Que. Catholic desert Liberals in 'droves'

'Conscience, corruption and the Church' blamed for Grit's collapse

"Clearly, a line has been crossed and a population mobilized." - Andrew Grenville

By DEBORAH GYAPONG
Canadian Catholic News
Ottawa

Churchgoing Quebec Catholics "abandoned the Liberals in droves in the last federal election, breaking century-old traditions of voting Liberal," says Ipsos Reid senior vice president Andrew Grenville.

In an article for the March/April Faith Today magazine, Grenville reports that "conscience, corruption and the Church" were responsible for the Liberal Party loss in January.

Ipsos Reid's polling figures showed that support for the Liberals among Quebec Catholics who attend church weekly fell from 56 per cent in 2004 to 29 per cent in the 2006 election.

Intense discomfort

"The rapid steep decline in vote for the Liberals among Catholics who attend regularly is an important indicator of intense discomfort," Grenville wrote.

"Committed Catholics clearly have felt pangs of conscience over social transgressions like corruption and moral issues such as same-sex marriage, and have swallowed hard and switched their vote."

The picture in the rest of Canada also showed a shift in Catholic voting patterns.

"Catholic churchgoers have traditionally been voting red (Liberal) for decades, if not centuries," he writes.

Historic shift

"But for the first time in the history of polling, Catholics who are regular churchgoers shifted away from lending the largest measure of their support to the Liberals (42 per cent voted Conservative, 40 per cent Liberal)."

"And those who attend more than once a week were most likely to vote Conservative rather than Liberal - a real change of heart."

Grenville said the link between Liberals and Catholics has "deep roots" because Catholics tend to vote for "more socially conscious" and "less individualistic parties than Protestants."

In Canada Catholicism's social orientation has a profound resonance with the Liberal Party's focus on social programs and community intervention.

Among Protestants, nearly two-thirds of weekly churchgoers voted Conservative, a level Grenville describes as "astonishing."

"Clearly, a line has been crossed and a population mobilized."

The shift could have a downside. "The fact that Quebec is still a part of Canada is in large part thanks to churchgoing Catholics in Quebec," he writes.

"In the last referendum, it was their vote that stopped the separatist Bloc. The fact that they have now fled the Liberal party in droves is shocking - and potentially worrisome for Canadian nationalists . . .".

One-time burst?

However, Grenville also argued the shift to the Tories may be just "a one-time burst of anger at the Liberals.

"If a free vote on same-sex marriage yields no change, then the banding together of Church groups around the same-sex marriage issue may well go the way of the Temperance movement, the momentum slowly dwindling to nothing."

The entire article can be viewed at the Faith Today website: www.faithtoday.ca. Faith Today is a communications organ of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.

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