Lorne Gunter: How the Liberal elites lost touch with Canadians

I really enjoy Barry O'Regan's posts. You see, YankeeJim was raised by an aerospace engineer, a former Navy bombardier from WWII. You would expect him to be pretty Conservative, and he was and is.

Yet, when it comes to looking out for the working stiff and for tolerance for diversity, he reached into his heart and came up with mighty fine behavior, that is, if you care about those things, and I do.

He passed it on, just like his father who was a county sheriff. 

Funny thing is that my other Grandfather was a real working stiff, a skilled craftsman in manufacturing. He was a Republican and a conservative even though he was also a Union president. How the heck do you do that?

There is something in my genes that says capitalism and entrepreneurialism is a good thing, and so is having national health care coverage for all citizens. It comes down to society recognizing responsibility to share the wealth and care for one another.

I was raised a Christian, but when I saw so many turn their backs on social responsibility, I turned away from hypocrisy.  

Thanks Jim for the compliment. I too have been a die hard card carrying conservative.

I learned at an early age about liberalism and it faux humans are all equal crap, the UN for one and their liberal agendas allowed things like the Rwanda genocide and look the other way when it comes to terrorism on Canada's soil for fear of losing the ethnic vote. Funny how a scant four decades ago, their actions  would embarrass the KKK.

Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} I have often liked Lorne Gunter’s articles and I too have had mixed feelings about Liberals over the years.  Their universal daycare is pretty big brother ish and does not trust people or equalize benefit for children. But I sure see the Liberal party differently from how he does on some points. Trudeau was a human rights innovator and stood up for the little guy and minority rights. Pearson was so down to earth stories are told of him walking Parliament Hill one foggy night and just casually greeting a reporter and then disappearing again in the fog, very down to earth.   Even though I am in Alberta and applaud the Harper move to universalize benefits for all kids not just daycare kids, I don’t think government should disappear from the scene. It has as real role to play in ensuring everybody has some basic rights and benefits. Canada has long been the middle ground between the welfare state of Sweden and the every man for himself of the US. We are wise to still walk that middle line. The new social programs of pensions an d unemployment insurance  and universal health care are part of what makes Canada a land of fairness, admired around the world. So many people want to come here because of what we have created. The CRTC rules do seem odd to favor Canadian content but nurturing your own industry is a middle step towards creating quality. Ideally it would be a short-term policy till Canadian content was actually competitive with international. We may have lost sight of the expiration date of such policy but the intent to nurture our own is quite noble. I am not at all convinced that the Conservatives are consulting ordinary people. When was the last time there was any consultation at all actually? The Harper group does not have a reputation for open government, tell me what you think and I won’t hold it against you. Even in its own caucus there seems to be a pretty heavy hand. One friend of mine told me that the dilemma is that the Liberals make a big show of consulting everyone but then only do what they were planning to anyway, while the Conservatives just don’t bother with the fake-consultation stage.   I do agree we have to get governments to trust us. Income splitting for instance does not make men oppress women. It simply lets people who share income admit it. A universal benefit for children would not be used for ‘beer and popcorn’ and you can trust parents to 99% of the time put the wellbeing of their children as their top priority.  To not fund parents with a birth bonus as in Australia, or universal mat benefits or universal child dependent benefits till age 18 does show a mistrust. The Liberals have a lot to learn but then so do the Conservatives about the nobility of Joe and Jean Ordinary to with funding, do what is best for their own kids. The Liberals don’t show any trust at all. The Conservatives don’t show any money.   Beverley Smith Calgary 403-283-2400

You tax what you want people not to buy or buy less of. Canadians have therefore been taxed to death by none other than the Conservatives' GST. Mulroney made sure that the tax was sneaked in on an unsuspecting population during the Free Trade negotiations with the U.S. Now we have the HST that has been sneaked in on British Columbians by the Conservative PM Harper and BC Liberals who, as you know, are Conservatives impersonating Liberals. That's called public fraud, and I don't think it will deter the corporate welfare bums in Ottawa and Victoria one bit if half the electorate signs the anti-HST petition.

It was Liberal PM Trudeau that abolished the religious residential schools, but I'm not sure who should apologise for the biggest racist disgrace in modern history.

There's a good reason most immigrants gravitate to the (true) Liberals. NDP'ers represent labour unions and are scared of losing jobs to foreigners. Conservatives represent large corporations and religious fundamentalism and dislike foreigners for all the wrong reasons.

Aren't we gonna get even a tiny little fight over this? OK, I see your white flag.:)

Without throwing in with the conservatives, as my politics are a little more complex than that, I would point out that your friend Trudeau turned his back on Western Canada, insulted the Queen, leading to an international incident, and further, destroyed the Canadian military, who he thought of as useful brutes (though he had no hesitation in calling them out when the FLQ was attempting to start a civil war). While he cannot take all the blame, nor indeed can it go entirely to the Liberals, they must be acknowledged as the main culprits in the near death of the Canadian Forces.

Diefenbaker, a conservative, started putting mails in the coffin with the cancellation of the Avro Arrow, however, it was his Liberal successors who took the destruction of the Army Navy and Air-force of <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 />Canada to a new level. Through amalgamation of the branches of the military into the Canadian Forces, the attempt to "Canadianize" the military, by either modifying equipment that had previously been just fine, or worse, only buying a Canadian version of the product, albeit one of lower quality (for example the LSVW truck, with its four cylinder Fiat Engine, manufactured in Kelowna, which failed every test, so the testers were fired, because, being made in Canada, it was the only option the government would sign off on) to expecting the CF to continue using obsolete equipment, such as Sea-King helicopters, which should have been replaced decades ago (and the cancellation of the order for replacement helicopters, by liberal PM Jean Chrétien cost more than to follow through with it), as well as years of budget cuts and neglect, leaving soldiers to train with “militia rounds” or, in other words, shouting “Bang!” because there was no budget to train with ammunition, live or blank.

 Indeed, the only time the liberal party stood up, and took care of our men and women in uniform, was under the short lived leadership of Paul Martin. But that damage that has been done goes far too deep for one prime minister to undo it. Indeed, Mr Martin’s forebears did so much damage, that it is unlikely the CF will ever fully recover. After two World Wars, Canada was seen as a world power. The heroism at the Somme, Vimy Ridge, and Paschendaele,  got our little dominion the right to stand up on its own, as a nation, at the Paris Peace conference, after the war, signing the Treaty of Versailles and others. Through Dieppe, Ortona, Juno Beach, by the 1950s, the world saw Canada as a force to be respected, and reckoned with. Only in recent years, through our sons, daughters, husbands, wives, mothers, and fathers who are bravely serving in Afghanistan, is that reputation being regained. We have been reliant on our neighbours to the south to protect our interests for to long.

It is irresponsible to expect another nation to protect our borders and our interests abroad, and it is an unfair burden to put onto them. Canada had almost become a quasi-state of the USA. And this, by and large, due to liberal governments, and their attempt to stay popular by crucifying the military, cutting funding for necessary services, such as the military, the RCMP and CSIS. Let’s be rational here, liberalism is a blight that has never served Canada well