The Conservative Party of Canada is in the midst of a leadership race to select a replacement for former Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The field is deep with more than 10 names but so far candidate Kellie Leitch has caused the biggest stir with her proposal to screen immigrants for Canadian values.

York-Simcoe MP Peter Van Loan is endorsing the Simcoe-Grey MP for the leadership and doesn’t think it was all that controversial. “It’s a very curious reaction,” he said. “Some people find it completely irrelevant because we already screen immigrants.”

Van Loan said that in the era we live in now where terrorist attacks in Paris involved people coming in from different countries, it’s important for Canada to be vigilante processing people into the country.

The issue of refugees is especially personal for Van Loan as his grandparents were refugees from Estonia. “From a young age, I learned that democracy was pretty fragile,” he said.

Van Loan recounted his grandparents experience and said that's why it’s important to teach new Canadians about our history. He bristled at the Liberals for saying the citizenship guide was a little too heavy on the War of 1812 when it is the reason Canada is not part of the United States.

What can’t be question for Van Loan is Leitch’s integrity. He first met her at a party convention in Montreal in 1986 when Leitch was 16 leading a delegation from Fort McMurray and has been impressed ever since. “She’s extraordinarily intelligent and very hard working,” Van Loan said.

Before winning the riding of Simcoe-Grey in 2011, Leitch had been focused on her career as an orthopaedic paediatric surgeon.

Other characteristics that drew Van Loan to support Leitch were that she was a fiscal conservative and that she didn’t support a carbon tax, he added.

The Conservatives will select their new leader in May. Other leadership candidates include, Michael Chong, Maxime Bernier, Lisa Raitt, Steven Blaney, Andrew Scheer, Chris Alexander, Dan Lindsay, Deepak Obhrai, Erin O’Toole, Andrew Saxton and Brad Trost.

The leader will be selected through the one member one vote system. Each riding across the country will have equal weight in the system.