Marc Dalton

Dalton was born in the Canadian Forces Base of Baden-Soellingen in Germany. His father served in the Royal Canadian Armed Forces, and he spent much of his childhood traveling and living between different bases throughout Canada.^[2] Marc is Cree Métis on his father's side and French Canadian on his mother's (née Beaudoin).^[3][4] He is a member of Métis Nation BC.^[5][2]

Dalton studied at Simon Fraser University, where he obtained his Bachelor in French and History and his Master’s in Educational Leadership.^[5] He has also attended the British Columbia Institute of Technology.^[5] In his youth he volunteered with a non-profit evangelical organization that supported communities in Central America and Canadian inner cities.^[5]

Prior to entering politics Marc worked as a teacher in the 42nd Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows School District. He worked as a teacher for 17 years and taught primarily French Immersion and Socials Studies and the elementary and secondary school level.^[5] He also served in the Canadian Armed Forces Reserves shortly after graduating and is a member of the Royal Canadian Legion.^[6]

In 2009, Dalton took a break from teaching and ran as an MLA for the Maple Ridge – Mission region. He went on to win and represented the district for two complete terms as a BC Liberal. As an MLA Marc served as a Parliamentary Secretary for independent schools and was a member of the ‘Experience the Fraser’ steering committee, which was a trails and tourism project. As an MLA he also served as the Parliamentary Secondary to the Minister of Aboriginal Relations.

After getting re-elected in 2013,^[7] Marc advocated for renaming the BC Liberals, as he argued it was confusing for voters who may not know that it was a centre-right party.^[8] He reasoned that federal Conservative voters might have a hard time voting for the BC Liberals even though they share much of the same values.

In 2015, Marc ran for the Federal Conservative Nomination of Maple Ridge - Pitt Meadows where he lost to the long-time Conservative MP Randy Kamp. After the nomination he returned to the BC Liberals where he served as a backbench member until 2017. In 2019, Marc ran again in the federal election for the Conservative Party, this time winning and beating out the Liberal candidate Dan Ruimy.^[9] As a member of 43rd Parliament, Marc served as a Member of the Covid-19 Pandemic Committee, Public Safety and National Security Committee and the Official Languages Committees. He is also a member of numerous Parliamentary Associations and Interparliamentary Groups. Marc was re-elected again in 2021 and still serves as a member of the Official Languages Committee but now also serves as the Chair of the BC Caucus. While in office Marc has been vocal and actively involved in legislation focused on reducing the Carbon Tax.

While running in the 2009 British Columbia general election, an email written to a colleague from 1996 while Dalton was a schoolteacher was released by the NDP due to "homophobic comments", according to MLA Spencer Herbert.^[10] The email was a response to concerns over overreach in proposed policy changes to address bullying in which Dalton wrote: "I am not against homosexuals as people, but I do not support their lifestyle choices. I believe homosexuality is a moral issue. Most of us agree on many morals: respect, honesty. kindness. There are also many behaviours and acts that most of us would not condone: rape, robbery, assault, drunken driving, pedophilia, incest and so on. There are other moral issues that large segments of our society do not see eye to eye: gambling, abortion, adultery, pornography. I believe that homosexuality fits in this category.” ^[11] Dalton released an apology, stating he didn't intend to be offensive or hurtful.^[12]

In his capacity as Member of Parliament for Pitt Meadows - Maple Ridge, Dalton crafted a tweet met with controversy during the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada on April 13, 2020.^[13] In his post, Dalton stated regarding seniors: "Most deaths are in care homes where average life expectancy is 2 yrs & 65% usually pass in the 1st yr. Time to start moving Canada back to work?" The post was removed after being up for several minutes. When questioned about the incident by media organizations, Dalton's office responded with the following, "Our thoughts and prayers are with the hundreds of Canadians who have lost loved ones because of COVID-19. I personally have an uncle in a care home who I love dearly who has contracted coronavirus."

On January 3, 2020, as Member of Parliament for Pitt Meadows - Maple Ridge, Dalton retweeted an opinion column from The Washington Examiner on Twitter titled, "The transgender movement’s message for girls: Your privacy concerns are bigotry" "^[14] Dalton defended his re-posting of the article stating he's not pushing the issue aggressively, but spoke about it previously when he was MLA. “It’s concerning for women and for children and young girls to be in a place where there’s someone undressing right in front of them with male genitalia. ... it has to work for everybody,” Dalton said.^[15]

On June 22, 2021, Dalton along with 61 other Conservative caucus members and one independent voted against Bill C-6, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (conversion therapy).^[16] This bill, if fully passed, would criminalize the act conducting conversion therapy on LGBTQ2+ individuals, even if they have consented to it.

On numerous occasions in the 44th Parliament, Dalton has spoken in the House of Commons to contest and censure the carbon tax introduced by the Liberal Government in 2018. He cites that as the driving force behind the inflation and the increased cost of living. He wants to repeal the policy in order to reduce the cost of living.

In 2014 as an MLA, Dalton voted against^[17] an amendment to the Vital Statistics Act^[18] that would allow transgender or gender non-binary individuals to change registered sex designation from their sex assigned at birth to reflect their gender identity.^[19][20]