Twisting, Turning, Skewing

Stephane Dion, leader of the federal Liberal party touted as having such a high degree of intelligence is amply demonstrating his belief that the electorate has a very low degree of intelligence. His credibility versus our credulity. He may have a point there of great validity, for isn't it the concensus among Canadians in general that the Liberals remain the 'natural governing party' for Canada?

He's banking, surely on our short memory span. For our inattention to the policies and politics of our various parties, their shortcomings and strengths becomes fairly obvious when looking at the track record of which party has had the most opportunities to mangle the affairs of this country. Why exactly is it that Canadians place so much faith in the Liberal party?

The old NDP party, not to be confused with the present one, was the conscience of the nation and to its strenuous efforts to make this a better place to live for all the citizens of the country goes credit for much of the gains Canadians have seen in our humanitarian social policies. Adept Liberals have perfected the craft of lifting those policies and making them their own.

The Conservatives were always the dark horse of choice for Canadians, less socially progressive, mean-spirited, representative of the wealthy and large corporations traditionally. Until the Liberals met them more than half-way counting among their friends and enthusiastic supporters influential business partners among the corporate elite of the country.

Now here is the newly-engaged leader of the Liberal party, leader of the opposition, slavering to ascend the governing throne once again, claiming to have been dreadfully misunderstood in his opposition to what amounted to a standard renewal of a parliamentary vote giving another time-lease to two well-thought-out and structured measures contained in the Anti-Terrorism Act that his own former government brought into law.

Mr. Dion claims "caucus consultations .. taken place over the past month where Liberal members discussed in good faith the relative merits and deficiencies of investigative hearings and preventive arrests" were behind his party's decision to vote against renewal. When in fact, the more mature and experienced members of his caucus, along with former Liberal cabinet ministers argued against his position.

And it was his position, not that of the caucus. His position quite simply because he was determined to block any and all Conservative-led initiatives, no matter what the matter at hand. This routine matter of extension of a critical few measures to combat terrorism within Canada described by Mr. Dion as being "incumbent upon the government to prove to Parliament and Canadians that these extraordinary powers were effective and necessary in the fight against terrorism".

While the fact is the previous government in enacting these provisions had already proven their necessity as did the growing realization of Canada's vulnerability; and while neither of the provisions had been used up to now, one of them is critical to the functioning of the Air India enquiry whose purpose is to find answers to the happenstance and guilt surrounding the worst terrorist act in Canadian history.

Mr. Dion asserts that "the government was more interested in playing politics with this issue than actually seeing the measure passed" when in actual fact it was he himself who more than adequately demonstrated by his aggressive posturing and his errant determination to block renewal to the point of threatening his caucus with 'consequences' if they voted with the government - that he was the manipulator.

Then Mr. Dion descends to utter absurdity when he brings up the matter of Maher Arar who was earmarked for suspicion by CSIS, questioned by the RCMP; background information sent on to another country where he was 'rendered' to his country of birth and suffered interrogative torture all on the Liberal government watch. It was, in fact, the following Conservative government which finalized a financial settlement and an apology for Mr. Arar.

To compound matters in denying that there could be an ethnic-lobby and vote-buying component to Liberal affairs Mr. Dion points to the fact that one of his rivals for the Liberal leadership, Bob Rae, had the support of two Indo-Canadians. The thing of it is, both Ujjal Dosanjh and Herb Dhaliwal were on the record as criticizing and blaming radical Sikh separatist activities for wrong-doing in Canada.

In so doing Mr. Dion besmirches the reputations of thousands upon thousands of ethnic Canadians by linking them with a small group of fanatics who nonetheless enjoy a lobbying faction. Mr. Dion tells us in his article of personal outrage that "we each (Liberal leadership contenders) had campaigns that appealed to Canadians of all creeds, colours and ethnicity", as though they are the only party to appeal to the 'ethnic' vote. When in fact they may be the only party in Canada that goes out of their way to help in the creation of an ethnic vote-bloc scheme.

Seems I can recall in the recent past that it was a Conservative-led government that apologized to Chinese-Canadians for the dreadful imposition of a head tax; the recognition of the needs of Canadian citizens with ethnic origins who were badly done by in an earlier Canada can be more than adequately recognized and compensated for by parties other than the Liberals.

Mr. Dion's attempt as explication serves only to remind us how skilled some politicians are in denying their own underhanded behaviours, while pointing the finger of guilt somewhere else.