The hammering of Stockwell Day.

Has Canada become so intellectually, morally and spiritually corrupt that it is no longer possible for a principled Christian to get elected as prime minister?

One might think so, given the relentless hammering that Stockwell Day has taken over his religious convictions since announcing his candidacy for leadership of the Canadian Alliance. "I continue to be fascinated that there is very intense media interest if your faith happens to be Christian," Day told Sheldon Alberts of The National Post. "You get asked the question, 'Is your faith going to affect how you live your life?' I have yet to see that asked of any of my Jewish colleagues or my Muslim colleagues or my colleagues who embrace aboriginal spiritual beliefs."

As a devout Christian, Day upholds the traditional principles of Judeo-Christian morality. The same goes for Preston Manning. Both Manning and Day have made clear that they affirm the traditional family and the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death. On this basis, though, how can any Christian politician expect to get elected, given that the great majority of Canadians no longer understand that abortion is never justifiable?

Manning has long argued that the solution to this political dilemma lies in promising to abide by the wishes of the majority of the electorate on controversial moral issues. In line with this approach, he has promised that as head of a Canadian Alliance government, he would empower the people of Canada to decide policies dealing with such contentious issues as abortion, euthanasia and capital punishment through politically binding national referenda.

"I think there are millions of Canadians who have deeply held views on subjects like the sanctity of life and strengthening the family," said Manning. "There are also many Canadians who are afraid of any value-driven minority imposing its views on the majority." Democratic processes, he suggested, would "guarantee people with deeply held values a place to stand and articulate those values, and, at the end of the day, to have the decisions made by large numbers of people rather than small numbers."

Like Manning, Day also favours referenda to decide morally divisive issues. And so does Tom Long. In kicking off his campaign for leadership of the Canadian Alliance, Long disclosed: "I have strong views on abortion. I am pro-life."

That statement came as quite a surprise to many pundits. If Long is so strongly pro-life, why has he never spoken out against the profoundly anti-life policies of the Harris government? As the former election campaign chairman for the Ontario Conservative Party in 1995 and 1999, his voice on this issue could have carried considerable weight.

Be that as it may, it's significant that Long now promises that he, too, would allow binding referenda on abortion and other issues. Advocates of moral renewal within the Canadian Alliance should make sure that their party stands by this commitment. They have a lot to gain.

Suppose the Chretien government had been required to hold a national referendum on Bill C-23, the perverse legislation that gives homosexual and heterosexual couples who have lived together in a conjugal relationship for as little as one year virtually the same rights in federal law as married couples who have made a vow of life-long fidelity. Would a majority of voters have approved such a radical, anti-family initiative? That's most unlikely.

Would most voters endorse a judicial decree granting perverts the right to possess child pornography? That's even more unlikely.

In 1991, 63 per cent of voters in a non-binding Saskatchewan referendum backed a proposal to defund abortions, only to have the province's incoming New Democratic Party Premier Roy Romanow ignore the outcome. Under terms of the Canadian Alliance proposal, such arrogant disdain for the people would not be possible: Parliament would undertake to abide by the outcome of national referenda on moral issues.

Liberal critics claim that's not fair--that it would empower the majority to trample upon the rights of a minority. But is it any better or more democratic to have a minority, like homosexual activists, impose their ideology on the majority?

Surely not. Abraham Lincoln put the matter well: "Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world?"

Rory Leishman, a journalist of London, ON, has joined our team of columnists. He will be writing on political affairs four times a year.