| Re: "Winning means never having to say you’re sorry: Don’t blame the Liberals for their corruption, they can’t help themselves, " Viewpoint, by David Bright (Mar. 18 — Mar 24, 2004)
Mr. Bright's article is astoundingly inaccurate and not really that insightful. There are many flaws in his piece, but I would only like to point out a couple.
Firstly, Mr. Bright attributes the Chretien Liberals for stealing or furthering the agenda of the Mulroney Tories, namely free trade, the GST and deficit cutting. Mr. Bright missed some key historical points in his analysis. The 1981 federal government of Pierre Trudeau formed a committee headed by Donald MacDonald to look into a free trade agreement with the United States. Meanwhile, during his 1983 leadership campaign for the federal Tories, Mulroney opposed free trade with the Americans. So did the Liberals steal from Mulroney or vice versa?
Mr. Bright mistook the 1984 federal leaders' debate for the 1988 version. John Turner would not have been criticized for Trudeau appointments after four years of being in opposition. In fact, after the 1988 debate, the general consensus of pundits was that Turner won the debate over Mulroney over free trade for weakening Canadian sovereignty. The Chretien Liberals, although keeping NAFTA intact, sought and received side agreements over dumping, environmental policy, and other fields as promised in the 1993 Red Book.
The 1993 Red Book also does not explicitly call for the abolition of the GST. However, by merging the GST with Provincial sales taxes in the Maritimes, the Federal Liberals reduced the tax burden overall. Other provinces did not follow suit, because they did not want to lose their share of revenue. It is also comical to suggest the Liberals stole the idea of deficit cutting from the Mulroney Tories. Mulroney's cabinets could never get deficits under control. The Chretien Liberals could and had to in order to save social programs from the irresponsible fiscal management of the Tories.
The biggest flaw with Mr. Bright's piece is its simple thesis. Mr. Bright seems to suggest the Liberals have won elections in the past century for basically doing nothing. There are two counter points to be made on this score. Firstly, Mr. Bright never explains why the Conservatives have never been successful with the same formula. Secondly, the historical record shows Liberal governments have been much more proactive than Tory administrations and just haven't implemented piecemeal legislation to placate voters. Mackenzie King brought in the beginning of the welfare state with unemployment insurance and the like. Lester Pearson steered federal health care through parliament with only minority governments to support him. Pierre Trudeau brought the constitution home, made Canada officially bilingual, created cultural diversity through multiculturalism and defeated Rene Levesque in the 1980 Referendum. Along with slaying the deficit monster, Jean Chretien risked awaking a dormant sovereignty movement in Quebec by implementing the Clarity Act. All these achievements were not easy to win or created controversy. Could it be that Mr. Bright's analysis is wrong and that Liberals have won elections not because there was no other choice, but because the bulk of the country's voters actually approved of what they got?
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