Article A:2

PARTY BELIEFS AND PRINCIPLES

BELIEFS

(a) We believe there is one Creator God, eternally existent in three Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  We believe in the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
(b) We believe the Holy Bible to be the inspired, inerrant written Word of God and the final authority above all man's laws and government.
(c) We believe civil government to be under the authority of God.
(d) We believe the purpose of civil government is to ensure freedom and justice for a nation's citizens by upholding law and order in accordance with Biblical principles.
(e) We believe that decision-making processes by civil government must not in any way contravene these Biblical ethics.

On these five statements of belief, the following nine principles are based:

PRINCIPLES

1. That the family, consisting of those individuals related by blood, marriage, or adoption, is the foundational social unit of the nation, and that the family has primary responsibility for the welfare, education, and property of its members.  Civil government must respect the sanctity of the family and its unique sphere of authority, and it must preserve and promote optimum conditions in which the integrity of the family unit can be maintained.
2. That God is the Author of life, and that human life originates at conception.  Abortion and euthanasia must be opposed under all circumstances as the shedding of innocent blood.
3. That God has established laws of sexual morality for the well-being of society, prohibiting pornography, prostitution, adultery, incest, homosexuality and other sexual aberrations which debase man, as well as defile and pollute our nation.
4. That parents, not civil government, have the primary responsibility before God for child-rearing and the education of their children, and that parents must therefore have the freedom to educate their children according to the dictates of their conscience.
5. That it is everyone's duty to submit to the God-ordained governing authorities. The primary responsibility of civil government is to protect the lives of a nation's citizens and to ensure that those who violate law and order receive just punishment.  Crime should never carry with it a reward, and therefore the Biblical principle of restitution and compensation to victims of crime should be enforced.
6. That the Church is a God-ordained fellowship charged to proclaim God's truth and to set an example of godly living before the world, both outwardly and inwardly.  It has no authority to use physical coercion, but only to challenge man's conscience to do what is right.  Civil government (or the state) is a God-ordained institution with authority to deal only with the outward deeds of the people.  Both Church and State are unique in their responsibilities before God; neither may seek to usurp the other's role, but neither can be free of the influence of the other.
7. That civil government exists to serve the people, not people the civil government, and that people are therefore obliged to sustain civil government through just taxation.
8. That civil government has authority to build up and maintain an adequate military preparedness to protect a nation's unique national identity and sovereignty.
9. That Biblical principles concerning economics should be consistently upheld and respected by civil government, including honest weights and measures and avoidance of currency debasement. We further uphold the principle of responsible free enterprise, meaning maximum freedom to develop one's talents matched with responsibility before God in all dealings with our fellow man.

Both the Beliefs and Principles are unalterable in the Constitution of the Christian Heritage Party of Canada.