The Greatest Hits of the Tory MP Who Says Sex Ed Will Help Child Molesters

Last month, one of Canada's most controversial Members of Parliament stood up and blew away expectations.

"Mr. Speaker," Conservative Cheryl Gallant began. "If anything demonstrates the need for the House to quickly pass Bill C-26, our Conservative legislation for tougher penalties against child predators, it is the decision by the Liberal Party in Toronto to introduce sweeping changes to how grade school children are taught sex education."

Gallant wasn't done ripping on Ontario's (still pretty prudish) sex-ed curriculum.

"This curriculum was written by someone charged with two counts of distributing child pornography, one count each of making child pornography, counselling to commit an indictable offence, and agreeing to or arranging for a sexual offence against a child under 16. As a hand-picked provincial Liberal deputy minister, this powerful party insider was caught only after an international online probe."

Gallant was referencing Benjamin Levin, who was an advisor to Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne until 2013. Levin pled guilty to three counts related to child pornography on Wednesday; he was originally charged with seven counts.

But Gallant still wasn't done.

"If withdrawal of this Liberal policy can prevent one child from being groomed for exploitation, it really must be withdrawn. On behalf of the parents, grandparents, and the vulnerable children of Ontario, we demand that the federal party leader order this outrageous policy to be withdrawn now."

Gallant finally sat down. She was speaking on a Friday morning, when the House of Commons is virtually empty and Parliamentary reporters—myself included—are usually asleep at the switch. Ears usually perk up when Gallant, who represents the Eastern Ontario riding of Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke, stands up.

VICE reached out to Gallant's office for some comment about her comments—which, indeed, isn't that easy, considering that her website contains neither an email nor a phone number for her Parliamentary office—but there has, to date, been no response.

Amazingly, accusing the government of Ontario of grooming a generation of children to be molested by a former advisor to the Premier isn't the craziest thing that Cheryl Gallant has ever said.

Light Bulb Conspiracies
A staunch crusader for freedom, Gallant made it her political objective to stop an evil plot by the government to ban inefficient, expensive, and environmentally damaging incandescent light bulbs.

Warning that the new compact fluorescent lightbulbs are expensive and dangerous killing machines, even though the bulbs are cheaper in the long run and completely safe, Gallant lobbied her own Conservative government to delay the ban.

Gallant actually got in some trouble, because she had launched stopthelightbulbban.ca and funnelled donations to herself, without ever branding it as her website.

She eventually had to take down the website, after the Ottawa Citizen exposed it as a pretty shady political fundraising gimmick. It was also awkward, because the incandescent light bulb ban was enacted by the Conservative government.

Of course, Gallant's record on environmental issues isn't great. One time, in the House of Commons, she somehow came to the conclusion that, "after decades of drug-running, extortion, and prostitution by the mafia," La Cosa Nostra has now gotten into an even more profitable racket: wind turbine subsidies. It's not entirely clear how she came to that conclusion.

Some Anti-Gay Nonsense
Cheryl Gallant won't be winning any Egale awards anytime soon.

In 2002, she heckled then Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham during Question Period, yelling "ask your boyfriend" at the gay-friendly Liberal minister. (Graham is married with children, but rumours have always pursued him.)

She told the House of Commons that a bill criminalizing hate propaganda against sexual minorities: "robs Canadians of their freedom of speech."

Once that bill became law—and started making it illegal to, say, call for the execution of all gays—Gallant told CTV that "the danger in having 'sexual orientation' just listed, that encompasses, for example, pedophiles" and went on to say that she wants it repealed.

She's dragged out such tortured phrases as "Christiano-phobic" and compared abortion to beheadings.

And The Rest
Gallant's history of foot-in-mouth comments is pretty storied. In 2011, she compared then-Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff to Muammar Qaddafi because of his support for a carbon tax. In 2014, she insisted that there is no stigma in the Canadian military around PTSD—for soldiers, "the stigma that has to be overcome is a stigma within themselves." In 2006, she was chastised for scraping constituents' personal data from passport applications in order to send them mail-outs. Another time, in 2009, she told Parliament that debating a withdrawal from Afghanistan put Canadian soldiers' lives at risk, adding that the opposition parties were doing the Taliban's bidding and that a soldier she apparently spoke to "credits the leader of the NDP [Jack Layton] directly for the death of his best friend as a consequence of that."

Gallant also raised ire after some masterful victim-blaming, insisting that drowning victims off the coast of Newfoundland were being welfare queens in expecting search and rescue to come save them.

"In Ontario we have inland seas, the Great Lakes, and it would never occur to any of us, even up in the Ottawa River, to count on the Coast Guard to come and help us," she told a committee in St John's. She apologized later, saying that her comments—which very clearly said that those sinking in the ocean shouldn't be relying on the federal government—were taken out of context.

Gallant won her seat in the 2011 election with over 27,000 votes, 53 percent of all votes cast, decimating her nearest opponent Hec Clouthier—a former Liberal MP and noted fedora enthusiast—who ran as an independent.

She's running again and is almost certain to retain her seat.

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