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Ottawa Centre - STOP KEITH FOUNTAIN!!! - Important!
Conservative Candidate KEITH FOUNTAIN
in Ottawa Centre supports LOWERING THE AGE OF CONSENT FOR SODOMY
TO 14 (as do the Liberal and NDP candidates) - see interview below
This will lead to exploitation of vulnerable teenagers,
especially young boys.
Canada is already known as a destination of choice
for sexual predators. Lowering the age of consent for gay sex
will make it much easier for these predators to lure and exploit
children.
WHAT TO DO?
If you live in Ottawa Centre, Please do NOT vote
for Keith Fountain (Cons), or Richard Mahoney (Liberal) or Paul
Dewar (NDP). These candidates are all strongly for abortion, "same-sex"
marriage, and lowering the age of consent.
There is an Independant Candidate, Anwar Syed.
He supports the Traditional Definition of Marriage. He is not
pro-life though.
Please say a prayer and consult your informed
conscience before marking your ballot, and PRAY FOR CANADA!
God Bless, Aidan Reid
Three candidates:
Paul Dewar, NDP candidate
Interviewed by James Moran
Paul Dewar, a self-described "passionate,
committed teacher and community activist," is the son of
former Ottawa mayor Marion Dewar. Dewar is part of many community
organizations, including Coalition For A Healthy Ottawa, the First
United Church and the Ottawa And District Labour Council. Ed
Broadbent now holds the Ottawa Centre seat, but is stepping down
to spend more time with his wife.
Keith Fountain, Conservative Party candidate
Interviewed by Neil McKinnon
Keith Fountain, 40, lives on Waverly St with
his wife and daughter. He has lived in Ottawa Centre his entire
life.
RUNNING. Conservative Party candidate Keith Fountain.
Fountain earned a degree in political science
from McGill University, and joined the Foreign Service in 1990.
In 2003, he helped open Canada's embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan.
He has also worked on trade policy and relations with India and
was assigned to the Privy Council Office for two years (2001-03).
Richard Mahoney, Liberal Party candidate
Interviewed by Mike Cottingham
Richard Mahoney has been a special assistant to
senior Liberal cabinet ministers. He is counsel to the law firm
Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP, where he has practiced public and
regulatory law advocacy. He's a professional lobbyist. Mahoney
was the Liberal candidate for Ottawa Centre in the 2004 election,
placing second behind Ed Broadbent. He is married to a woman and
has three children. Mahoney says he wants to strengthen healthcare,
support educational opportunities, help the technology sector
and hold down the costs of owning or renting a home.
And where they stand on the issues:
1. What would you do to eliminate the provisions
in the Criminal Code that allow someone who kills a gay person
to get a lighter sentence by claiming a "homosexual panic"
defence?
DEWAR (NDP): I think what we need to
do is amend the criminal code to make sure that that loophole
is closed. That's not something that should be allowed. That's
the first thing. As importantly, we need to make sure that the
criminal justice system is aware of this issue. Judges need
to be educated on the issue and advocates (i.e. lawyers). I
think that there's a wealth of knowledge within the community
that can be very pro-active and progressive to help educate
lawyers and judges.
FOUNTAIN (CONSERVATIVE): I'm very concerned
about violent crimes, and we really need to do more to curb
it. What matters is the crime. I don't think that the motivation
is necessarily important. It's the act itself. If somebody tries
to get off because they say they were motivated by a homophobic
rage, well, you know, in the end you committed a crime.
MAHONEY (LIBERAL): I would want to
look at that defence and I would want to take whatever steps
I can to limit or eliminate that defence being available, either
via changing the sentencing guidelines or whatever other legislative
means would be necessary.
2. What would you do to ensure that Sections 210 & 211,
the bawdyhouse provisions, of the Criminal Code are changed to
stop patrons and owners of bathhouses from being targeted as criminals
for engaging in consensual sex between adults?
DEWAR (NDP): A two faceted-approach:
make sure that the code isn't used to target bawdyhouses or
establishments where there is a consensual activity going on,
and make sure that the security of a person is not compromised.
