by arthur Weinreb, associate Editor,
November 26, 2004
Talk before the merger of the Canadian alliance and the Progressive Conservatives seems almost laughable now. The party of John a. MacDonald and Joe Clark was going to be taken over by half-crazed Evangelicals and Newt Gingrich clones that would throw gays and lesbians in jail and ban abortion. Well, Joe must be pleasantly shocked about the way the Conservative Party of Canada has turned out. The only reason Clark isn’t turning over in his grave is that he isn’t quite dead yet.
The Conservative Party of Canada has turned into what the old PC party was--a Liberal-light party that is positioning itself in the middle, a teensy weensy bit to the right of the Liberals that is awaiting a rise to power when people get fed up with the Liberals and are convinced that the Conservatives are a “safe” alternative. Far from the newly merged party being the Reform/alliance that Paul Martin likes to call it, the party is nothing more than the old PC Party. at least the PCs adhered to truth in advertising and put the word “progressive” in their name.
On November 18, NDP MP Pat Martin introduced an opposition motion to ban the use of trans fats that are found in many processed foods. Speaking on the motion, Conservative Party health critic, Stephen Fletcher, gave the kind of doublespeak that the Liberals are famous for. “Certainly The Conservative Party of Canada supports Canadians taking responsibility for their own health.” When a committed statist says something like that you know that it will be followed by a “but”. Fletcher continued, “We also (okay so it was an “also” and not a “but”) recognize that the government has a role to play in providing a safe and healthy environment for the public”. Stephen Fletcher wants to tell you what you should and shouldn’t eat; for your own good of course.
The CPC health critic also went onto say his party supports the shelf life of people over the shelf life of doughnuts. That’s so cute. What he is saying is that he wants to prevent you from eating doughnuts.
There is no difference between the views of some members of the Conservatives and those of the parties on the left. In fact, Fletcher was quoted by the National Post about how excited the rookie MP was when he reached an agreement with the NDP’s Martin and Libby Davies. While MPs shouldn’t disagree with those of other parties just for the sake of disagreeing, Fletcher, an alleged conservative, wants to take away your right to choose (in areas other than abortion of course). It would be nice to have at least one political party out of the four that would at least try and prevent further intrusions into peoples’ lives by the nanny state.
The most unsettling thing that Fletcher had to say was his justification for taking away more of our freedom. according to the Conservative health critic, it’s really no big deal because governments, both provincial and federal are already playing a role in food safety. That rationale makes as much sense as the government saying that we are going to regulate the sex lives of Canadians because we already regulate prostitution. The government does regulate, for example, beef that is sold for consumption. Beef is not the same as doughnuts that contain trans fats. To begin with, no one wants to eat diseased and contaminated beef while a lot of people want to be free to eat the odd doughnut without the government dictating that they can’t. Labelling won’t protect consumers from eating bad meat and consumers can’t tell bad meat from good so the government has to inspect and regulate it. That doesn’t mean that the government should be constantly legislating what we should and shouldn’t eat; foods that in moderation will not kill anybody
The opposition motion passed in the House by a vote of 193 to 73. although many members of the Conservative Party did vote against it, many voted for it. But it is obvious that Canadians do not have a conservative party that espouses conservative values of choice, liberty and freedom. at least the legislation wasn’t introduced in early November – after all that’s the one week when Canadians ever utter the word “freedom”.
and where was Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper in all this? He was probably off planning where he’s going to be hiding next summer. Harper should stick to doing what he does best – mergers. Perhaps he should grab his health critic, Pat Martin and Libby Davies and go see Jack Layton – and try and work out a more sensible merger this time.