Joy Smith - Career in Federal Politics

Career in Federal Politics

In the 2004 federal election, Smith campaigned as a Conservative candidate in the north Winnipeg riding of Kildonan—St. Paul. She had previously been nominated as a candidate of the Canadian Alliance, where she was the Manitoba organizer for Stockwell Day's bid for leadership, before that party merged with the Progressive Conservatives in 2003-04.

Smith narrowly defeated Liberal candidate Terry Duguid, 13,582 votes to 13,304. Smith was named Manitoba caucus chair, giving her a seat on the Conservative Party's Planning and Priorities Committee.

In 2007, Smith introduced a private member's bill called the Clean Internet Act (Bill C-427), that in her words would "... prevent the use of the Internet to distribute child pornography, material that advocates, promotes or incites racial hatred, and material that portrays or promotes violence against women." Part of the bill proposes a "know your subscriber" requirement for ISPs and would mandate them to deny Internet access to offenders. Also, it proposes to give special searching powers to the Ministry of Industry. The above features have led it to be criticized as something that "... would not look out-of-place in countries that aggressively censor the Internet."

In 2006, Smith introduced a private member's bill, asking parliamentarians to condemn human trafficking and come up with a comprehensive plan to combat the problem.

In 2004, Smith was selected to be part of the Canadian delegation assigned to travel to Ukraine and observe a court-ordered repeat of the second round of voting the Ukraine presidential election

She is also a committee member on the Status of Women Group, Ukrainian-Canadian Parliamentary Group, Canada-Israel Parliamentary Group and Canada-USA Relations Parliamentary Group.

In 2002, as justice critic for the Manitoba Progressive Conservatives, she spoke against a bill which provided adoption rights to same-sex couples in that province. Smith argued that her party did not oppose same-sex adoption rights as such, but that the proposed legislation was flawed. In a June 2005 parliamentary debate on same-sex marriage, she stated that, "If (her daughter) decides to get married, she will know that the meaning of marriage is the union of a man and a woman. If she chooses otherwise, it will be her choice." The result of the bill, she said, would be to "cause marriage to just go away with the stroke of a pen." She also claimed the bill was discriminatory against married couples. The Toronto Star reported that Smith broke down in tears during the debate.

Smith defeated Duguid again by a significantly larger plurality in the 2006 federal election, as the Conservatives won a national minority government. Smith along with the Conservative government were re-elected in the October 2008 federal election to another minority government.

In her column, "Sex traders, keep your hands off our children!" (The Province, July 29), Smith asserted that "the aver-age age of entry into prostitution in Canada is between 12 and 14 years of age." In October of 2010, Smith conducted the inaugural Honouring Heroes Award Ceremony at Eastview Community Church, an annual event recognizing people who have fought to support victims of sexual trafficking.