Family Coalition Party of Ontario

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The Family Coalition Party is a small political party in Ontario, Canada that promotes a socially conservative ideology. It was formed in 1987 by members of the pro-life organization Campaign Life Coalition, and has fielded candidates in every provincial election since then.

1 History
2 Ideology
3 Election results
4 Party leaders
5 See also
6 External link

[edit] History

The first leader of the party was Donald Pennell, who was previously a candidate for the Ontario Liberal Party in the 1975 provincial election. He served as FCP leader from 1987 to 1997 when he was replaced by Giuseppe Gori, the current leader. Pennell subsequently campaigned for the Canadian Alliance in the 2000 federal election.

The Family Coalition Party's strongest showing to date was in the 1990 provincial election, when it received over 100,000 votes. Its support declined in the 1995 and 1999 elections, followed by a modest recovery in 2003. It has never elected a candidate to the Ontario legislature.

During the 1999 election, the party conducted a demonstration at Queen's Park, Toronto featuring three "cloned sheep" to represent Progressive Conservative leader Mike Harris, Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty and New Democratic Party leader Howard Hampton. The FCP's intent was both to indicate their opposition to cloning technology, and to suggest that the major parties were identical in ignoring family issues.

[edit] Ideology

The FCP's platform emphasizes "the family, rather than the individual" as the "basic building block of our society".[1] It argues that parents have an "inalienable right and duty to educate, discipline and care for their children", and asserts that the promotion of stronger family units will result in reduced social problems involving crime and drug addiction. The party's emphasis on the family unit favours heterosexual married couples: it opposes spousal benefits for both same-sex couples and common-law heterosexual couples. The FCP supports increasing personal and spousal tax exemption, as well as providing assistance to single mothers who choose to carry a pregnancy to term. It also recognizes "the work of mothers in the nurturing of children", and supports increased tax benefits for stay-at-home parents. On education, the FCP favours the introduction of vouchers, and what it describes as a "healthy competition among schools".

The party's policies on other matters are generally conservative, although not universally so. The FCP supports a reduction in the size of government, as well as "the long-term removal of all measures that insulate industries, businesses, financial institutions, professions and trade unions from domestic and foreign competition". It also favours "reconsidering" legislation on pay equity, employment equity and labour relations, and the eventual removal of universal federal programs. The FCP recognizes that the government has a role to play in issues relating to environmental management, and ensuring access to health services regardless of ability to pay.

The party also favours electoral reform, and supports "a more proportional system of representation" for general elections. Some leading figures in the party support a Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) model, similar to the system used in countries such as Germany and Italy, to provide greater representation to smaller parties (the party is scheduled to hear a presentation on MMP at its annual meeting in April 2006). The FCP also supports voter recall, referenda and electoral financing reform.

In recent years, the party has become best known for its opposition to increased rights and benefits for same-sex couples. It opposes same-sex marriage, and seeks the revocation of all legislation interpreting the word "spouse" to include same-sex couples. Most prominent links on the party's homepage (as of April 2006) address aspects of the marriage issue.

Many of the Family Coalition Party's policies are also supported by the federal Christian Heritage Party, and some FCP candidates have campaigned for the CHP at the federal level. The two parties are not formally linked, however, and have somewhat different constituency bases: most FCP members are conservative Catholics, while most CHP members are conservative evangelical Protestants. Although these groups hold similar positions on abortion and same-sex marriage, they hold opposing views on other issues such as capital punishment and (in some cases) corporal punishment.