The Citizen, 1987-05-13, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, MAY 13. 1987.
Opinion
Sacrificing anything
for good will
The ultimate tragedy of Pierre Trudeau’s lengthy term as
Canada’s Prime Minister maybe that his personality and
strength of purpose irritated people to the point that undoing
anything he did seemed to be a good idea to his successors. The
ultimate irony for Brian Mulroney as prime minister may be
that in going in the opposite direction to Pierre Trudeau on
nearly any subject, he may in the long run make Trudeau seem
greater.
By standingupforwhathe thought was right, Trudeau made
enemies. His pushing of constitutional reform, while holding to
a vision of a Canada with a strong central government, made
him an easy target for resentment from the provincial premiers.
Canadians longed for peace between the premiers and Ottawa
and Brian Mulroney set out to give it to them. The result is the
recent constitutional agreement in which the Prime Minister
made the premier of Quebec happy by giving his province a veto
on constitutional change in many areas and then made the other
premiers happy because he didn’t give Quebec special
treatment because they got a veto too.
On the international front, Trudeau had developed a
fractious relationship with the United States. Mulroney set out
to make the two countries best friends again. He eliminated
nearly all the major complaints the U.S. government had with
Canada from the Foreign Investment Review Agency to the
National Energy Policy, then sat down to negotiate a free trade
agreement with the U.S. only to find out they had a whole new
list of grievances they had prepared as bargaining chips.
The constitutional changes and the free trade agreement
may profoundly change our entire way of life in Canada.
Observers of the constitutional proposal which gives the
provinces much more power still are not sure of all its
ramifications but they already state that if this constitution had
been in effect in the 1960’s we probably wouldn’t have
universal medicare today because provinces like Ontario didn’t
want it.
Similarly, tied closely to the U.S. in a trade agreement we
would find many “Canada first” policies wouldn’t be allowed.
We may see the day when our way of life is decided more in
provincial capitals and in the United States than in our
Parliament.
Mulroney has reversed established policies of prime
ministers from John Diefenbaker through Lester Pearson to
Pierre Trudeau (and even to some extend Joe Clark) in his
efforts to heal the wounds he thinks Trudeau made. He has
done more to build a different Canada than any of those strong
prime ministers but does anyone have confidence that he knows
what he has done?
Twenty years from now, seeing the Canada that has resulted
from Mulroney’s appeasement policies even former Trudeau
haters may wish his vision of the country had lasted longer.
Ghostly dreams for NDP
With the New Democractic Party riding high in the national
polls, NDP supporters continue to dream of the day when they
will form a government, both at the federal level and in the
Ontario Legislature.
Just how far that dream is away in Ontario can be seen at the
local riding level. The NDP has never done well in conservative
Huron county even though some outstanding individuals have
offered themselves as candidates. But while some of the failure
can be blamed on the basically conservative nature of Huron
voters, some must also go to the absolute lack of organization.
When the party held its May 3 nomination meeting in Clinton,
for instance, not only wasn’t the meeting advertised for the
public but not even all the newspapers in the county were
notified so they could cover it.
There are many good people in the party, a number of whom
have run as candidates. The problem is too often party
supporters feel their cause is so just people will flock to support
them, even without the kind of dogged leg work other parties
undertake.
Times moving faster
As the world nears the turn of another century things seem to
be moving faster and faster.
It used to be in the days of John Diefenbaker and Pierre
Trudeau that the press built up a candidate until he got elected
then turned to tearing him down.
In the 1980’s we ’ ve moved to the point where the press in the
U.S. at least in the Gary Hart case, barely waits for the
candidate to declare he’s running for the presidency before
they start looking tor clay feet. Maybe by the year 2000 the press
won t wait that long. They’ll create their own rumours about
who’s running then proceed to defeat the mythical candidates
before they declare their nomination.
OK MY FRIENDS HERE AND I HAVE
AGREED- •• FROM NOW ON, NO MORE
ALL-NIGHT MARATHON DEBATES ON
THE ECONOMIC PROBLEMS OF
I FARMING IN WESTERN CANADA'.
i
1 -If
Mabel’s Grill
There are people who will tell
you that the important decisions in
town are made down at the town
hall. People in the know, however
know that the real debates, the
real wisdom reside down at
Mabel's Grill where the greatest
minds in the town [if not in the
country] gatherfor morning coffee
break, otherwise known as the
Round Table Debating and Fili
bustering Society. Since not just
everyone can partake of these
deliberations we will report the
activities from time to time.
MONDAY: Tim O’Grady was
egging Ward Black on this morn
ing about all the people who seem
to be desserting the sinking ship of
the Ontario Progressive Conserva
tives and deciding not to run in the
next election. Meanwhile people
are fighting to get on board with the
Liberals, he said.
S ure, say s Ward, they ’ re getting
candidates like former marathon
swimmers, people who really have
qualifications for politics.
Oh well, Billy Beane said, at
least Cindy Nicholas has proved
she can keep her head above water
which is more than some politi
cians can manage. Yeh, said Ward,
but she’s used to cold water like
Lake Ontario or the English
Channel. Let’s see how she does
when she gets into hot water in
politics.
TUESDAY: Hank Stokes was
saying that his wife isn’t too happy
that she can’t get some of her
favourite afternoon soap operas
these days because of the Iran-
Contra hearings down in the
states. Billy said that from what he
picked up the whole Iran-Contra
thing is sort of like a soap opera
anyway, except it took even longer
tounravelthe plot than that of a
soap.
WEDNESDAY: Hank was saying
he was starting to worry about his
crops because of the lack of rain.
Tim suggested it might be a
blessing in disguise if the seed
didn’t come up in the first place
because at least it would save him
from throwing more good money
after bad with herbicides and so on.
Billy said he was so worried
about getting enough rain for his
garden that he did the one thing he
could think of to make sure it
rained: he filled his pockets full of
quarters and went down to the
carwash and washed his car.
Twice, just to make sure.
THURSDAY: Julia Flint was say
ing this morning that she was
happy about the new government
anti-pornography bill in that it
protected children and didn’t show
violence in sex but sometimes she
kind of liked tolook at some big
hunk naked in movies so she hoped
they didn’t get too carried away.
Tim said if they’re too worried
about the bad influence of sex in
society maybe after Gary Hart and
Jimmy Baker they should ban
politics and religion.
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