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Federal Conservatives hit new low, if that’s possible |
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Written by Al Hollingsworth
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Thursday, 09 July 2009 |
Stephen Harper’s federal Conservative Party has hit a new low with their attack ads on the Bloc Québecois. Their latest fantasy, an attack on the Gilles Duceppe-led party, is a tactic designed to appeal to the gun-toting loonies in the country, the simple-minded souls who stand to the right of Attila The Hun.
And give Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff full marks for having the guts to take issue with Harper and the Conservatives on this matter in the heartland of the right wing nation, Calgary.
Attending the Calgary Stampede, he climbed up on a stump and challenged the Conservative trash ad that suggests the Bloc, by voting against a law imposing minimum sentences in child traficking cases, are soft on pedophiles. The Grit general correctly stated that it is a dirty tactic, and completely unworthy of Canadian politics.
A few short years ago, the Progressive Conservatives and the Reform/Alliance merged into one, with the latter seizing the agenda. From that day forward, our national political stage has been mud-covered, and they’ve slung more dung than that which flows into Halifax Harbour on a daily basis.
There was no love lost between John George Diefenbaker and Lester Bowles Pearson. Pierre Elliot Trudeau and Robert Lorne Stanfield were hardly bosom buddies. And yet, each of these individuals respected one another and civility ruled the day. Even Martin Brian Mulroney and Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien kept their political debates on a higher plain.
So it was refreshing to hear, and read, the Liberal leader’s response to the attack ads.
“I’m in politics to defeat the Bloc Québecois with real arguments rather than slurs and vicious ad hominen personal attacks,” Ignatieff told supporters at a Stampede breakfast.
Before anyone interprets this as an endorsement of Ignatieff and the Liberals, the jury is still out on him personally, and I am still waiting for the old guard to step forward and apologize to the country for the sponsorship scandal. I will not even think of casting a Liberal vote until I hear an official apology for the theft of our tax dollars. They are, in my mind, as guilty as those who have been punished.
That having been said, I also agree with Ignatieff’s response to the ad attacking him for spending 34 years outside the country. His view is that there is plenty to criticize about the Liberals’ Ottawa opponents without stooping to character assassination or casting doubt on a politician’s patriotism. Even those who do not follow politics are getting sick of this ad, and in my view it says more about the ruling Conservatives than about their target, the Liberal leader.
While I pine for a return to civil debates and issue discussions instead of personal attacks, I am afraid I’ll have a long wait. Stephen Harper is probably the most mean-spirited individual ever to occupy the office of Prime Minister of Canada. Make no mistake, he is in charge and he alone makes all the balls and carefully selects who will throw them.
All the communion wafers in the world won’t help him. For politically, he is beyond redemption.
(Al Hollingsworth is a retired journalist and broadcaster)
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