Then, of course, educate at the local level with the police
services.
FOUNTAIN (CONSERVATIVE): (Fountain
e-mailed his response after reading the party's policy book.)
My position is that all private adult consensual sex that does
no harm to the public should be decriminalized. If there is
a commercial relationship involved, however, then there should
be regulation of this industry to protect both workers and customers.
MAHONEY (LIBERAL): Well, I'd like to
review both 210 and 211 and see whether there is any necessary
public policy purpose in those in the world we live in right
now. That doesn't make sense to me. This is an anachronism -
these bathhouse raids, [charging] consenting adults. The state
has no place in the bedrooms of the nation.
3. How will you defend the right of teenaged gays to choose
their sex partners, a right that has been reduced by Bill C-2?
Will you reduce the age of consent for anal sex to 14, as it is
for other forms of sex practiced by heterosexuals?
DEWAR (NDP): I would make sure that
whatever law, in terms of age of consent, is not going to discriminate
on the basis of sexual orientation. There was a debate about
age of consent very recently in the House and there were some
fairly strong arguments put forward to talk about changing the
age of consent to 16. In the party, we said if this is going
to happen, we don't want to have people who are criminalizing
sexual activity. It's absurd.
FOUNTAIN (CONSERVATIVE): In the case
of people, who are 14 years old, sex is sex. The important thing
is there is consent. And if the minimum age
(of consent) is 14, which it is, that should be applied to everything.
I don't think we need to make artificial distinctions between
what they do.
MAHONEY (LIBERAL): On first blush,
I can't understand why there would be any distinction, so I'd
have to educate myself, but presumably, assuming when I did
educate myself, I could see no reason for distinctions, I would
support any attempts to amend it. And I wonder if [the gay community
was consulted] when the bill was passed. Did the community come
before the legislative committee and say, "What is going
on here?"
4. Would you amend the federal Human Rights
Act to prevent discrimination against trans people?
DEWAR (NDP): Absolutely. I've been
very vocal about that in terms of saying that I would support
it. I see it as the next obvious step in terms of progression
within our community of recognizing diversity and supporting
diversity. Note that I didn't say, "tolerating" because
I don't want to be tolerated; I want to be accepted. That's
really what the law's about.
FOUNTAIN (CONSERVATIVE): I think that
existing provisions in terms of protection of gays, lesbians,
bisexuals are sufficient enough to also apply to transgender
people. I think that also existing human rights legislation
about gender is also sufficient. If it turns out that these
are not sufficient, then I would certainly work so they are
changed so they are. But right now, I think there hasn't been
a lot of testing of this, and I think on the face of it, it
looks like what we have now.
MAHONEY (LIBERAL): I do support that
amendment. I said that publicly in the last campaign, and again,
I would support an amendment to the Human Rights Act to prohibit
discrimination against transgender people.
5. Would you ensure that federal infrastructure
money is given to Ottawa to ensure a queer community centre is
built in this city?
DEWAR (NDP): I would be a strong advocate
for that money to be invested, as I call it, not spent, in a
Pride or queer centre and to help with that as the MP. It's
a community asset to have that service. We need to have more
access for particularly our young people. In the '90s there
was a lot of good outreaching and education and public health
education going on. We need to rejuvenate that energy with our
youth.
FOUNTAIN (CONSERVATIVE): I think the
federal government shouldn't be involved in projects that are
purely local in nature. I think that's something that has to
be a community initiative and has to happen at the community
level.
MAHONEY (LIBERAL): I will do whatever
I can to help, including looking for and being an advocate for
federal funds for a community centre. As to what the source
of funds is, whether it is an infrastructure program or something
else, I'm neutral. It doesn't matter to me where we get it.
6. How could the federal government offer
better financial support to queer festivals, like the Ottawa Pride
festival or queer theatre and film festivals?
DEWAR (NDP): I think the federal government
needs to play a more active role in our community arts funding,
generally speaking. The federal government's responsibility
and role is to support communities. The city agenda can be understood
by not only investing in roads and hospitals but also investing
in the arts - specifically, in things that are important to
our community, and clearly the Pride festival and film festivals
are the way to do that. It makes economic sense.
