Christian Heritage Party of Canada

The Christian Heritage Party of Canada is a federal political party that advocates the governance of Canada according to "the inspired, inerrant written Word of God". ^*

This socially and fiscally conservative party held its founding convention in Hamilton, Ontario in November 1987, where Ed Vanwoudenberg was elected its first leader. Ron Gray has been the party's leader since 1995.

The party nominated candidates for the first time in the 1988 federal election, and ran numerous candidates in the 1993 and 1997 elections. It was unable to field 50 candidates in the 2000 election and was consequently deregistered by Elections Canada, the government elections agency. The party was re-registered in time for the 2004 election.

Many of its founders had been members of the Social Credit movement. The party's explicit goal is to "apply proven Judeo-Christian principles of justice and compassion to Canada's contemporary public policy needs".¹ The party claims that it seeks to represent all Christians in Canada, but that they acknowledge many Christians are members of other parties, and they specifically deny any interest in converting Canadians to Christianity. They claim to be Canada's only pro-life federal political party ^*, and emphasize that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms acknowledges "God" (in their interpretation meaning the Judeo-Christian God) in its preamble. Other policies include staunch opposition to same sex marriage, staunch support for the US-led war in Iraq, and a subsidy for parents raising children, to encourage one parent to stay at home rather than working.

Electoral activity

Election	# of candidates	# of votes	% of popular vote	% of popular vote CHP ridings
1988	63	102,533	0.78%	3.56%
1993	58	30,455	0.22%	1.09%
1997	53	29,085	0.22%	1.26%
2000	46*	10,110*	0.08*	0.51%*
2004	62	40,283	0.30%	1.52%
2006	45	28,163	0.19%	1.32%

*The party did not have official status for the 2000 election, but 46 candidates were nominated, listed on the ballot without any affiliation information. These figures represent the 46 "non-affiliated" candidates known to be nominees of the CHP.