What do voters have a right to know about candidates who stand for the highest offices in Canada or the United States?
Personal misdeeds, youthful errors and long-ago writings — recorded and accessible now because of the Internet age — have tripped up numerous candidates in the Oct. 14 Canadian election campaign.
But the underlying religious or personal beliefs of the five men and women leading their parties here have not been the subject of the kind of intense debate that has surrounded the American presidential and vice-presidential candidates.
Democratic nominee Senator Barack Obama has been the subject of a false rumour campaign saying he's a Muslim, and the racially tinged sermons of his longtime former preacher caused problems for his campaign earlier this year.
When Prime Minister Stephen Harper won the last election and ended his victory speech with "God Bless Canada," there was a huge outcry alleging he was introducing American, un-Canadian and fundamentalist values into our country.
But otherwise, most Canadian voters know little about the religious, or deeply personal non-religious, views of our five party leaders?
Should we?
Does what and how they worship, or what their core beliefs are, have any impact on how we vote? on how they would perform their duties in office?
To further that debate, we at globeandmail.com have invited our semi-regular group of faith panelists and free thinkers to write about those issues and to take your questions on the topic.
This is not one of our regular "live" discussions. Rather, each panelist will write a short essay on the question:
Should a candidate's religious leanings or other basic personal beliefs matter to voters? If so, why?
The essays are published below.
In addition, the panelists will take your questions later today on their essays and on the issues raised.
The members of our panel are:
Michael W. Higgins is President of
St. Thomas University
in Fredericton and past president of St. Jerome's University in the University of Waterloo.
Dr. Higgins is a broadcaster, author and co-author of numerous books and CBC Ideas series, including Heretic Blood, The Muted Voice, Power and Peril and Stalking the Holy.
Lorna Dueck, an Evangelical Christian journalist, writes a monthly column for The Globe.
She is also executive producer of
Listen Up TV
, a weekly newsmagazine on spiritual perspectives in current events, seen Sundays on Global TV, and Thursdays on CTS, Salt and Light TV and Christian Channel.
Rabbi Ed Elkin has been the spiritual leader of the
First Narayever Congregation
in downtown Toronto since 2000.
Born in New York, he graduated from Princeton University and has worked or studied in Canada, the U.S. and Israel.
Sheema Khan also writes a monthly column for The Globe. She has a Masters degree in physics and a Ph.D. in chemical physics from Harvard. She has worked in R&D, is an inventor and has worked at law firms in intellectual property law.
Ms. Khan also served as chair of the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CAN) from 2000-2005.
Justin Trottier is Executive Director of the Centre for Inquiry Canada, advancing secular humanism and skeptical inquiry throughout the country.
He is a contributor to Free Inquiry, Skeptical Inquirer and Humanist Perspectives magazines, and hosts the Course of Reason podcast.
Editor's Note: globeandmail.com editors will read and allow or reject each question/comment. Comments/questions may be edited for length or clarity. HTML is not allowed. We will not publish questions/comments that include personal attacks on participants in these discussions, that make false or unsubstantiated allegations, that purport to quote people or reports where the purported quote or fact cannot be easily verified, or questions/comments that include vulgar language or libellous statements. Preference will be given to readers who submit questions/comments using their full name and home town, rather than a pseudonym.
Lorna Dueck: Yes, it does matter, and those views are the first thing some of us look for in a candidate.
Beliefs shape a person's worldview and that affects their character, their treatment of issues, relationships, how they react to life, it influences everything about a person.
