New Leader For The CHP

Jim Hnatiuk has been elected leader of the Christian Heritage Party.

CHP delegates gave their resounding support with the first ballot win for Mr. Hnatiuk, who held the party's Deputy Leader position since 2005. Mr. Hnatiuk was one of three candidates to run for the leadership of the party. The party wants to thank Harold Ludwig and Rod Taylor for their candidacies.

Jim Hnatiuk has been a dynamic member of the CHP ever since he first joined in 2002. He became the Interim Nova Scotia President prior to being named the Deputy Leader. The party's only candidate in Atlantic Canada in the 2004 election (against incumbent Scott Brison) and 2006 election (against incumbent Gerald Keddy), he has worked tirelessly to expand the CHP's presence in Eastern Canada. As a result, the party ran five candidates in Nova Scotia in the recent election.
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Hnatiuk, who has spent a great deal of time thinking about improving the quality of the CHP's image, experimenting with various strategies in his own campaigns, is looking forward to strengthening the party's recruiting methods and building the membership across Canada, from coast to coast to coast.

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Building membership would require lots of effort. Especially when the party's founding principles are worded in the manner that not even every Christian denomination finds them acceptable. As a new leader, Jim Hnatiuk will have to address that. He'll need to find a way to reword the principles so they could be accepted by as many people as possible (including non-Christians), without compromising the party's backbone of Christian Heritage.

Building a positive image of the party is yet another challenge. And a tremendous one, as there are many people who view the party as "exclusive", if not "theocratic", implying that the party's goal is to discriminate against non-Christians or at the least - to force Christian prayers in public schools. Dispelling those myths requires lots of time and effort.

Then there's an issue of vote splitting - something that always works against minor parties. I understand that the CHP doesn't view itself as an ally of the existing Conservative party (especially since the CPC tries to distance itself from social issues) so their intention is to run full slate. Still, I believe that the CHP should have a list of target ridings and make sure they run a candidate in each of those ridings, before they nominate candidates anywhere else.

By targeting ridings with no pro-life, pro-family incumbents and by running key candidates in the constituencies where even a 50:50 split on the right won't result in a Liberal victory, the CHP could actually turn the effect of vote splitting to their advantage.