PHOTO COURTESY OF KIDD FAMILY

From left, Kristin Monster, 24 (running in Willowdale riding), Ryan Kidd, 29 (Don Valley East), Michael Kidd, 56 (Toronto-Danforth), Marilee Kidd, 53 (Parkdale-High Park), with Taffy, Spiro Vozoris, 90 (Marilee’s dad), Joel Kidd, 25 (Beaches-East York), Michelle Kidd, 10, Andrew Kidd, 13, Ariel Kidd, 16, Nathan Kidd, 27 (Thornhill), Lisa Kidd, 25, with Josiah, 1 (Richmond Hill), Shannon Nelson, 19, Daniel Kidd, 21, (Don Valley West).

In the annals of influential political families, certain names spring to mind: McGuinty, Peterson, Kennedy, Bush, Roosevelt and ... Kidd.

Kidd?

Yup, here's a family for the record books: Ontario's Kidd family from the Blue Mountain area near Collingwood. This single family has managed to put up eight candidates on the Family Coalition Party ticket for the upcoming provincial election, a feat party president Giuseppe Gori says has to be a record in this or any other election.

We concur. By default. The Star library checked and can't even find a category in the Guinness Book of Records for most family members running in one election.

To be honest, if one gets technical about it, the Kidd family can claim only seven candidates: Michael and Marilee Kidd, their children Ryan, Nathan, Joel and Daniel, and daughter-in-law Lisa. However, Ryan's girlfriend Kristin Monster is also running, bringing their total to eight, all in GTA ridings.

Improbably for one party, close behind them is the Carvalho family, headed by Joseph and his wife Marilyn. They have six candidates in the provincial race, again all in GTA ridings. They would have had seven, says Joseph Carvalho, but son Nicholas, who is studying for the priesthood, withdrew his name.

The party has 83 candidates in all.

Victor Carvalho, 62, a retired Catholic school teacher running in York-Simcoe, bemoans the absence of God in the political discourse of Ontario. "When I listen to Dalton McGuinty, I wonder what is wrong with the man," he says.

"For us, the idea (in politics) is to acknowledge the existence of God, and that God is supreme."

Contacted for comment, his wife, Marilyn Carvalho, 53 and running in York Centre, said any comment on the campaign would have to come from her husband.

The idea for a multiple candidacy came to the Kidd family earlier this year during a dinner at the parental home in the Blue Mountain area near Collingwood. The idea quickly grew. Only Ryan, at 29 the oldest Kidd child, had run before, in 1999 and 2003, never garnering more than a few hundred votes.

"We are concerned about the moral decline in government and our social structures and we wanted to do something about it," says Ryan, a software engineer running in Don Valley East.

He is soft-spoken during a telephone interview but heats up when the subject turns to key planks in the party platform, including the push to make gay marriage illegal.

"Gay marriage is a fraud," he says, criticizing adoptive agencies for placing children in gay households. "It is not appropriate for children to be put in that environment."

So far, however, the views of the Kidd family have been firmly rejected by Ontarians. The party's standing in the polls has slipped over the years, going from 2.7 per cent of the popular vote in 1990 to 0.8 per cent in 2003, or 34,623 votes.

However, Ryan argues that if Ontarians vote for proportional representation in the election day referendum, his party will have a better chance of electing MPPs.

And so far, polls indicate Ontarians don't much like that idea either.