Outspoken MP has a quiet faith

By Lloyd Mackey

THIS STORY has been eight years in the making. Since Randy White first joined the world of politics as a neophyte Reform MP, he has proved to be an enigma to the Christian community in his riding deep in the Fraser Valley 'Bible belt.' Though his views on everything from the prison system to immigration are both supported and spurned by members of that community, they are never hidden -- he calls things as he sees them.

Most people in his riding know that White is a Christian, but few have glimpsed past the surface to see how his faith was formed.

Last month, I sat down with Randy White for an early morning breakfast in Victoria, where he was up to his ears in a Canadian Alliance caucus retreat -- one that is critical to the party as it moves toward the choosing of its second leader. As interim house leader, he had been the one to announce, just hours before, the appointment of Lou Barnett of the American Institute, as the one to help the fractured caucus and party to "put the pieces back together."

(Around the hotel dining room, Mr. Barnett was being dubbed by those who are good at political shorthand, as 'the peacemaker.')

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White's language is not replete with the evangelical terminology that is second nature to many of his constituents. He grew up, after all, in a different kind of Bible belt -- in Atlantic Canada. He was an Anglican churchgoer from the time he was a toddler. As a teen, he drifted, not from belief, so much, as from active participation.

He still remembers and constantly recalls the songs and the warmth of the fellowship that permeated the 'brown church' in St. Margaret's Bay, Nova Scotia.

As is often the case in Atlantic Canada, the 'brown church' in a coastal village is Anglican, and the white one is Baptist. And in either church, the linkage between belief and 'real life' is not articulated in the way it often is in the Fraser Valley.

But there is a devout attention to the faith life that has been passed on from generation to generation, since the great revivals of the 1850s that touched so many villages throughout Atlantic Canada.

"They just don't talk about it all that much," he says, adding that he himself is much the same way. As he responded to my request to "tell your faith story" to BCCN readers, he let it slip that he did not think he had ever spoken as extensively for quotation as he was doing now.

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The rekindling of his spiritual awareness came with his meeting Marty, his wife of 32 years. She was a Newfoundland-reared Catholic who went to church several times a week. "I went to the Catholic church because she did. But I remained an Anglican and still am."

Their son and daughter, now in their mid-20s, were raised Catholic. When they were younger, they used to ask him: "What are you, daddy?"

He would reply, with a mischievously stern glint in his eye: "I am an Anglican spy, and I am taking notes."

White believes there is plenty of room in Canada for the moderate mixing of politics and faith.

Pro-life though he be, he becomes frustrated with the abortion debate that comes every four years. The scenario, he says, is that pro-life groups press the politicians as to whether or not they are pro-life and what are they going to do when it comes time to make a decision.

But the reality, he says, is that it is not going to come up because it is a "done deal." So abortions continue at an increasing trend, and the only thing to reverse it is for pro-lifers to work to that end.

To the Christians in his riding, he encourages them with the note that politics is not a spectator sport: it requires the politician and his or her constituents to keep, not only values, but needs, in perspective.

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He is clearly elated that the largest Christian institution in his riding, Trinity Western University, is developing a leadership centre just down the hill from the parliament buildings in Ottawa. TWU is doing just the right thing "and it is going to have far more of an impact on our nation than even they realize," he predicts.

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And what of Preston Manning? After all, he and the Reform founder had a bit of a public falling out at the point when Manning relieved him of the house leader's job.

"Preston is going to find his place. He did a lot of good. He changed our country for the better. He was the soldier who always moved forward. And history will be kind to him.

"He is the last of the great orators in the house," he says, noting that when he stood to make a major statement, "the Liberals, and all the others filed in to the house to listen, and to pay attention."

Reminded that he, himself, speaks with considerable passion and vigor in the House, White allows that he has been known to spill his guts in the interests of his constituents --particularly those who are victims of injustice. But nobody, not even NDPer Bill Blaikie, a United Church minister who is a pretty fair speaker, could touch Manning.

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White stops less than a centimetre short of saying he will not run again. In his early fifties, he speaks of 56 as the age at which he and Marty will settle in Parksville and spend some of the year on the waterfront property they still have in Nova Scotia. Do the numbers, he seems to imply, cautioning only that nothing is ever certain until it is certain.

Politics, he says, is all consuming. Is it a religion substitute? That is not the right term, he cautions. The intensity of politics well done draws its practitioner away from the kind of faith life and spiritual nurture that being a regular part of a church family provides.

It will have been quite a run. Randy and Marty crossed the country to follow his work. He earned his CMA (Chartered Management Accountancy) designation by studying at night and working in the day. The hardest job he ever had to leave was the one with the Abbotsford school district. Marty was a stay-at-home mother until the children were grown, then became a school secretary.

They are looking forward to the next step. In a sense, they are a bit like Preston and Sandra Manning. They may not quite know what the future holds, but they seem to have a fair idea who holds the future.