Darrel Reid used to shoot from the lip.

Few Canadian evangelists can match his record for the controversial quote, whether accusing single moms of using welfare to have babies or likening hate crime laws protecting gays and lesbians to Nazi tyranny.

Nowadays, not so much.

In 2006, with the advent of a Conservative minority, Reid, once a catalyst for the evangelical movement in Canada, began to go stealth. He became chief of staff to former environment minister Rona Ambrose, then moved to the Prime Minister's Office as an adviser.

Last February, he dove further below the radar, apparently gaining more influence with Stephen Harper. He's not up there with Laureen, mind you, but arguably more important than many warm bodies around the cabinet table.

Harper orchestrated a double whammy in February. Reid became Harper's deputy chief of staff (to Guy Giorno), while former Christian educator Paul Wilson, who shares Reid's history of religious activism, took over his spot as PMO director of policy. Precious access.

It's unclear whether Harper shares their social Conservative – or theocon – beliefs. That's the big question that only one or more majority governments can answer. How far would Harper go on the hot-button social issues of the religious right, including abortion, same-sex marriage, easy divorce and public day care?

Nevertheless, the appointments were seen as a message to the hard right that Harper is on their side. They may have been displeased with the moderation of minority power – a free vote on same-sex marriage, the scuttling of crime legislation to protect the unborn – but he's still their guy on core beliefs.

"I think every Christian is under an obligation to change laws to reflect biblical values," Reid said on the website CanadianChristianity.com.

He's also on the record with: "Only God can make Canada a truly Christian country... We are called to speak biblical truth to seek justice – and that obviously has implications for our political life."

What are those implications now that he's advising Harper behind the olive sandstone walls of the old Langevin building? Does he apply the God standard to legislation?

There's no way of knowing what Reid – or Wilson for that matter – think now, what advice they give or whether their religious beliefs guide political thinking. Both declined interviews.

The signal of their appointment was "be patient," says a Liberal strategist made nervous by any "true believers" plan for Canada devised by the PMO tag team of Reid/Wilson.

"He's got to do things to keep the social conservative base satisfied – and that was one of them. Harper's a real student of divisions in the conservative right wing, and he's fighting to keep them together."

Marci McDonald, author of the upcoming The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada, says, "Harper has given the religious right a welcome and access in Ottawa and government they've never had before – and they've become used it."

They are, she says, "here to stay."

In 2005, Reid told McDonald in an article for The Walrus: "The fact there's a government that's more sympathetic is good. But that government won't be there forever. That's why we need to be there for the long haul."

Andrew Grenville, chief research officer for Angus Reid Public Opinion, says the religious right began to register for the Conservatives in 2006, expanding in 2008 with 74 per cent of Protestant evangelicals voting for Harper, while the Liberal Catholic vote slacked off.

It's too soon to measure the impact on individual ridings (or national results), but Grenville describes it as "a sea change for most of the country... There's now a religious right where previously there hasn't been one."

Deborah Grey, a graduate of faith-based schools and the first Reform MP who, in 1989 brought her young legislative assistant, Stephen Harper, to Ottawa, applauds the appointments. From Vancouver Island, she asks: "Do you want to know why he hired them?

"Because they're bright guys. Way back in the Reform years, we saw they were very capable; Harper is smart and he recognizes a proven track record... That's the message."

Adds Grey: "If I were a betting woman, I'd say he's got a good chance at a majority, and there's no big scary right-wing agenda."

Neil Thomlinson, head of politics and public administration at Ryerson University, sees a red flag in the PMO appointments. "It's a concern for people who come at this with the view church and state should be separate."

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He suggests the hallmark of some social conservatives is "they are not interested at all in research in the social sciences. Rather, their position is, `Don't confuse me with the facts, my mind is made up.'"

Reid is harsh on single mothers, his comments seeming to ignore research showing the adverse effects of widowhood, abuse and other social factors. Maintains Reid: "Welfare provides incentives for single moms to have another child and to avoid marriage."

Reid, 50ish, has had a long career. Like Harper, he was Reform party leader Preston Manning's chief of staff and, for years, headed Focus on the Family Canada, a homegrown offshoot of the U.S. evangelical lobby group. Under founder James Dobson, the U.S. organization helped put born-again Republican George W. Bush in the White House, supported Sarah Palin in 2008 and is hungrily eying her chances for 2012.

During the 2006 election, with Reid running unsuccessfully for the Conservatives in Richmond, Focus on the Family advised Canadian voters: "Pray for God's wisdom in choosing the right candidate."

Conservatives sprang to damage control after Reid's former campaign manager Robbie Robertson attacked Canwest media for its campaign coverage.

"The Canwest Global media empire is controlled by a Jewish family and they have been the most aggressive family to attack Christians, especially Conservative Christians," said Robertson. Reid quickly distanced himself from the highly offensive remarks, saying Robertson didn't speak for him. His riding association officials told the Richmond News that Robertson, never a party member, had left the team weeks before the vote.

Nothing was said about Reid's apparent lack of judgment.

Reid, with a Ph.D in history from Queen's, espouses clear views. He's against gay rights, public daycare, "our culture of unrestricted abortion" and the consequences of "the brave new world of genetic experimentation."

Wilson, a mini-Reid, maybe 15 years younger, also highly educated, with a Ph.D in philosophy, was director of the Laurentian Leadership Conference, an arm of the faith-based Trinity Western University in Langley, B.C. Wilson has argued moderation, reminding Christians: "We need to be temperate, we need to be restrained, we need to be respectful. Maybe the debate sometimes wasn't held with that tone. And in a sense, we've not only lost the particular legislative battle, we lost the broader battle by effectively being marginalized and just basically discredited."

Harper, too, is cautious. He recognized the importance of social conservatism, writing in a 2003 article: "The truth of the matter is that the real agenda and defining issues have shifted from economic issues to social values, so conservatives must do the same."

But he believes in an incremental approach. Author McDonald sees it as the foundation of his thinking: "It fits with his natural personality and tendencies.

"Is he really a fanatic?" she asks in an interview. "I do not believe he is. I think he's a very wily strategist... I see him as tacking on a sailing course."

She argues Harper's social conservatism is "more strategy than a deep impulse of the heart" and doesn't envision draconian social measures under a Harper majority, but rather bureaucratic tinkering, appointments and staffing changes. Anything he did on, say, abortion, wouldn't be a sudden reversal but "something that opens the way."

However, if he were to do something, McDonald concludes, it would be irreversible by the time it was detected and "would change Canada in a profound way... People seem to wake up to what Harper is doing too late."