Despite Paul Martin’s invocation of the wrath of Santa Claus as a reason not to campaign over Christmas, Parliament was dissolved yesterday, and Canadians finally have a chance to stick it to the arrogant kleptomaniacs who’ve turned the True North into their private banana republic.
Now polls are showing the Liberals’ popularity falling in, of all places, Ontario.
It’s not that Harper is the second incarnation of Christ or anything. But at least he might actually acknowledge the fact that there exists little tiny bits of Canada west of Mississauga.
Damian Penny has some good advice for the Tories:
1. Don’t let the Liberals set the agenda. They have betrayed the public trust, and the onus is on the Martin government to show why it deserves to stay in power – not on Stephen Harper to prove he isn’t “scary”.
2. Don’t be afraid to run as Conservatives, not a “Lite” version of the Liberal Party of Canada. Canadians are much more open to new ideas in areas such as health care and immigration than the CBC or Toronto Star would have you believe.
3. Lock Ralph Klein in the basement until after election day. No, it isn’t fair that Alberta gets all the blame for “destroying” medicare when Quebec is further along in introducing private health care. And it isn’t fair that the Conservatives are dismissed as a “Western” party, when the Liberal caucus is overwhelmingly from Ontario. But that’s the line the Liberals want to push, and many Canadian media outlets (I’m thinking of a newspaper whose name rhymes with “Robe and Bail”) will enthusiastically push it for them. The last thing Harper needs is Ralph Klein to open his mouth about medicare.
4. If the Liberals bring up Iraq, throw Paul Martin’s statements in support of the war back in their faces – and emphasize that Iraqis are lining up for hours to exercise their right to vote, while the Liberals are trying to make you believe it’s somehow too hard for Canadians to exercise that right in the winter.
5. If the Liberals accuse the Tories of plotting to “destroy” medicare, ask Paul Martin where his personal physician works.
6. And most of all: it’s not enough to tell Canadians they shouldn’t vote Liberal. Canadians want an alternative. Let’s give them one.
As someone who usually votes Liberal, I must say I’m getting very tired of them. They seems to have run out of good ideas. I thought that Martin would be a refreshing change from Cretien, but this hasn’t happened. I am going to vote Conservative this election, because “Governments, like underwear, need to be changed every so often.”
Kent,
Don’t vote Conservative! Look what the Republicans and the religious right are doing down in the states. Do you really want the Conservatives, who are nothing more than the Canadian branch of the Republican Party, to do the same thing to our great country? Dont do it! Vote for Canada, vote Liberal.
I’d have to disagree with some of your assumptions. First of all, as far as I can tell, the Conservatives would still be somewhat to the left of the Democrats in terms of social policy.
Second, Republican != religious right. It is true that the Republicans must pander to some degree to the religious right, but the leadership is hardly monolithically fundamentalist. Bush is a Methodist, for example, hardly an hotbed of wild-eyed radicalism.
Third, what exactly are the “Republicans and religious right” doing wrong down in the states? Give examples.
Finally, I would disagree that our country is in any way “great” any more. It was great in World War II, when it had the second-largest Navy in the world and the moral courage to stand up to tyranny.
Now we’re a Third World banana republic whose leaders’ families take kickbacks from Saddam Hussein. (Jean Chretien’s brother-in-law is a major shareholder in what was the French oil company TotalFinaElf, which was a major player in the oil-for-food clusterfuck.)
That our military is marginalized and starved, and still manages to do yeoman service in the interests of peace and combatting terrorism around the world, should make us ashamed.
The Conservatives in Canada are not “the Canadian branch of the Republican Party.” There is an excellent recent book (called, I think, “Fire and Ice”) that discusses the fundamental differences between Canadians and Americans, especially regarding social and religious issues. Canadians across the board are closer to the centre and left in terms of their social and religious values than our neighbours to the south. And even those Canadians who would be considered “Conservative” and “Right-wing” are much less radicalized than the equivalent south of the border. I think in this discussion, there is an important distinction to be made between the current Republican administration, and their vocal and, to me, a bit scary fundamentalist support base. The current administration has been very good at exploiting the far religious right, which has traditionally been not terribly involved in politics. I don’t think for a second that the administration is nearly as vocal and crazy as some of their supporters are. However, as with any political horse-trading, because the Republican Party has gotten into bed with the extreme Xian right, it is now seen to share the same priorities and policies, which I don’t think is the case.
That being said, there is some of the same fundamentalist spirit in Canada, but it is not nearly as rabid, nor is there enough of it to make it effective as a political lobby. There is a curious streak of religious patriotism in the States that Canadians generally find disturbing and foreign, even if their personal beliefs are very similar to their American neighbours.
The Bush administration has drawn much of the same sort of fire that other right-of-centre governments have in other jurisdictions. Margaret Thatcher in GB, for example. Her memoires are fascinating and elightening reading. And it is fascinating to read her discuss the vision and principles that led to the formation of many of her unpopular policies.
And I suppose that that is what dismays me about the current state of Canadian politics. What I admire about leaders (dare I say Statesmen) like Thatcher, Trudeau, and Regan is that they had a vision for their country; they forumlated policy and legislation to help bring about that vision, and they worked effectively given their political institutions to make that vision a reality.
The past several Liberal governments have had as their vision (it seems to me), a desire to remain in power at all costs. They are not formulating policy based on the best interests of the country, but of their government. That is not to say that they havn’t had any good ideas, but the fact that they trot out those good ideas on the eve of an election makes one cynical about the timing. I’m glad that they are working for immigration reform (to use an example from the last few weeks), but couldn’t they have worked as hard, and spent as much money on immigration reform last year? The message that this timing sends is that the Liberals care first about their own political skins, and second about Canadians.
Now, I am cynical enough to think that the Conservatives may well be no different, but idealistic enough to hope otherwise.