Steve Clark would have to be filmed killing babies to not be elected with a landslide.
        Same with Gord Brown federally. Out here in Dog Patch, these two have jobs for life.

        • JenS says:

          Same here, in O’Toole/Oda land. Of course, if the Prov Liberals would run a better candidate, there might be a chance, though it would be exceedingly slim.

      • DL says:

        On May 2 – too many former Liberals voted Conservative. Its a bit rich for the party with 18% of the vote and 34 seats to accuse the party with 31% of the vote and 103 seats of “vote splitting”.

  4. allegra fortissima says:

    The CBC summed it up as well:

    http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/evangelical/

  5. I want to see their views on organized religious practice in Ontario’s public schools.

    Tristan Emmanuel NOW needs to be asked:

    “Should there be tax-funded religious schools in Ontario, such as the religious public schools that Tim Hudak’s PCs are soft-pedaling?”

    “Is it ‘the role of government to promote the choice of life in childbearing decisions, to encourage women to carry the babies to term and, if the child is unwanted, to give them up for adoption’, as Tim Hudak says it is?”

    “Should children in our public schools be taught that homosexuality is a choice, and that it is not the choice they should make?”

    e-mail wave, anyone? (with cc’s to the media, of course).

    info@peopleforabetterontario.com

    P.

  6. RN200 says:

    I know Hillier’s rationale is awful because your beloved Libs would never do anything to the wonderful human rights kangaroo courts:

    http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1038723–province-launches-review-of-human-rights-watchdog?bn=1

    Oh, wait? What’s that?

    Hypocrites.

    • Attack! says:

      “Straw man, and old dirty hankies
      Moppin’ the place like a shoe
      Thanks for the spiel, here’s a song that is real,
      From a kid from the city to you…”

      Sorry, ReN, but you’re a few bricks short of a full load, as usual.

      First, whoever said nothing should ever be done about the HRC? Name… one (and in what respect they’re allegedly speaking for the Ontario Liberal Party).

      Second, Hillier — and Hudak, a few reboots ago — wanted to ABOLISH the Human Rights Commission altogether.

      Whereas McGuinty reformed it once already, in 2008, to try to make the process more streamlined and effective. (So, did Libs protest that, and say it was perfect how it was, he shouldn’t do anything to it? I musta missed that.)

      And now he’s going to implement a review to see whether those changes HAVE been effective.

      Those are very different positions; far from calling for their abandonment, the results of the new review could well result in giving the Human Rights Code and Tribunal even MORE powers.

      So I’m afraid your little “Hypocrites!” stink bomb has just fizzled out and dribbled all over your face. Go get some tomato juice. (And some reading comprehension, and some self-discipline, before firing off hasty charges.)

  7. David says:

    Note that the mailing address of “People for a Better Ontario” (sic) is the same as the anti-union “Merit Ontario” (http://www.meritontario.com/pages/about.html). Do they represent the PC policy on trade unions?

    • Attack! says:

      You sure? While they certainly have commonalities — running temp. employment agencies for non-union tradespeople — they have different addresses, and Robert McAllister, the one running this one and the combo. temp agency and construction equipment leasing co. it’s located at isn’t obviously affiliated with Merit Ontario (which actually appears to be a competitor of his, insofar as it seems to run a job bank of its own), except as a member org., as a source of employment.

      Merit Ontario’s located at:

      638A Sheppard Avenue West, Suite. 218
      Toronto ON M3H 2S1

      (which, interestingly enough, is just up the hall from the York Centre Conservative MP (not MPP) Mark Adler, in suite 210)

      while http://peopleforabetterontario.com/Contact_Us.html
      is at:

      5575 North Service Road,
      Suite 401, Burlington, ON L7L 6M1

      home of

      the Comfact Corporation (“Try Our Concept. Profit From Our Presence.”) temp agency for tradespeople & asst’d professionals
      http://www.comfactcorp.com/

      and CAPMOR Financial Services Corporation, which leased equip
      http://www.capmor.net/

      and Compro International Corp., – equipment & technical Solutions for the Oils & Fats Industry

      http://www.comprointernational.com/index.htm

  8. Mike London says:

    Like every other guy that hates gays so much, he’s having gay sex somewhere today.

    • frmr disgruntled Con, now Happy Lib says:

      “We always condemn most in others that which we most fear in ourselves.”-Robert M. Pirsig

  9. frmr disgruntled Con, now Happy Lib says:

    Jesus, save me from your followers…….

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