By Lloyd Mackey

Opposition leader Michael Ignatieff (left) with Liberal MP John McKay. Photo by Christian Diotte.

THE LEADER of Canada's official opposition has been striving to cultivate better communication with people of faith.

For close to a year, John McKay -- a Toronto-area Liberal MP with longstanding evangelical Christian connections -- has been acting as Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff's entrŽe into various sectors of the Canadian Christian community.

And he told CC.com that he is "encouraged and delighted with the reception I have received."

But he also cautioned that it is almost impossible to know whether there will be a direct "political payoff" to the Liberals, growing out of his efforts. There used to be, he acknowledged, but "today is a different era." It will be awhile -- perhaps an election or two -- before the party will know for sure.

McKay received the assignment directly from Ignatieff last spring, shortly after the former Harvard professor assumed the Liberal leadership.

Ignatieff has an eclectic religious background: Russian Orthodox on one side of the family, and direct descent from Presbyterian cleric stalwart George Grant on the other. Generally, however, he counts himself as an occasional "but not very churchy" attender at worship.

On coming into the Liberal leadership, however, he recognized that, in the past few decades, some of his party members had become increasingly derisive of evangelical Christians -- and, to a lesser extent, Roman Catholics. That vitriol was especially directed at Christian politicians with Conservative or Reform party connections. Leaders like Stockwell Day were described as "scary," especially with respect to their pro-life or pro-creationist viewpoints.

The apparent result was that evangelical support for Liberals had been waning, particularly in Ontario. It was falling dramatically from the days when now-senator David Smith managed the federal Liberal backrooms. Smith, a serious Baptist with many family links to Pentecostalism, networked heavily with his fellow believers.

He often identified Liberal candidates capable of attracting evangelical voters in swing ridings, where evangelicals might make up 10 percent of the voter profile. Smith and the late John Munro, a former key Hamilton area Liberal cabinet minister, worked the network; they built helpful friendships with people such as evangelical television host David Mainse.

In more recent years, aware of the apparent Liberal cynicism regarding evangelical beliefs, Mainse had quietly shifted his encouragement toward Conservative candidates, if they showed they understood or were willing to listen to the evangelical community.

The decline in the number of Liberal federal seats in rural and small-city Ontario could be traced, statistically, to the favour with which evangelicals were viewing the Conservatives. That happened especially after the merger of the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative parties.

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While Catholic voters always leaned Liberal, even those figures were declining in more recent years.

In McKay, Ignatieff believed he had a good antidote to those declining trends. A Toronto lawyer, now in his early 60s, McKay had been influential in the founding of the Christian Legal Fellowship in Canada. A stalwart at Spring Garden Baptist Church, a strong congregation in the Willowdale area of Toronto, he was well able to articulate both socially and fiscally conservative views. And he also communicated an understanding of the biblical concepts supporting those views.

While articulating strongly why he believes evangelical and Catholic Christians should be supportive of the federal Liberals, McKay took care not to be corrosively critical of the Conservatives. He did caution, however, that what he sees as the current Conservative penchant to "lock up the pro-Israel and evangelical votes," as heading in a "dangerous" direction.

Regarding recent experiences in meeting with Christian leaders -- with or without his leader -- McKay talked about some pleasant "surprises" in the process. He did so while pointing out that, at this stage, he needs to protect the confidentiality of many of the conversations.

In Edmonton, he found that a group of ministers with which he met were interested in immigration and refugee determination issues -- something that he would not have expected to be the case in Alberta.

In Winnipeg, he met with leaders and faculty members at Booth College, a Salvation Army institution. He was told of a sense of disappointment on the part of the educators, that they heard so seldom from members of parliament -- from any party.

Of all Christians, Salvationists have something significant to say about poverty and justice, McKay pointed out.

In Vancouver, the main concern was for social housing -- something that has been on McKay's radar since the late 90s, when he was first elected to Parliament.

An interesting challenge for McKay has been to build networks with Christians who are unhappy with Ignatieff's insistence that maternal and child health in less developed countries should include support for abortion and contraception.

As a pro-life Liberal, McKay would be most hesitant to back Ignatieff on that matter -- although some of his caucus colleagues would take quite an opposite stance.

He emphasized that "I made my own opinions abundantly clear to my leader," after Ignatieff's pro-abortion announcement -- which was made following a Liberal roundtable on international development, during the parliamentary prorogation period.

Earlier reports had indicated that Liberal strategists had recommended Ignatieff take a pro-abortion stance as a means of establishing a wedge issue among Conservatives.

All that considered, McKay said he has been enjoying the challenge of networking on these faith-political issues -- and so, apparently, has Ignatieff. "He enjoys listening and he enjoys the interactions. And he takes notes."

That last point had been made by one of the west coast clerics with whom they met. And that seemed to make a good impression, McKay recalled.

"The pastor told me that if someone will not take notes, he (the pastor) won't express his views."

March 04/2010