The Courage of his Convictions

Amazing what popular bias and the news media intent on portraying an individual in as prejudicial a light as possible can do to public opinion. It's a free-for-all that takes place when someone decides to dedicate their future to a life of public service as a politician. Those, for reasons of their own, who make the effort to serve their country out of a sense of conviction that they are fully capable of acting in the best interests of the country.

When an individual can decide to dedicate their working life to that kind of public service, divorcing themselves from the prestige of being chosen by the electorate to sit in Parliament as a lawmaker, receiving a handsome salary along with perquisites and the expectation of a generously gold-plated pension, they can truly be said to be altruistic in nature. They forgo privacy with the knowledge that they will be placed under the magnifying glass of public scrutiny.

In the case of Stockwell Day who rode out of the West on a horse called Reform, and whom the national press portrayed as a religious fanatic who believed implicitly in the revelations of the Bible as written and that Adam and Eve made domestic pets out of dinosaurs, what resulted was the struggle of a good and decent man to overcome the slurs and the humiliations that rained down on him.

It seems that while the public held this man in contempt as a loose-lidded preacher wanting to be taken seriously as a potential prime minister leading his Reform Party to victory through their message of prudent fiscal management, eschewing Parliamentarian entitlements, calling for a less intrusive government and greater respect for the electorate, he simply got on with business.

It was largely Stockwell Day's religious convictions that caused him to be the butt of so many public prods and doubts about the level of his intelligence. He proved to be an easy target. He wasted little effort on defending himself and people preferred to believe that he was ineptly clumsy and a joke as a Parliamentarian.

When Stephen Harper became prime minister he did not view Stockwell Day as a former political adversary for high office, but rather as an ally and a trusted one. In his service in the portfolios he held as a Cabinet Minister he comported himself in office with dignity and unfailing courtesy to others despite the manner in which he had been treated. He was loyal to his party's platform and uncompromisingly competent in discharging his public obligations.

He had been accused of being homophobic, anti-immigrant and anti-poor. He was nothing of the kind. He served as a politician in high office in the Alberta government with his final position as Treasurer, and it was as head of Treasury Board at the federal level that he served his final Cabinet post. Giving notice that he would not run again.

He certainly deserves praise for his unswerving devotion to his country, his ability to carry on in the face of disappointments and the easy assumptions of his critics who unfairly portrayed him as a far lesser being than he ultimately proved himself to be. In the final analysis, he stands head and shoulders above those who went out of their way to denigrate and to shame him.

They have shamed themselves, and he has proven his value.