By arthur Weinreb
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
The country needs you.
The Toronto Star revealed last weekend that Joe Volpe's leadership campaign had paid for the membership of some new Liberal Party members and had signed up a couple of people who will have difficulty voting for their boy because they are slightly on the deceased side. This was the second major scandal, if it can be referred to that way that has hit the Volpe campaign since the race started so long ago.
Early on in the contest, Volpe was caught receiving the maximum allowable campaign contribution from the children of some drug company executives. It didn't help the cause that Joe argued that these pre-pubescent kiddies made the donations because they felt that he was the best candidate to lead the party and ultimately the country.
as a result of the Star's revelations, Volpe announced that he would hold a press conference on Monday. To the shock of some of some of the punditry, Joe didn't announce that he was dropping out of the leadership race. The former Martin cabinet minister announced that he was staying in the contest and then played the race card. The Italian born MP said that although he had lived in Canada for 51 years (take that, Iggy!), he was seen as an outsider and not Canadian enough to lead the party.
Volpe didn't say anything about Italians that Sheila Copps hasn't said about women over and over again ad infinitum. Yet the establishment that Volpe was criticizing seemed shocked at the notion that the Liberal Party of Canada; the party of tolerance and diversity and equality, could somehow view a leader of Italian descent of unacceptable as the leader of the party and the country.
Taking money out of the mouths of babes was one thing. But signing up the dead and paying for memberships was quite another. acquiring irregular memberships is quite common in all leadership campaigns and is usually the result of overzealous campaign workers. It's as Canadian as gun control. The revelation that the Ignatieff campaign had some membership irregularities barely caused a ripple. Then again, Iggy is the darling of the Liberal establishment, not some Italian import.
Canada is a racist country. We know that for a fact because the left, especially the Liberals keep telling us that. This is why every level of government has three or four racism commissions. We're all racists. and the notion that somehow those at the centre of the Liberal establishment are exempt from this racism is absurd. Liberals never look at individuals; individuals are nothing more than members of some ethnic and religious group and Volpe's been around the party long enough to know this. Potential Liberal Party supporters are looked at not as individuals who may be urged to support the cause but as Sikhs voters, Muslims voters, Italian voters, Pakistani voters, etc. While the Liberals would like us to believe that it's the Conservatives that are, in the words of former Liberal cabinet minister Elinor Caplan, racists, bigots and Holocaust deniers, this simply isn't true. Immigrants are welcomed to Canada to vote for the Liberal Party, not run it. Liberals love to say that immigrants who come to this country don't take jobs away from Canadians, but all hell breaks loose when one of them gets uppity enough to try and take away one of their jobs. None of this is evidence that there is a conspiracy against Volpe to deny him the top job because of his ethnicity. But then again there is no evidence that what Volpe is saying is not true and he is simply whining. and Volpe, despite his characterization as an "outsider" is enough of an insider to know how the Liberal Party works.
as the long race nears its end, three candidates have broken away from the pack; Michael Ignatieff, Stephane Dion, and amazingly enough, Bob Rae. Volpe doesn't have enough support to win; but he has enough support to influence the outcome. and that's why he needs to stay in the race. If there is a chance, however slim, that Joe Volpe can stop Bob Rae from becoming the next leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and the next potential prime minister of Canada and doing to the country what he did to Ontario he will be doing us all a favour by staying in the race. When the "anybody but Bobby" movement starts, all eyes will be on Joe.
Pursuant to Title 17 U.S.C. 107, other copyrighted work is provided for educational purposes, research, critical comment, or debate without profit or payment. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for your own purposes beyond the 'fair use' exception, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Views are those of authors and not necessarily those of Canada Free Press. Content is Copyright 1997-2024 the individual authors. Site Copyright 1997-2024 Canada Free Press.Com Privacy Statement