It has been that kind of summer. It has been a restorative time. Far too hot to be active but very pleasant to sit on the balcony with a cold drink, watching the boats, the swimmers, the children at play. The only books taken out to that balcony are historical, offering insights into the past. It is more fun to sit and contemplate the future.
Many of the concerns for the future have revolved around the Liberal Party of Canada. Where the party might be headed is a recurring theme for writers as the historical governing party has mainly withdrawn from public life to lick its wounds.
The answer to the federal angst is positive. “We shall rise to fight again,” is the rallying cry. We just have to be a different kind of political party. We have to define our party. We need to seek out our coalition of voters and speak with them and for them. We need to be proudly left of that vague, amorphous political centre. We need to represent justice in a world of injustice. We need to understand that while we have to use the law and to make law, we cannot lose sight of the individual.
The Liberal Party must recognize the power of one. This is the individual and the individual no longer owes existence and rights to the state but the state owes the individual for its acceptance and existence. Similarly, the police to not bring order to the populace but are the delegated force of the populace and owe allegiance to that populace.
Our politicians must be our servants, carrying out the wishes of the populace, always conscious of protecting of the rights and wishes of the individual. These servants protect our environment for now and for the future. They mind our health, they bring order to commerce, they build the infrastructure to meet the needs of all our society, and they assure our rights to learning. There is no fixed list of tasks to be achieved, there are just the needs of people in a successful society.
To create this new approach to politics, we must also change our thinking about how a political party works. It has to be there to work for its supporters. It is there to organize the political priorities. It produces the people who can serve us best in government. It is the conduit for direction from the populace. It is an information network. This will take very hard work to create.
-30-
All material in this blog is copyright © Peter Lowry
Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]