Pay attention politically smart Canadians. The activists in Hong Kong are showing you up. And what makes you think Canada is more democratic than Hong Kong? All the activists in Hong Kong want is open nominations. When was the last time Canadians were allowed open nominations?
Here in Babel the Conservative’s central committee in Ottawa has just announced our Conservative candidate for the election next year in the new Barrie-Springwater-Oro-Medonte electoral district. In Hong Kong such an announcement would be greeted with protests, rallies and sit-ins. In Babel, nobody particularly cared. The local Conservatives are hardly used to having a contested nomination and a vote.
The only vote likely around here will be the public vote in next year’s election. Justin Trudeau and his minions have yet to tell us who our Liberal candidate will be. They are still mulling it over at party headquarters. This was the guy who promised us open nominations when we elected him leader of the Liberal Party. Trudeau is coming for a party fund raising barbeque at Horseshoe Resort on September 18. Maybe he will announce our candidate to the Liberals with a spare $150 to contribute to the party.
We will assume in Hong Kong that when the Communist Party’s Central Committee chooses a candidate, it is someone who thinks the way the Central Committee does. Young Trudeau has done that one better. He tells potential candidates who might not approve of abortion that they need not apply to be a Liberal candidate. As leader, Trudeau will tell them how to think. At least Stephen Harper tells his Conservative lackeys that they can think whatever they want but they will just do as they are told.
The people in Hong Kong who are fighting for democracy are putting their lives on the line. In Canada few are so willing to fight for democracy. They take our democracy for granted without realizing how it has been eroded.
The most interesting of the pro-democracy groups among Hong Kong’s population of more than seven million is Occupy Central with Love and Peace. This group is threatening the Hong Kong government with a mass sit-in of more than 10,000 participants in Hong Kong’s business district. Shutting down the financial heart of the city-state for long will have repercussions from Beijing that few will want to contemplate.
Maybe we can find some brave pro-democracy Liberals who will want to picket young Trudeau’s barbeque at Horseshoe Resort. There have to be more than a few Liberals who still believe in party democracy and the importance of party leaders keeping their word.
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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry
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