Thanks for serving your country. Now get lost

In Pembroke, Ontario, a Canadian veteran asked Liberal Candidate Don Lindsay whether handgun owners would be compensated if their firearms were seized by a Liberal government. Lindsay, true to his Liberal principles, replied that anyone who would ask a question like that isn't really Canadian:

Don Lindsay's self destruction continued when club member and Canadian Veteran George Tompkins stood to ask the candidates his question. "If the handgun ban goes forward. What plan would your party offer to compensate those of us who legally own the guns that would be confiscated?" To which Lindsay replied "Sir America is our neighbor not our nation, if you elect a society that talks about that kind of perspective I suggest that perhaps you go there!"

There's so much irony in this case, it's almost enough to make your head explode. Lindsay's Conservative opponent is incumbent MP Cheryl Gallant, who Paul Martin has held up as a radical right-winger being muzzled by Stephen Harper so she won't spill the beans about the Conservatives Hidden Agenda(TM). And his response is remarkably similar to that of veteran Liberal MP Tom Wappel a few years back, who told an 81 year-old, legally blind, veteran constituent - in writing - that because he voted for the Canadian Alliance, he was getting no help.

Wappel was elected as a Liberal MP in 1988 on an explicitly anti-abortion platform, ran for the party leadership in 1990 as a pro-life candidate and vocally opposes same-sex marriage - but has still been allowed to sit as an MP in Paul Martin's caucus, and to run yet again as a Liberal candidate this time around. In other words, Tom Wappel - like several other Liberal MPs and candidates - openly rejects the very values Paul Martin has identified as being fundamentally Canadian, and is exactly the kind of social conservative Paul Martin accuses Stephen Harper of "muzzling".

And we're not done yet, folks. Despite making it the centerpiece of the Liberal smear campaign in the final days of the campaign, Martin has admitted that the Conservatives' position on abortion really isn't that much different from his own:

After presenting himself as a protector of women's rights and slamming Stephen Harper for failing to make his intentions on abortion clear, Paul Martin says he'll let backbenchers vote their conscience on the issue.

This week Martin insisted he would instruct all Liberal MPs and senators to vote against any bill that sought to ban abortion and that his new government would stand firmly in favour of a woman's right to have an abortion.

But yesterday he told reporters in St. John's that he would treat a Commons vote on the issue in the same manner he did last year's decision on same-sex marriage -- by whipping his cabinet but unleashing backbenchers.

Paul Martin says this election is about "fundamental Canadian values". What he isn't saying is that, for the Liberals, the most fundamental Canadian value of all is staying in power indefinitely. And when you remember that the Liberals will still control the unelected Senate no matter how badly they lose on Monday, that's a pretty scary thought.

Posted by damian at January 21, 2006 02:40 PM | TrackBack