Christian Heritage Party’s lone candidate in Newfoundland has sites on St. John’s South— Mount Pearl
By Mark Squibb | Vol 7 No. 19 (Sept. 26, 2019)
David Jones is one of a kind in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Literally.
He is the province’s only Christian Heritage Party (CHP) candidate.
David Jones is running for the Christian Heritage Party in St. John’s South – Mount Pearl. Mark Squibb
“It’s too bad we don’t have candidates in the other six districts, but we don’t… so I’m hoping to make a difference if I get in,” said Jones from his Mount Pearl home.
While campaigning, Jones’ message is loud and clear.
“I tell people we support Christian values. We’d like to have a return to Christian values in society because we think that society would function much better than right now at the present time,” said Jones.
The CHP, founded in 1987, boasts of being the only federal party with policies against both abortion and same-sex marriage. Its party platform notes abortion ought to be “defunded, not defended.” The party also advocates rescinding government support for ‘same-sex marriage.’
Other platform issues include repealing the carbon tax, defunding/, or privatizing the CBC, repealing euthanasia laws, balancing the budget, defunding abortion, euthanasia, and gender re-assignment surgery, elimination of drug injection sites and re-criminalizing the possession and sale of marijuana.
“We support laws to protect the unborn, and the elderly. We don’t agree with euthanasia. And we don’t agree with same-sex marriage. We think that parents should educate their children the way they want,” said Jones. “Meeting people at the door, a lot of people are concerned about the moral issues at the present time. For instance, we don’t have any laws to protect the unborn. We have assisted death. And these are issues that concern people. There’s a lot of problems too with drugs. People are concerned about drugs. Especially vaping.”
Jones said, if elected, he would initiate private bills to address such issues.
“That would be my right, under the laws of Parliament, to do that,” he pointed out.
Jones feels that, despite the party’s religious foundation, a Christian Heritage Party, if elected, would still respect separation of church and state.
“We support the separation of church and state: however, there are issues on morality whereby the electorate have to get involved in it,” Jones said. “We need laws to protect the unborn. We need laws to protect the elderly.”
Whether you have to actually be a Christian, or just support Christian values to run for the party, is up for discussion
“You would have to support the values of the Christian Heritage Party. You would have to support our key values,” said Jones when asked if, say, a Muslim or an atheist could run for the CHP. “It’s very important for them to be in support of our values, because we support Christian values.”
Another big concern for Jones is the environment.
“It’s important. The young people displayed their dissatisfaction with the problems here last week,” he said. “My opinion is we should have electric cars, and the quicker we get them, the better. Because people are breathing in the exhaust fumes from the cars, especially in cities where there’s a great deal of fumes… There needs to be a system put in place to control smokestacks. Carbon tax is not the answer. Because that’s a tax grab, and the smoke is still going up.”
Partially for ecological, and partially for economic reasons, Jones scoffed at the Liberal’s idea of a link between Newfoundland and Labrador.
“It’s not economically feasible to do it,” Jones said. “And with climate change as it is now, everything is up and down. What would happen if we had a bridge across Newfoundland and Labrador and something happened with the environment where the water rose up and destroyed the infrastructure and the bridge?”
Instead, he suggested super ferries, one at Port aux Basques and one at Argentina.
The CHP also proposse the idea of scrapping the income tax in favor of a flat rate. “We would scrapp the income tax act as it is now and put in a system where we would arrange to put in a reasonable tax people could afford,” said Jones. “We’re paying way too many taxes here anyway.”
Jones ran for the provincial Liberal Party in 1969. His thoughts on the current party, both provincially and federally, have changed a lot since then.
“Justin Trudeau is like a dictator,” said Jones. “I would never see myself having any involvement with the Liberal party.”
