The Citizen, 2012-10-04, Page 16PAGE 16. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2012.Trudeau addresses Liberal Party’s decline
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success. Anyone who emphasizes
difference and rams division across
the land is selling us short as a
people.”
Trudeau didn’t want to try to hide
the fact that there are massive
challenges facing the Liberal party
of Canada, but he said that most of
the work was going to be focusing
on what Canada needs and not what
the Liberal party wants.
He said that politics has created,
within Canada, a situation where
people are trying to solve problems
incorrectly, that they are thinking
short term and that people believe
governments are useless anymore.
“We can’t run a country on sound
bites like has been done,” he said.
“We have to face down complex
issues and they don’t have simple
solutions.
“Canadians have began to accept
short term thinking as the way things
are,” he continued. “To change,
we’re going to need a buy-in like
never before, but we can do that.”
Canadians need to look and see
their government as capable and
believe in it according to Trudeau
and he said the Liberal party,
through emphasizing on science,
best practices and evidence-based
information, will be the party to help
Canada do that.
“We have a cohort in office right
now that is going against that grain,”
he said. “They are convincing people
that governments are useless and
doing so by example.”
To start the resuscitation of a
government that people can believe
is useful, Trudeau said that
governments need a vision, need a
plan and they need a good starting
point.
“Before we can start rebuilding
faith in our Government we need to
help the people, we need to create
jobs and prosperity and restore
sensibility,” he said. “We need to
remind people that the government
needs a vision and plan.”
He said that there was no denying
that the Liberal party had declined in
recent years, indicating that they had
gone from 170 seats in 2000 and
steadily dropped from there.
“The next election [after 2000],
we had 135 seats, then 100, then 77
and now we have 35,” he said. “If
that continues, we’ll only have one
seat left because I’m not losing
Papineau.”
The Liberal party fell afoul of their
supporters, according to Trudeau, by
taking them for granted.
“We were so busy arguing about
who would drive the big red bus that
we weren’t watching when we
started veering dangerously off-
course,” he said, adding that the
party was now in a downward spiral
because of that.
“We need to engage people to fight
that and, to do that, we have to start
trusting and listening to Canadians,”
he said. “We have to focus on
engaging people, going to people
and bringing them together.”
Putting the Liberal party back on
top would require the same attitude
and processes that put him in office,
Trudeau said.
“There’s no secret to how I got
elected, and it had little to do with
my name,” he said. “I outworked the
people I ran against on the ground.”
In his bid for Papineau, Trudeau
went up against what he called a
strong, classy Bloc Quebecois
incumbent in his area and that he
would never have a negative thing to
say about them except that he
worked harder and he believed he
would be a better MP.
He said he was on the ground,
knocking on doors, finding common
ground with his voters and, in the
end, getting elected because of it.
“When that orange wave swept
across Quebec in the last election, I
increased my margin of victory
instead of losing my seat,” he said. “I
did that because I outworked
everyone on the ground. I
demonstrated to them that I will
work my butt off for them and that is
how the Liberal party will get back
in power.”
He said that the lessons he learned
have taught him that politics aren’t
what they should be about anymore.
“Right now, politics is about
tricks, voter identification and robo-
calls,” he said. “It should be about
rolling up your sleeves and working
hard.”
The Liberal party will have to do
just that, he said, to not find
themselves disbanded at the federal
level.
“The stakes are too high right
now,” he said. “The other parties
would love to squeeze us out and
create a two-party system similar to
the one south of us. We can see how
a polarized electorate works in the
South; the chasms are greater there.
“Canada isn’t a place of left and
right though, it’s a place of working
together to get by,” he said.
“Working together created this
incredible, marvelous work-in-
progress of a country.”
The current government and
opposition, according to Trudeau,
are comfortable “X”ing out parts of
the nation because they received no
support there and focusing on
garnering votes in other parts of the
country.
“Mr. Harper put an X over Quebec
because he believes he doesn’t need
it and the NDP elected a man... who
put an X over Alberta for the same
reason,” he said. “Canadians deserve
better than that, they deserve a party
that says the same thing coast to
coast.”
Before going to a question and
answer period, he said the most
important feature of a leading party
in Canada should be what they
believe the greatest strength of the
nation.
“We need a national party that
needs to understand the strength of
Canada isn’t buried underground,
but living on top of it,” he said. “We
are getting short-shafted by the
government we elected.”
One of the closest to home
questions, for the Huron-Bruce
riding, was that of agriculture and
where it fit in Trudeau’s plan.
“I think that the government has
forgotten that two per cent of the
population feeds 100 per cent of it,”
he said. “That needs to be
recognized.”
He went on to say that, when
working with other sections of the
economy, it can often be overlooked
that agriculture is the most important
industry in Canada.
“How productive can any part of
the economy be when people don’t
eat?” he asked. “Everything else
depends on people getting by with a
full stomach. People have forgotten
that that food comes from
somewhere.”
He said that, in the last election,
the Liberal party proposed a national
food plan that worked on “both ends
of the equation.”
“The plan would get food to the
cities on one end and help farmers
on the other,” he said. “It worries me
that the Liberals took segments of
the country, like the rural areas, for
granted for many years, but the lack
of willingness by the current Prime
Minster to stand up and defend
supply management is terrible.
“They’re making decisions based
on the voters in the electoral maps,”
he said. “And that’s leaving the
voices of the farmers, especially the
family farmers, out.”
Other questions that Trudeau
fielded includied his stance on
mandatory voting systems, to which
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Making his point
Justin Trudeau was in Seaforth late last month to discuss a
number of issues with supporters in Huron County
including agriculture, politics and the future of the Liberal
Party. Trudeau was expected to announce his intention to
run for the party’s leadership on Tuesday night. (Denny Scott
photo)
Having a chat
After speaking to a collection of over 300 supporters last
Thursday night in Seaforth, Justin Trudeau spent some
time making his way through the crowd and speaking with
as many people as he could. (Denny Scott photo)
Continued on page 18