The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns

3. Aren't there more effective ways to solve problems without government?

[Ron Gray] Of course. And one of the greatest myths of our time -- eagerly promulgated by politicians -- is that politics can solve everything. It cannot.

But to solve problems in other ways, there must be a commonly-agreed-upon moral code. Society depends upon trust; the economy depends upon trust; and trust depends upon a shared moral code.

We do not pretend that we can solve all problems. But a significant part of the CHP's program is to stop governments and the courts from behaving like enemies of the culture upon which Canada was founded, and the moral code that undergirds that culture.

4. Why is it so important to protect traditional marriage? Why should government even be involved in marriages in the first place?

[Ron Gray] Government recognizes the social significance of marriage because marriage creates and nurtures the next generation of citizens -- and transmits the culture from one generation to the next, providing social stability.

Another reason that society at large -- through its government -- should protect traditional marriage is that it is the safest place for women and children. Rates of domestic violence in married families are about half what they are in unmarried families; the rates of domestic violence are even greater if the male partner in an unmarried household is not the biological father of the children. Rates of domestic violence are highest of all in same-sex households -- this is what David Island and Patrick Letellier (two 'gay' men) called "the dirty little secret of the gay-rights movement" in their book Men Who Beat The Men Who Love Them. A study in Boston found that one same-sex household in four had, during the previous year, experienced domestic violence serious enough to require hospitalization.

An even more important reason for protecting traditional marriage is to preserve that culture for our children. One 'gay' rights advocate asked me at a public meeting how two men in Vancouver marrying would affect my marriage. The answer, of course, was that they wouldn't affect my marriage; but they will affect the society in which my grandchildren will grow up. The Hoover Institution at Stanford University published a report last year entitled The End of Marriage in Scandinavia; the author, Hoover fellow Stanley Kurtz, reported the virtual collapse of marriage as an institution in the Scandinavian countries that have recognized same-sex 'civil unions' for the past 15 years or so; it is even worse in Holland and Belgium, where they have legalized same-sex 'marriage'.

And a very recent study in Quebec shows that children in married households have 20% less health problems than children in unmarried households.

The scientific fact is that homosexuality is not an innate condition; and 70% of practising psychiatrists in North America still regard the condition as a treatable psychopathology. Even the psychiatrist who put forward the resolution at the 1973 meeting of the America Psychiatric Association to removed 'homosexuality' from the APA's diagnostic manual, Dr. Robert Spitzer, now says that reparative therapy for homosexuals can often be helpful in restoring them to normality.

Homosexuality is, as Dr. Jeffrey Satinover has written, a behavioural addiction. What is more, a study done in Vancouver -- and reported in the Journal of the Canadian Medical Association and in the International Journal of Epidemiology -- revealed that homosexuakl behaviour shortens life expectancy by up to 20 years. Recognixing same-sex 'marriage' or same-sex 'civil unions', or any other legal measure that gives approbation to such behaviour, will say to adolescents that such behaviour is 'OK' -- "the government says it's OK." Some will be tempted to experiment, and of those who experiment, some will become addicted.... and those who advocate same-sex 'marriage' or same-sex 'civil unions' will be guilty of sentencing those children to a an early grave.

5. Could you please clarify the health care plan for the Christian Heritage Party of Canada? You claim to be aiming for equality and quality care, does that mean that you wish it to remain a public service or are there other plans in the midst?

[Ron Gray] It should be publicly funded. The delivery systems are already a mix of public and about 30% private. More private delivery will encourage innovation.

Furthermore, there should be a much greater emphasis on preventive medicine, which will either reduce costs in the future, or make more money available for newer and more expensive technologies. That preventive medicine should include lifestyle education, which would include making the public aware of the health risks of promiscuous behaviour. And the health care plan should not include abortion, which has become the most common surgical procedure in Canada; but it cures no known illness; it kills half its patients; and in subjects the mothers to greatly increased risk of breast cancer, as shown by 23 of 28 studies in a meta-analysis by Dr. Joel Brind. Furthermore, a recent study in the UK revealed that in the two years after a pregnancy, the death rate from all causes was twice as high for abortive women as for those who carried their pregnancies to term; and the suicide rate was six times as high. Abortion also greatly increases the risk that subsequent pregnancies will result in pre-term and low birth-weight babies, whose health risks are much greater than those born at full term.

