What does “Bring it home” mean to you? Does Mr. Poilievre’s keynote slogan have specificity for you? Is it a meaningful political doctrine? Or, is it just another vague slogan that can mean what you want it to mean?
But the cold, hard facts are that slogans are for the gullible. Slogans replace logic.
Take ‘Axe the Tax.’ This is taking many liberties with the facts. It is fixed on the idea that nobody wants to pay any taxes. Anybody with any common sense knows that you can hardly run a country successfully where nobody pays any taxes. What we already know is that the tax he wants to axe is not a tax. It is simply a penalty that industries pay for the carbon they are putting into the earth’s atmosphere. They obviously pass these charges on to their customers, so the government gives the money collected from the industries to the taxpayers. The taxpayer is expected to want to use less of these products, thereby cutting down on the damage to our environment.
When you consider all this, you realize that Mr. Poilievre is not promising to axe a tax on you but on an industry that is polluting our environment. Think about it. Why would Mr. Poilievre want to axe a tax on these industries. Why doesn’t he worry about the pollution they are causing? Does he want to be prime minister of Canada for them or for you?
Let’s go back to what “Bring it home” means. I don’t know how they teach international relations in Calgary where Mr. Poilievre went to university but I have travelled around the world teaching seminars about communicating the need for medical research, specifically for Multiple Sclerosis. The International Federation of MS Societies always worked on the premise that solving one medical problem can often solve needs for other conditions. This broadly based scientific approach has paid off around the world.
But Mr. Poilievre would not allow it. When he says ‘Bring it home’ he literally means that he would cut back on our assistance and cooperation with other countries—particularly if he did not agree with how they were run or he did not like their leaders.
I have always felt in my world travels that we are all ambassadors for our countries. We promote democracy, not by preaching about it but by acting respectful of others’ ideas and customs. I cannot imagine our foreign relations under Mr. Poilievre.
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