The Halo Party
One certainly hopes they're prepared to do better than that. The Liberal Party of Canada is busy polishing up their luminous halo, the one that became so sadly tarnished just a short election ago. This is the party that promises all, delivers nothing. This is the party that at one time truly was the choice of the great number of middle-of-the-road, but slightly-to-the-left Canadians and which did distinctly believe at least part of what it promised and ultimately did learn to deliver.But as with all good things, even semi-good things, a kind of moral and ethical laxity sets in. It gets kind of boring, one supposes, being swept back into power election after election. It's all so (yawn) predictable, after all. No need to bother. The record speaks for itself. And so it did, for an awfully long time, even though from time to time doubts did erupt - on the basis of the current record.
Nothing to compare though, with the general outrage of an often-forgiving public, one that has proven time and again to have a short memory so that items of outrage at the time kind of shrivel into petty insignificance given enough time. A month, six months, a year? That'll do it nicely. Thanks for waiting. Yes, power certainly is corrupting, and knowing you're a shoo-in time after time lends a comfortable air of entitlement to the effort.
Well, during the last election the Liberals pulled every stunt of the black art of political smear that was available at the time. And most people bought into it. Despite which, the collective anger and disgust at the degraded performance of the Liberals too long in power, ensured that their dire warnings would go unrewarded - and out they were booted.
The Canadian electorate, despite its very prominent misgivings at bringing aboard a one-time Reform-Alliance functionary without a sense of humour, but with a deep sense of bringing the country back to a hard-right turn, took the option of voting Conservative and hello! Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The electorate looked long and hard at what they wrought and they shrivelled slightly inside.
Would this man whom the Liberals lavished pejoratively right-wing labels upon bring us to our knees begging mercy for the underprivileged, the overlooked in society, the minorities, the confusedly other-gendered? Would our vaunted way of life tilting toward social equality and fairness, our openness toward differences begin to crumble before our very eyes?
With bated breath we waited. And, nothing. Well, if anything, Canadians watched incredulously as their new prime minister (while making his share of missteps) assured us through his deliberate and well-thought-out actions that life would go on as before, and the nobility of the Canadian Experiment would continue apace. To bring home that message even more forcefully, the new government took principled, ethical steps that the former, disgraced government had hesitated to take.
So go ahead, Bill Graham, tell us again how much like Nazi propogandists the conservatives are. Yep, Jean Chretien, go ahead, call Stephen Harper Steve, he won't mind, why should he? The Zaccardelli scandal, the Maher Arar travesty all occurred under your watch, don't pin it on your successor. And Mr. Dion, don't excoriate the conservatives over their too-new-to-be-properly-evaluated intentions on the environment, given that it's been all too easy to assess yours as having produced nothing at all.
Canadians are kind of sad that the differences between the two parties are expressed by the liberals as being sea changes apart when in fact they're not all that different. It's just that one has been of late far more effective than the other, that "other" happening to be the liberals. And we now know that while the liberals still claim the halo, the conservatives don't hoist a trident.
So give us a break, back off the dire warnings of impending doom under a conservative agenda, and grow up. Behave as a responsible political collective should and start being honest with the electorate. That would be a refreshing change. If you're not certain how to go about it, consult with Stephen Harper, he's a nice man and he won't mind showing you how.
posted by Pieface @ Sunday, December 10, 2006
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