In 2006 well known journalist Marci McDonald wrote a definitive piece on the Canadian religious right for The Walrus Magazine. The premise and birth of religious right alert is based on her interest, research and information.

Covering religious issues in Canada is difficult for seriously stretched and economically beleaguered media; Canadians are passive and trusting about religious institutions and the various charities which operate under religious faith. The book is inspired by The Walrus article and religious right alert as a lead up to this book is beginning a series which will start to identify the issues of religious media/taxes and CRTC regulations. We hope to trace the family trees of fundamentalists in media who have flown under the radar of the majority of Canadians, learn how to collect information to pass on to regulatory Canadian bodies, and religious right alert will be asking bloggers and readers to compile research and make connections. Our tax payer money is going to religious media.

I’m looking forward to Ms. McDonald’s book and will be asking Random House if they can help this site get the book into the hands of those who want to research and educate all of us on the mechanisms and funding of religious media and groups which have worked to network with parliament to push their agenda.

Please take a minute to look at our sections: The Religious Right in Canada; What is The Religious Right?

From Random House:

About this Book

An urgent wake-up call for all Canadians who think that this country is immune from the righteous brand of Christian nationalism that has bitterly divided and weakened the United States.

In her new book, Marci McDonald documents the startling extent of the influence that the religious right already wields in Canada and shows how, quietly, often stealthily, it has provoked far-reaching changes in Canadian policies and institutions, including our public service, our schools and our courts.

In four short years, galvanized by their failure to stop same-sex marriage, not only have conservative Christians developed a permanent infrastructure in Ottawa, designed to outlast whatever party is in power, but they have done so by borrowing the rowdy style of the American religious right to which most of their leaders boast close ties. Their rise has been tied to the election of Stephen Harper and it is no secret that evangelicals have already re-shaped Harper’s foreign policy in the Middle East, guided by what McDonald terms the Armageddon Factor. But few Canadians are aware that a militant band of conservative Christians with a direct pipeline to Harper’s cabinet is also attempting to reshape the country’s social, cultural and even scientific policies, driven by a belief that Canada has a biblically ordained role to play in the final days before Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ.