It was great fun reading Chantal Hébert’s requiem for the Liberal Party generations left in the dust by Justin Trudeau’s team. In the Toronto Star the other day, she told of how the old-school-Liberal insiders are unknown to these new movers and shakers. We also need to remember that Chantal went to the Magdalen Islands back in August and reported that the Orange Wave was carrying on in Quebec.
It was a vivid reminder of Justin’s father who believed he had won the 1968 election single handed and had little need for us apparatchiks. Sure we were shunned for a while. We were all too young to vanish but many of us turned our attention to making a living. There were other causes for us in those years.
We were deeply concerned though during the October Crisis of 1970 when Trudeau used the draconian War Measures Act against the Front de Libération du Québec. We were aghast when Trudeau decided to campaign in 1972 on a slogan that “The Land is Strong.” Yet people like Senator Keith Davey and others rallied to help the party and we eked out a bare two-seat margin over the recovering Conservatives. And we all came to appreciate New Democrat David Lewis who sided with the Liberals to keep the Trudeau government in power for the next couple years.
But we are not just ghosts of Liberals Past. We have voices. We are not reluctant to use them. We were the ones who expressed anger at Justin Trudeau going back on his word and interfering in party nominations in Toronto. We waited impatiently for his brain-trust to realize the obvious solutions to many of the problems this campaign produced.
And with the Harper idiocy of extending the campaign beyond reason, we went through interminable frustration. When Dan Gagnier left Trudeau’s inner circle because of doing a little of his regular work on the side, it showed that his team had too much waste time on their hands.
Chantal tells us that dismissing the old guard will allow the Trudeau team to change the way we do politics in Canada. She notes that Justin has made it very clear that we will have reform of how we vote in this country. It will hardly be the first time a Trudeau has thought he has all the answers.
And this is just the ghost of Liberal politicians past speaking.
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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry
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