IDEAS OFTEN DO, IN TIME, HAVE consequence, and this is certainly true in Canada.  In his PhD turned book, Canadian Evangelicalism in the Twentieth Century:  An Introduction to its Character, John Stackhouse suggested that there were “The Eccentrics” and “The Mainstream” evangelicals in Canada.  Stackhouse suggested that T. T. Shields and William Aberhart embodied much more the eccentrics.

I mentioned above that Aberthart was the founder of the Calgary Prophetic Bible Institute, host of Canada’s national Back to the Bible Hour, and Premier of the province of Alberta.  Ernest Manning replaced Aberhart in his dual role as Premier and radio preacher after Aberhart’s death.   Ernest Manning’s son, Preston Manning, was the founder of a right of centre party (Reform and Alliance parties) that became the present Conservative party of Canada now in power with a majority in Parliament.

Preston Manning was replaced by Stockwell Day as leader of the newly formed Conservative Party of Canada.  Many of Harper’s Members of Parliament come from conservative evangelical backgrounds, and, as such, the pro-Jewish ethos has been bred in them by a rather questionable read[ing] and interpretation of the Jewish prophetic tradition and a Sunday school understanding of the Jews as God’s chosen people.  As Marci McDonald observed in her important book, The Armageddon Factor, Harper has backed Israel with such fervour that veteran scholars and diplomats rank it as the most dramatic shift in the history of postwar Canadian foreign policy.”¹⁹

What have been some of the pro-Zionist positions that the Harper government has taken and why have they taken such positions?  When Hamas was legitimately elected in 2006 to represent the Palestinian people, Harper cut aid to the Palestinians.  Harper sided with the Jewish state against Lebanon in the 2006 war, and when Israel invaded Gaza in 2009 and the United Nations Human Rights Council opposed such an action, Harper stood uncritically by Israel’s side.  Harper opposed the decision by Hugo Chavez to oust the Israeli ambassador as a result of Israel’s invasion of Gaza.  Harper went so far as to suggest that he might even represent Israel in Venezuela.  Harper also opposed Obama at the G8 Summit in France, in which Obama suggested a return to the pre-1967 borders.  The fact must also be duly noted that the former Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, Jason Kennny, attempted to prevent George Galloway (former British MP who has sympathy with Hamas) from entering Canada.  There is no doubt that Harper is much further right than the United States these days on the Zionist issue (a rather rare and unusual position for most Canadians).

There is much more that could be said about the Conservative Party in Canada and their ideological pro-Zionist stance.  The Conservative Party’s opposition to the Canadian International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development for funding “terrorist” groups in the Middle East (decoded, means anything that questions Zionism) has meant that any questioning of Zionist and settler activities in Israel is deemed terrorism.  KAIROS (an ecumenical church group) also had funding cut off because it dared to question Zionist policies, and Mada-al Carmel (who was studying the treatment of women in Arab-Israel) also had support terminated.  Each of the groups mentioned above had some sympathies for the plight of the Palestinians, and the Zionist-oriented Conservative Party of Canada punished such groups for daring to think and act outside the Zionist ideological stance.

The work done decades ago at a more exegetical and Bible school level by Darby, Scofield, Aberhart, Manning, and their tribe, has now moved into a worrisome political phase.  Men and women who took in a pro-Jewish ideology as children in Sunday school are now making decisions in Canadian foreign policy as adults.  The eccentrics have become the mainstream and the Canadian mainstream has been marginalized.  The implication of the eccentrics in power in Canada is ominous for both Jewish-Palestinian relations and Canadian Middle Eastern foreign policy.

The fact that Marci McDonald has been one of the few in Canada that has tracked and traced the varied connections and completed the essential dot-connecting on the Harper-Zionist love fest must be noted.  McDonald’s chapter, ‘The Armageddon Factor,’ in The Armageddon Factor:  The Rise of Christian Nationalism probes and highlights all the formal and informal web of relations in Canada that support the present pro-Zionist foreign policy of Harper’s majority government.

The deeper the probes into the Conservative evangelical and fundamentalist ethos in Canada, the more it will become abundantly clear how and why a certain read[ing] of the Bible is significantly impacting who is chosen as Members of Parliament in Canada and how such decisions are altering historic Canadian foreign policy in the Middle East.

¹⁹  McDonald, Armageddon Factor, 311

Canadian Evangelicalism in the Twentieth Century: An Introduction to its Character, John Stackhouse