Freedom Flyer 12

By CLYDE WARRINGTON
T-J Staff Reporter

Four candidates are running in Elgin in the Sept. 10 provincial election. This report is the first of four on the individual campaigns.

IN THE NAME OF FREEDOM --- Freedom Party candidate Ray Monteith said he was drawn into this election out of concern that citizens' rights are being eroded by an over-zealous government. The party wants less government and more freedom of choice, in areas ranging from abortion to the speeding laws. -(T-J Photo)

In 1985, he was part of an Elgin Liberal Association ad campaign to elect provincial candidate Peter Charlton.

The ads featured a photograph of him shaking hands with soon-to-be-Premier David Peterson above a caption introducing Ray Monteith "as a lifelong Conservative pledging support to the Liberal Party."

Two years later, he rides the ticket of the newly-founded Freedom Party of Ontario in the Sept. 10 election campaign but admits he hasn't a hope of getting elected.

At a candidates' meeting in Union, Mr. Monteith chided the three other election hopefuls, warning that whomever of them was elected, he would be in the background to record their position on any issue involving people's freedoms.

ANTI-SUBSIDIES

His platform is simple: anti-government; pro-choice.

"Anything run by the government is a flop," he said in Union.

In an interview, he also talks of tempering his party's hardline stance against government and government programs "with compassion."

The Freedom Party of Ontario is opposed to all government grants given institutions such as museums, universities, tourist information centres, theatres, galleries and sports. It abhors subsidies given corporations, day care centres and agriculture. It is also against all government 'studies.' building restrictions and zoning bylaws.

"You," he stresses, "have to be accountable for all the decisions you make, right or wrong."

As with anyone else, he doesn't want a waste disposal site in his backyard and he doesn't believe the lifting of zoning bylaws should result in factories getting constructed in quaint suburbia.

"You can't do that, not if it interferes with your neighbors. That's what the Freedom Party is all about - sure we believe in freedom of choice, but not if it's something that's going to hurt your neighbor."

Mr. Monteith was a brakeman and conductor for 37 years until his retirement from Conrail in 1980.

He may have voted Conservative for most of his life, but politics was never important to him, not until recently, he says.

Mr. Monteith says his new-found political awareness was spurred by Eastway Ford Sales Ltd.'s fight last year over Ontario's Sunday retail law. He was among the pickets maintaining that it should be a business right to decide what days it shall remain open.

Mr. Monteith says he joined the Freedom Party because he agrees with the party's view that our rights are ever being eroded by governments seeking to increase control over our lives.

"There is one reason and only one reason why Peterson called this election. Power. He wants more power and you know he's going to get it," he says of pollster predictions that the Liberals will handily form a majority government come Sept 10. The Freedom candidate is running a frugal campaign, witness the absence of election posters.

"I've spent $500 of my money and I'm hoping my wife is going to donate $200. It might get as high as $1000," he says.

He hasn't received any outside campaign contributions. The Freedom Party has helped him organize his campaign and "two young men from St. Thomas" have also contributed but basically "it's a one-man show" he says, with a hint of satisfaction.

His wife, Doris, has been gravely ill during the campaign and has diverted much of his attention. He doesn't want to discuss the situation on the record, however, although it is obviously causing him great anguish.

A deeply religious man with a fundamental approach to the Bible, Mr. Monteith preaches tolerance of religions, beliefs and practices at odds with his own.

He supports decriminalizing prostitution, pornography, and drug use, for instance, saying it's not for man to be "sort of playing God. A person's lifestyle has to be his own decision."