6. If you have a millionaire willing to pay for his own private medical care, why should Joe-poor be forced to pay for Joe-rich?

[Ron Gray] Or, to put the question another way: if I am willing to pay for my own medical care, and a doctor is willing to provide the service, why should it be illegal for me to spend my money how I want, or for the doctor to provide the care he was trained to provide? In fact, that kind of draconian restriction is merely a misuse of the state's power to preserve the turf of the public service unions. It is Marxist.

7. Christians are said to be forgiving; however, one of your Party statements says it will stress restitution and public safety in cases of violence and sexual offences. This sounds very unforgiving. How do you justify your plan to eliminate the revolving door system?

[Ron Gray] Restitution and public safety are not "unforgiving". They are simply the best ways to preserve social order and safety.

Christian forgiveness is an individual matter; the task of the civil government, as described in the Bible, is to preserve peace and order. The Bible calls the civil governor "God's minister" -- which means servant -- "to you for good", and says the government is to reward those who do good and punish those who do evil.

Forgiveness (as an individual act) and repentance (also an individual act) are greatly facilitated when the offender is required to make restitution to the victim.

8. Aren't you just the Conservative Party, but more honest about your religious intentions? Not that there's anything wrong with that.

[Ron Gray] We are, generally speaking, small-c "conservative", in that we seek to conserve what is best about our culture. The Conservative Party has drifted so far left, they might better be called "Liberal Lite".

9. Do you believe in the rights of diversity and immigration when many immigrants are not Christians? Do you expect people to convert to Christianity if the Party plans to run a Christian-centred country?

[Ron Gray] We do NOT expect people to "convert to Christianity"; we are politicians, not evangelists. It is utterly false to presume that we seek to use the power of government to compel others to believe what we believe. Rather, as stated earlier, our purpose is to stop the governments and the courts from behaving like enemies of the culture and faith that 79% of Canadians hold.

Many immigrants to Canada are already Christians -- the Chinese Christian community rallied 10,000 people to the Vancouver court-house to protest the imposition of same-sex "marriage".

To properly describe the socio-political calling of the CHP, you have to look at the last census: 79% of Canadian self-identified as "Christian"; 16% were Secuar Materialists (atheist or agnostic); 5% comprised all the minority faiths, with none more than 2%.

But the Secular Materialists utterly dominate the four institutions that have the most impact on your life and mine: the governments., the courts, the tax-supported education establishment, and the media.

Secularism is NOT "neutral"; it is implacably hostile to all people of faith; it seeks to drive all faiths out of the public square. Secularism is, in fact, a faith -- the most bigoted and narrow of them all.

The only group in society with the numerical potential to resist the Secularist juggernaut is the 4 out of 5 Canadians who call themselves "Christians". Properly seen, we should be a bulwark defending the intellectual liberty and religious freedom of all Canadians.

The late Rabbi Emmanuel Jakobovitz once said, "The enemy is Judaism is not Christianity; it is militant Secularism."

10. Many atheists tend to have a gut distain for Christians. How would you alleviate their seemingly paranoid concerns?

[Ron Gray] I'm afraid they'll have to do that themselves. I cannot control the irrational thought of others. For several years, I had a running dialogue with the publisher/editor of The Canadian Atheist. He simply wasn't prepared to listen. Every issue of his little magazine included somewhere the quote, "Mankind will not be free until the last monarch has been strangled with the guts of the last priest." That doesn't sound very loving or tolerant to me! But I'm willing have a civil discourse with anyone... I would start with the question "Why is there something instead of nothing?"

11. When it comes to your party’s pro-life stance, how would you answer the following hypothetical: a woman gets impregnated by her troglodytic half-brother, wouldn’t she have a right to an abortion? (hypothetical first noted on TV show, Seinfeld)

[Ron Gray] Well, Jerry Seinfeld is a first-rate stand-up comic, but that doesn't make him a deep philosopher.

Hypothetical cases make bad philosophy, for they can never include all the facts.

The kind of case you hypothesize would represent a small fraction of one percent of all the 110,000 abortions done in canada every year. And we should remember the legal maxim that "hard cases make bad law."

