Canada’s May 2 federal election is about character and vision, according to Bob Rae, the Liberal Party’s foreign affairs critic. “This is an unusually important election,” he said at a town hall meeting in Powell River on Saturday morning, April 9. Rae attended the meeting with Dan Veniez, the Liberal Party candidate in West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country. About 40 people joined them for the event, which was held in the Italian Hall.
The reason the country is having an election is not just about the government’s budget, Rae said. Over a period of four months, Prime Minister Stephen Harper would not give parliament information it needed to make decisions on the government’s proposal to purchase fighter jets, to build more prisons and to proceed with corporate tax cuts. “The whole principle of our government is that your members of parliament, your members of council, your members of the provincial legislature have to have information about what it is the taxpayers’ money is being spent on,” Rae said. “This is the most secretive, closed, top-down, command-and-control government in Canadian history.”
The choice between the federal Conservative Party and the Liberals is clear, Rae said. The Conservatives have made fighter jets, mega-prisons and corporate tax cuts priorities and promised a tax break to families only if they win a majority government and only after the budget is balanced. The Liberals, on the other hand, will “maintain the ability of the federal government to do what it needs to do on behalf of working families.” A Liberal government would help families deal with issues that are important to them, such as the cost of sending children to college and university, dealing with the economy, having an infrastructure program that helps communities rebuild and a stable health care system.
The first few comments from the audience were about Tla’Amin (Sliammon) First Nation’s treaty agreement. While treaty negotiators reached an agreement in June last year, the federal government has not signed off on it and Tla’Amin has not been able to proceed with ratification. At the end of January, Tla’Amin officials learned from John Weston, Conservative candidate and incumbent, that he had concerns about provisions in the treaty which he believes are unconstitutional.
“There is no constitutional issue,” said Rae. “It’s a fiction in Mr. Weston’s mind. There is no constitutional problem with the Nisga’a treaty. There never has been and never will be. These treaties are fully contemplated by the constitution of Canada. They’ve been upheld in principle by the Supreme Court of Canada every time any of these issues have been brought to bear. This notion that somehow there’s a constitutional issue is just complete nonsense. It’s a roadblock that’s being put up unnecessarily. It needs to be put to bed and put to rest.”
In his opening remarks, Veniez said he was not running against Weston; his opponent was Harper and the Tea Party agenda the Conservatives promote. “We can not allow a majority government, that’s one thing, clearly,” he said. “But we can not afford another five years of that gradual incrementalism where our basic fundamental values, the tenants that have made this country what it is, are being chipped away and eroded.”
While the riding has benefited from the government’s stimulus funding, Veniez said, “it’s our money. We should not be grateful to a member of parliament or a government for returning our money to us. What we have to be mindful of and concerned with is how our money is spent.”
