Falwell’s strident defence of Christian conservative values had the most influence on Canadian evangelical groups such as Focus on the Family, Real Women and the Defend Marriage coalition, says Prof. Bruce Foster, a B.C.-trained political scientist now at Mount Royal College in Calgary.

But Foster said he believes Falwell’s undying determination to equate God with hyper patriotism didn’t fly well among most Christians in Canada or other industrialized countries, where he says evangelicals tend to support the strict separation of religion and state.

Falwell basically dismissed Canada as “Cuba of the north,” says Foster, charging its citizens with being pro-communist and unremittingly soft on homosexuality, abortion and other sex-related issues.

In 1982, Falwell criticized former prime minister Pierre Trudeau for being just as much a power-hungry socialist as the leaders of the former Soviet Union and Cuba.

In 1999, his newspaper attacked Vancouver singer Sarah McLachlan for naming the Lilith Fair women’s music festival after a “demon” from Jewish myth.

The last time Falwell travelled to Canada was in 2005, when he jetted to Toronto to support Defend Marriage founder Charles McVety, an anti-homosexuality crusader whom many Canadian evangelicals consider to be on the hard right.

…Trinity Western University religious historian Bob Burkinshaw said he was at a meeting of evangelical faculty and administrators on Tuesday when the news came through on people’s BlackBerrys that Falwell had died.

“There was a bit of a shrug and raised eyebrows and the meeting carried on. Nobody even said a word,” Burkinshaw said.

“That wouldn’t have been the case if [evangelist] Billy Graham had died. Most Canadian evangelicals have very mixed feelings about Jerry Falwell.”

Vancouver Sun

Oh.

Dr. John Stackhouse