By Doug Draper
Let Stephen Harper and his federal Conservatives take the low road, said Canada’s Liberal leader after he road into St. Catharines, Ontario this July 30 for a town hall meeting as part of his “Liberal Express” swing through the country this summer.
Canada's Liberal leader, Michael Ignatieff, field's questions at town hall meeting in St. Catharines, Ontario. Photo by Doug Draper
“I want to take the high road,” said Michael Ignatieff to a mostly enthusiastic audience of more than 100 locals who attended the meeting at the Old Merritton Town Hall. “I want to have a conversation with you” rather than spin messages for the purposes of manipulating people, he added, and “you can’t be a good leader unless you are willing to listen to people.”
“You are looking at someone who wants to be your prime minister,” Ignatieff said, and “I respect the institutions that keep us free and I accept institutions that limits my authority as a leader.”
That is hardly the way it is with Harper and his government, Ignatieff went on to say. He ignores the courts, when it is convenient for him to do so, and “when parliament gets in the way, (Harper) shuts it down.”
Ignatieff also defended the need for a full, mandatory census forms to get a good snapshot of the country and its people for Statistics Canada, and he called Harper’s drive to kill the mandatory census as something based on “ideology” rather than anything that seems rational – driven by a government “that seems to prefer ignorance to knowledge.” He questioned how a government could know who needs the most help in what parts of the country if it doesn’t have the information a thorough census can provide.
The Liberal leader went on to stress that the federal government has to work more closely with provinces to meet the needs for education for young people, economic development, infrastructure and building transit systems to shift away from car dependency in the 21st century. He also said the country needs a government that takes climate change seriously and is willing to be a leader in cutting greenhouse gases.
Wayne Gates, president of Local 199 of the Canadian Auto Workers, asked Ignatieff if he would support a “Buy Canada” policy and “fair trade” agreements that would block countries like Korea from dumping hundreds of thousands of their cars in the Canadian market if they close their doors to cars and other products made in Canada.
Ignatieff all but slid past the Buy Canada part of the question but on fairer trade, he told Gates he heard him “loud and clear.” Other countries like Korea and China “have to open their markets to us,” he said.
Bruce Allen, another CAW representative and president of the St. Catharines and District Labour Council, asked Ignatieff if he would support an independent public inquiry into all of the concerns swirling around security operations at this June’s G20 summit in Toronto.
Ignatieff replied that he “can’t defend everything the police did” but would trust Toronto Police Chief William Blair over Harper, adding that he “stand(s) behind the uniformed public security that keep us free.” Harper “needs to be held accountable,” he continued for spending more than $1 billion on security so he could use Toronto, and virtually shut the city down during the summit, for a “photo opportunity.”
Allen said later he was disappointed Ignatieff would not support a public inquiry and wonders what kind of message that sends out to people who were arrested on the streets of Toronto and lawns of Queen’s Park during the summit, only for the majority of them to be released later without charges.
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