The turnout at the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Ottawa may not be quite as large this year as last year, when the House was sitting, but tickets are selling fast. More than 700 people are expected at Ottawa's Westin Hotel for the event early Thursday morning.

On the guest list are 40 to 50 MPs, the Governor General, outgoing House Speaker Peter Milliken, Senate Speaker Noel Kinsella, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Beverley McLachlin and the Chief of the Defence Staff Walter Natynczyk.

It's not quite on the scale of the 3,000-strong National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., which always attracts the President of the United States as well as foreign dignitaries, but the Ottawa breakfast, largely uncovered by the media, is still a big event.

Evan so, those of a religious bent who keep a watch on Parliament Hill are wondering if politicians of deep faith are a disappearing breed. Many members of the Hill's unofficial and secretive pro-life caucus have left or been defeated: Stockwell Day and Chuck Strahl are retiring, and seats were lost by Liberal stalwarts Paul Szabo and Dan McTeague. All were guaranteed to vote in favour of any bill that would curb abortion.

Of course there are still several Conservative MPs who remain as strong opponents of abortion. But many MPs who apply their deep religious faith to social justice issues are also suddenly gone.

A huge loss, says Don Hutchinson of the Evangelical Christian Fellowship of Canada, is the NDP's Tony Martin. Martin is a soup kitchen founder and a devout Roman Catholic who fought against poverty and inequality. Another Catholic and a passionate champion of foreign aid who went down is Liberal Glen Pearson. Also defeated was Liberal Mike Savage, a man who operated from "a deep well of faith."

Strong evangelical John McKay is one Liberal who was left standing. His re-election on May 2 was a squeaker, he says, and the print media had him defeated the next day. It was after midnight when he knew he'd survived, somewhat due, he thinks, to the energy of his many Catholic volunteers, although they tended to knock off every day at 4 p.m. so they could to go to confession.

Now, McKay wonders, when he attends the weekly prayer breakfasts for MPs on the Hill, if he'll be alone in a sea of Conservative MPs.

Jack Murta, a cabinet minister in the Mulroney era and now the organizer of the 7 a.m. weekly Wednesday prayer breakfasts on the Hill, says he isn't worried about the many religious MPs who are gone. The big annual prayer breakfast, which he also organizes, always draws a big crowd, he says.

Murta says that of all the party leaders, NDP Leader Jack Layton shows up the most, particularly to the annual event, although not this year because he has a doctor's appointment in Toronto. Prime Minister Stephen Harper does not attend.

John McKay may not have to worry about being the lone non-Conservative MP at the weekly prayer meetings on the Hill -- he might have company in Green Party leader Elizabeth May. May was an Anglican minister-in-training until she had to give up pursuing her divinity degree when she moved to her B.C. riding. She says she intends to try out the weekly prayer-fest on the Hill to see whether it's "consistent with her own faith."

(Reuters Photo)

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