Politics is a funny game. If it was not so damn serious, Babel-on-the-Bay would just publish jokes about it. As it is, we just try to make whatever sense we can. It is like the current situation of the three leaders trying to prove to the voters how middle class they are. It is getting sillier every day.
The guy who introduced all this middle class guff is the least middle class of all. Justin Trudeau talks about the middle class as though he has made an archaeological discovery. It is obvious that he has met some middle class people before. He just knew that they were not as rich as his family. He must have been wide-eyed at the goings on when he lived at 24 Sussex Drive in Ottawa. Life was obviously more sanguine as he grew up in Montreal. He saw the deference of the airline people when he, his father and siblings traveled between Montreal and Vancouver.
As a lawyer and provincial Liberal cabinet minister and with his duel citizenship in France, Thomas Mulcair somehow misses the middle-class mould. He must have looked at the New Democrat’s base vote and decided that they would have to spread their wings and bring more Canadians into the fold. And if the middle class is good enough for Justin, it is good enough for Tommy Mulcair
And there might be more than enough middle class Canadians to go around. Stephen Harper likes to call them hard-working Canadians. He seems to be noticing that there might be more Canadians wanting to work hard than the one-per cent he usually panders to. We always assumed that Harper hated the middle class because he is one. Anyone born in Leaside (now part of Toronto) is definitely middle class. That is inescapable.
But as you learn in Toronto schools, when you are in for a pence, you might as well be in for a pound. The Harper government is suddenly coming out with new laws that should please middle-class people. Our retiring Justice Minister brought out a new law the other day to toughen sentences for drunk drivers. That one always hits a high note among the middle class. The fact that the law will not even get to first reading in the current parliament did not seem to phase our Peter. Nor did he seem to care that he would not be in the next parliament to make the bill law.
So there you have it: the three would-be leaders of the middle class. And the frightening thought is that this election campaign has only just begun!
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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry
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