The Campaign Life Coalition, Canada's largest pro-life organization, has created a comprehensive voters' guide to help all those who care about the sacredness of human life from conception to natural death.
Want to know where your local candidates stand on the life issues of abortion, euthanasia, stem-cell research, etc.? Campaign Life has asked them. The answers are divided up by province and territory so your own riding is easy to track down.
In an interview on the site, Campaign Life Coalition national chairman Jim Hughes gives his reaction to the federal election: "Well, unfortunately, my first reaction is 'ho-hum.' There don't seem to be any clear cut issues facing the Canadian electorate. The issues that are important to us have been carefully concealed and the parties are still fighting like crazy to ensure that the topics don't even come up. You see the majority of polls in Canada time and again showing people in Canada want some restrictions on abortion and despite that, you have all these wishy-washy or just plain cowardly politicians refusing to take a strong stand."
Despite the political climate, Hughes urges voters to continue to push both individual candidates and their parties to take a stand on pro-life issues and vote in whatever strategic fashion will work to help the pro-life cause. One bit of advice he insists on: don't fail to vote.
Elsewhere on the site, Campaign Life rates the party leaders on the pro-life issues as they define them.
Liberal Leader Stephane Dion gets an F in life issues for supporting abortion on demand and embryonic stem-cell research and voting against Bill C-484, the Unborn Victims of Crime Act, a private member's bill by MP Ken Epps that died when Parliament was dissolved. He gets an F in family issues for supporting same-sex marriage and an F on democracy for supporting human rights commissions, which have been targetting the free speech of various conservative writers and publications in Canada.
Gilles Duceppe of the Bloc Quebecois gets an F in the first two categories and an Incomplete on Democracy since it is not known where he stands on human rights commissioins.
Ron Gray of the tiny Christian Heritage Party gets an A on both life and family issues and a B on democracy. Elizabeth May, leader of the fledgling Green Party, gets an F in the first two categories and a D in democracy.
Jack Layton of the NDP gets F in all three areas.
Conservative Stephen Harper gets a D on life issues, a B+ on family issues and a C- on democracy.