FOUNTAIN (CONSERVATIVE): I don't think
the federal government should be in the business of offering
financial support to local festivals at all. I think that people
in their own communities fund their own initiatives. That way
they don't have to go begging to the federal government for
cash. And it's cheaper for them in the long run because they'll
be able to pay for it with reduced taxes that we're no longer
taxing people to pay for these kinds of festivals.
MAHONEY (LIBERAL): I would like to
see the federal government participate through the Arts Presentation
program; they have such a program, but it clearly is so far
inadequate. That's what the festivals are telling us. There's
not enough money there. And that's something I've already started
to work on.
7. Would you support establishing a national
office to standardize and collect hate crime statistics from across
Canada?
DEWAR (NDP): Yes. Not only I would
I support it, I would use Ottawa as an example of how to do
it. I'm talking about the Ottawa police services. When you're
dealing with hate crimes, biased crimes, if you do not have
the data, then how are you going to be able to put the resources
in the right area? I think it's an excellent idea. So you need
to fund it.
FOUNTAIN (CONSERVATIVE): I think more
information is always better, and if these statistics aren't
being collected and centralized now, then they probably should
be.
MAHONEY (LIBERAL): Yes. That seems
like a very reasonable idea and, actually, a very good idea.
I think that the next big challenge that we should take on is
what I would call completing the work on discrimination and
hate. Progress has been made, but I'd like to take advantage
of the momentum we have coming out of the campaign for equal
marriage to deal with those issues.
8. How would you ensure that the next phases
of the LeBreton Flats development would provide truly affordable
housing for people on the social housing waiting list, people
in the lowest 20 percent of income?
DEWAR (NDP): I see housing as a right.
What I want to happen for LeBreton
Flats is that we would come together as a community to decide
what we wanted to look like and present that to the NCC and
have that plan generated by the community. It would be an inversion
of what has happened with Phase One of the LeBreton Flats. I've
worked with this kind of community development model before.
What I would like to see is a large component of LeBreton Flats
as affordable housing.
FOUNTAIN (CONSERVATIVE): There's two
ways to get developers to build low-cost housing. You can try
and force them to do it, in which case they'll find every way
they can to delay and get around it. Or you can provide them
with incentives to do so with tax breaks and that way they'll
enthusiastically charge for it and build affordable, quality
housing, sufficient for the needs of local people. That's what
I would support.
MAHONEY (LIBERAL): The first is, I
think we need new leadership in the NCC. We need to open up
the NCC to the community. It does great work but it makes its
decisions behind closed doors and decisions made behind closed
doors, when they involve issues like LeBreton Flats, are often
going to be bad decisions. And in stage two, I want non-profit
housing. The way to ensure that there is truly affordable housing
there from the beginning is to make sure that a non-profit is
part of it.
9. If your party decided to enact a law that
discriminated against queers, like revoking the right to marriage,
will you commit to resign from caucus and speak out against the
proposal in the loudest possible way?
DEWAR (NDP): It's a simple answer -
yes! Yes, I would, because there have to be principles in politics
and this is definitely a principle that I would adhere to -
supporting equal marriage in this case.
FOUNTAIN (CONSERVATIVE): First of all,
I don't think the party will bring that back. Parliament has
had its say on this issue, and it's really time to move on.
And I really welcome that because it's an important step forward
to bringing the gay community into the mainstream. If the subject
came up again, I'd vote against it. I'd work to convince my
colleagues and all the parties to maintain the current status
quo, in which gay marriage is legal. But I wouldn't drop out
of caucus because that would defeat the purpose of what I'm
trying to do.
MAHONEY (LIBERAL): Yes, but that's
not going to happen. I'm not expecting the government and the
party that passed that historic achievement – equal marriage
- which I'm very proud of and will be campaigning on in the
election, to be doing anything but promoting those values.
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Credit: Geoff Robins, Ottawa Sun