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Canada: Wildrose Party candidate pledges support for gay-straight alliances in schools

Oct 02 2014
Written by Aaron Day

Illustrated rainbow pride flag on a pink background.

The Calgary-West candidate for Alberta’s Wildrose Party Sheila Taylor says she supports gay-straight alliances in schools.

According to CBC News, Ms Taylor announced yesterday she will run for Wildrose in the upcoming by-election on October 27th.

If she wins, she has pledged she will push the government to do everything it can to protect gay and lesbian students, which includes a motion on gay-straight alliances.

She said: “I would have voted for that. I would have voted in favour of that motion but recognize as well there were concerns around the lack of public consultation before that came forward.

“There were very few stakeholders that were engaged and I think that was a very important step that was missed.”

Ms Taylor has announced she is taking an unpaid leave of absence from the school board while she makes her bid for the Alberta Legislature.

In 2012, the leader of the Wildrose Party Danielle Smith came under pressure to sack one of her candidates, after he said homosexuals are deemed to spend an eternity in hell on a personal blog.

Danielle Smith has previously quashed rumours surrounding her social beliefs by confirming that she is in favour of marriage equality, and is pro-choice on abortion rights.