Politics
In December 2007 he was nominated by the Conservative Party of Canada as its candidate in the downtown Toronto riding of Toronto Centre federal by-election held on March 17, 2008. Meredith won the Conservative nomination by acclamation several weeks after the party controversially removed Mark Warner as its standard-bearer.
Meredith is a social conservative who has spoken out against pre-marital sex and stated that "when we have marriages, we don't have these social problems." He has also stated that he personally believes that marriage should be between a man and a woman and that he is opposed to same-sex marriage. Meredith has also stated that he would like to see the age of sexual consent raised to 18 from 14 which is it at odds with the Conservative government's stated intention to raise the age of consent from 14 to 16. Nonetheless, Meredith has indicated that he supports New Democratic Party (NDP) Member of Parliament (MP) Bill Siksay's private member's bill to add gender identity to the list of distinguishable group traits protected from hate speech by the Criminal Code and to allow judges to take into account whether crimes were motivated by hatred of transgender or transsexual people when determining the offender's sentence. In opposition, Stephen Harper had opposed Siksay's predecessor, former NDP MP Svend Robinson's successful private member's bill that added sexual orientation to the law in 2004.
Meredith was criticized after he attended an all candidates meeting in the St. James Town neighbourhood and responded to a questioner complaining about the neighbourhood's ongoing problem with bedbugs by suggesting that the problem may be related to the complainant's personal hygiene. Former Conservative candidate Mark Warner decided, as a result of this and his ouster, to endorse rival candidate Bob Rae, saying of Meredith that “Telling your potential constituents ‘you stink, you don’t wash, you live in filth’ probably isn’t the best way to win an election.”
He placed fourth in the by-election which saw him receiving 12.5% of the vote, down from the 18.2% received by the Conservative candidate in the 2006 federal election and also down from the 18.3% that the Conservative candidate would receive in the federal election held seven months after the by-election.
Meredith was appointed to the Canadian Senate on December 18, 2010 on the advice of Prime Minister Harper. He sits as a Conservative.
In September 2012, Meredith was criticized for attending a cultural event at Carleton University organized by the Iranian embassy at a time when the Canadian government is urging a boycott of Iran.
Read more about this topic: Don Meredith (politician)
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