It has been a rush since the Centre for Research on Canadian Evangelicalism published Canadian Evangelical Voting Trends by Region, 1996-2008, a paper I co-authored with Rick Hiemstra.
Since the release of the paper we have seen interest expressed in the media, the blogosphere, the Evangelical community and, perhaps most significantly, the three national political parties with seats in the House of Commons. Meetings with influential representatives from all three parties has helped confirm that Evangelicals and the EFC are issues oriented, i.e. non-partisan in our approach to public policy. If this wasn’t witnessed by our support for legislation currently before Parliament that has sponsorship from Conservative, Liberal and NDP MPs, it is evident in the report. The report shows Evangelicals have and continue to vote across the political spectrum with issues being important to the decisions made about who gets the “x” on election day.
Why blog about a month old (month young?) report today? Well, we hosted a briefing breakfast on the Hill yesterday to share some additional info and discuss the report with representatives from all three of the above parties at once. (We did invite the Bloc but no one showed.) Rick Hiemstra joined us and he was great, showing some PowerPoint charts that presented the information in stark simplicity.
Attendance at the breakfast, and related meetings with party reps, indicated that all three parties are aware of the benefits of past participation by Evangelicals. They’re also interested in current engagement in the political process by Evangelicals, some are just currently better at inviting that participation than others. This bodes well for the future of pluralist participation in the public square.
Why didn’t this info get out yesterday? Well, like I said, it’s been a rush and last night was a bit of crash time!