But even granting all the conditions of your hypothesis, the question remains: why should the child be punished -- capital punishment, at that! -- for the sins of the father?

To move from the hypothetical to the real: I once had a secretary, named Ruth, who confided in me that she had been conceived as the result of a rape. And what is more, as a young adult she was the victim of a rape -- and conceived a daughter. At the time Ruth worked for me, her daughter had grown up, married, and had presented Ruth with a granddaughter. In Ruth's view, the birth of her child showed God's ability to bring beauty out of something ugly.

Abortion doe not un-rape a woman; it merely inflicts another violence upon her.

12. The Marajuana Party of Canada wants to legalize the drug. What is you opinion on legalising soft and hardcore drugs? Further, what is your opinion on decriminalizing drug usage?

[Ron Gray] The LAST thing Canada needs -- especially young Canadians -- is another stupefying substance on the market.

However, I believe that everything God made has a legitimate purpose. Marijuana has medical uses -- but no doctor in his/her right mind would prescribe smoking it, because marijuana smoke has been shown to be more carcinogenic that tobacco smoke. A pharmaceutical firm in the UK is now in the testing stage of an inhaler that dispenses THC-delta; the quantities are about 5% of what is in smoked 'joints'.

13. Have you ever participated in a protest? Do you feel they are effective ways to get a message across?

[Ron Gray] Yes. I participated in the protest of the opening of Vancouver's first abortion mill.

The effectiveness of a protest will depend on the deportment of the protesters -- they should be civil and peaceful -- and on the honesty of the media. At the protest I attended, the local CTV outlet sent a reporter -- Pamela Martin -- who asked me, "What will you do to stop this clinic from opening?" I replied, "We'll do whatever it takes" -- meaning, of course, within the law.

Five years later, when Dr. Garson Romalis was shot at his home by a sniper, BCTV included in that report a clip of me saying "We'll do whatever it takes." That was grossly dishonest reporting.

14. How do you feel about Americans? And, what is your opinion on Paul Martin using attacks against Americans to appear as a strong leader who does not bow down to US wishes?

[Ron Gray] Although I have policy differences with the Americans, they are undoubtedly the best neighbours we could wish for. Anti-Americanism is not pro-Canadian. It is just an appeal to bigotry.

15. How would you respond to Tucker Carlson's characterisation that Canadians live in igloos and ride dogsleds to work? Referring to http://www.twbookmark.com/books/16/0446529761/chapter_excerpt17539.html

[Ron Gray] It's kinda funny when someone who poses as a pundit exposes his own ignorance.

16. Why should people with more money pay higher taxes? Isn’t everyone in Canada equal and shouldn’t they contribute equally?

[Ron Gray] I believe the graduated income tax should be repealed. The Bible affirms the right to private property ("Thou shalt not steal.."). When money has been earned, the government has no right to ask, "How much did you make? Send me half."

Right now, the CHP is studying the differences in policy and effect between a flat tax or a consumption tax with exemptions for the necessities of life (e.g., food, children's clothing, prescription medicines, a certain level of heating and transportation fuel purchases...) With a consumption tax on optional purchases, the citizen can actually control how much money s/he gives to the government: if I decide I need a new car, I can buy a $60,000 Lexus and send an additional $12,000 to the government; or I can buy a $12,000 Firefly and send $2,400 to the government. My choice.

17. When the government tends to be horribly inefficient and ineffective, why do we continue to tack on social programme after social programme, crippling our population's tax burden further?

[Ron Gray] Because government's natural tendency is to make as many people as possible dependent upon it, thus preserving a constituency of need and consolidating its power base

18. Everyone born and raised in BC has smoked pot. Have you? And, did you inhale?

[Ron Gray] Not everyone born again has done so. When a person is born again, the Bible says, s/he becomes "a new creature. Old things are passed away."

19. Do you have any favourite blogs or websites that you read?

[Ron Gray] www.worldnetdaily.com and www.bourque.org are daily stops -- often more than once a day.

20. How can people contact you if they have questions or would like to aid in your campaign?

[Ron Gray] through our web-page at www.chp.ca

21. Is there anything that you would like to add that has not been asked here?

[Ron Gray] This has been a penetrating and useful set of questions. Thanks for enquiring.

Thank you very much, Ron Gray for your time and responses to the interview questions.