Federal election candidate, Christian Heritage Party of Canada
Age: 77
Occupation: Retired physician/ psychiatrist
Previous Elected Experience: Former two-term Victoria School Board trustee in 1970s; founding council member of Camosun College
Community involvement: President of various non-profit societies including SALTS (Sail and Life Training Society) and HURTS (Horizons Unbound Rehabilitation and Training Society) for young substance abusers
The inspiration behind Philip Ney’s run for public office as the candidate for the Christian Heritage Party of Canada is to advocate for children, he said.
As Ney sees it, around the world the population is declining.
“My life is advocating for kids - disabled kids, autistic kids, pre-born kids,” said Ney, who practised as a medical doctor and psychiatrist.
Born to Reginald Ney and Elizabeth in 1935, Ney, is married to Dr. Marie Peeters-Ney, a genetic pediatrician, who still lectures, an international expert on Down syndrome. The couple have one high-school-age son.
Ney has run in four federal elections, three as an independent. The last time he ran was in 2008 in Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca and garnered 309 votes.
“I’m not for globalization and I’m not for depopulation,” Ney said. “All my life I’ve stood up for children. The situation is desperate for children. People are so concerned about their [own] welfare, they’re not giving a dang about kids. I stand up for children.”
Ney has taught at five universities in Calgary, Montreal, Vancouver, Hong Kong and New Zealand, he said.
The retired doctor is adamant Canada needs many more children due to declining population - fewer people means fewer people to pay taxes and contribute to the economy.
One way in which we are losing children, he says, is through abortion.
“The reason the population is going down is one third of all [pre-born] children are being aborted,” Ney said. “It’s a never-ending cycle.”
As a physician, Ney said he is not against abortions. However, he said they should only be performed if they will have a proven medical benefit.
“Applying evidence-based medicine must apply to all levels of medicine, including abortion,” Ney said in an interview.
He said he is concerned about our Canadian heritage and that we must get back to the “pragmatism and morals” that founded our country.
“We’re allowing those things to slip away,” Ney said. “We have to go back to good old Christian morality of ‘love your neighbour as well as yourself’ ... and get away from the narcissism of everyone demanding the rights of the individual and people not caring for one another.
“The country can’t run without neighbourliness,” Ney said.
Ney’s views garner some heckling during all-candidates debates as he bounds between common-sense messages of brotherly love into lightning-rod opinions against a woman’s right to choose abortion and self-reliance in the face of poverty.
On a question about cuts to social services at an all-candidates meeting on homelessness, poverty and harm reduction Wednesday evening, hosted by downtown service providers, Ney, at one point said: “People need to struggle to exist.”
In regards to a question on whether the federal Homelessness Partnering Strategy - which brought $1.8 million to the region over three years - should be extended to 2017 from 2014, Ney agreed his party wants to help the homeless, if possible, but its priority is debt reduction.
Meanwhile, he said, the homeless should be provided basic building skills so they can construct their own houses and get jobs. And children should be protected against neglect so that they don’t develop poor self-esteem and hopelessness.
Inevitably, Ney said, one of the root causes of homelessness is traced back to abortion.
“Children who are abortion survivors, feel guilty for existing,” he said in a written answer. “They are afraid of death but don’t believe they should be alive when a sibling was terminated. Thus they dance with death: Do illicit drugs, sleep on the streets, drive recklessly etc. and when injured cannot work.”
PHILIP NEY
Top three issues:
1) The economy - the reason the economy is going down is the population is going down. The reason the population is going down is one-third of all children are being aborted. It’s a never-ending cycle.
2) Our Canadian heritage - we have to go back to Canadian pragmatism and the morals that founded our country.
3) Use science in determining important questions like the sewer project in Victoria and pipelines from the tarsands.
Proposed $783-million secondary sewage plant which has received funding commitments from all three levels of government:
The best way to inexpensively treat sewage is subsidized home septic tanks. The effluent is safe, clean. The solids pumped every 2-3 years can be used for fertilizer.
I’m an old sailor and scuba diver, and as a physician it doesn’t bother me to dive in the waters around Victoria. But if people want to clean up their sewers, the way is to have homes with septic tanks.
The existing situation is not so bad and the scientists are saying it’s not so bad. ... Putting up property taxes [to pay for the CRD’s one-third share of the plant] will drive people away.
E&N: We need the E&N now to haul goods up-Island to reduce truck traffic over the Malahat, improve commuting, and a unique tourist attraction. Modernized, it can pay its own way.
Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline from the Alberta oilsands to Kitimat: The risky gamble of selling crude delivered by pipelines arises because Canada desperately needs income. No one can run a free-market economy with a declining population.
Therefore, welcome every child.
Homelessness: people need neighbourliness and treatment for underlying causes. Freebie maternalism creates lowered self-esteem, conditioned helplessness and alienation.
Canada-China Investment Treaty:
China is in a powerful bargaining position. Unless Canadians are prepared to work as hard and long as Chinese, they can only sell off their resources at the best price possible.
Answers are based on interviews with the Times Colonist and have been edited for clarity.
