In reply to all the liberal bashing

[rz350]

There is a lot of liberal bashing going on. Some of it is warranted, some of it is not.

here is a few of the things the Liberal party gave to Canada.

The right for gays to marry. (civil liberty which involves no harm to anyone and is 100% consensual..opposed by the conservatives)

The charter of Rights and Freedoms. (what a horrible thing for a nation, a list of rights and freedoms deemed inalienable!)

Our Constitution. (Which together with the Charter, is the really only legal instrument protecting individual rights. Before that, any law which seemed oppressive or heavy handed had to be challenged only on technical merit.)

Just my opinion, but the freedom and rights we enjoy are one of the things that make Canada so great, and worth defending to the end. Although it was a free nation before the charter and constitution, they entrenched and enshrined the freedoms.

Our own flag.  Under Liberal Prime Minister Pearson.

The Royal Canadian Navy. In a bill Enacted by Sir Willfrid Laurier in 1910.

The Canada pension plan.

Universal health care.

I just figured, with so many threads showing the negative of the Liberal party, I would show a few of the good things they have done for the nation.

 

[paracowboy]

In reply to all the liberal bashing

well done. Carry on.

 

[Kat Stevens]

Six good things in 139 years.... Keep up the stellar job.

PS  Health care was an idea stolen from Tommy Douglas, and at the time almost every doctor in Sask mutinied.

 

[Kalatzi]

Six good things in 139 years.... Keep up the stellar job.

In response to Kat's extravagent praise
The Auto Pact - The forefather of Nafta(Regardless of how one feels about it)
Bilingualism - Leading to the Bloc
The National Energy Policy - Leading to the Reform Party!

Laurier maintaining Canada's identity in the face of Brit Imperialism
Pearson/Trudeau doing the same in the face of Yank Imperialsim
LBJ to Pearson - You pissed on my rug!
Pearson The father of Peacekkeping

Oooh, Ohhh - The Avro Arrow and the Canadian Aerospace Industry!!!
Killed off by  :skull:

:dontpanic:

 

[Cloud Cover]

Oooh, Ohhh - The Avro Arrow and the Canadian Aerospace Industry!!!
Killed off by   .

... Diefenbaker, a Conservative

Here's a few Conservative mementos:

Failure to stop and reverse an activist court in the the 10 years after the Charter was passed.
Gutting the aerospace industry everywhere in Canada except Quebec;
Meech Lake and BQ;
Failure to prosecute criminal politicians for overt theft of taxpayers money;
7 consecutive years of increased income taxes;
Tan DEU's with the disco pants look;
ALCOA with Ontario's money;
Failing to criminalize large, goofy looking eyeglasses; 
GST

 

[aluc]

Brian Mulroney.......the reason we now have to look at Ben Mulroney on TV making an ass of himself.

 

[cplcaldwell]

Well to counterpoint the counterpoint.(Just for fun mind you).

The right for gays to marry is important. It's kind of dumb to suggest that people can't share pension or health benefits, adopt a child, buy a car jointly or have to form a limited compnay to buy a house jointly.

But we (IMHO) screwed this up. The Brits did a better job of it by making the State's role in 'marriage' to be zero and left the word to the churches, mosques and synagogues. We should have made it 'civil union' for all (gay and hetero) at the legal level and left the 'marriage' part to the people who have used and defined the term for 5000 years.

The Charter? I like to look at it this way, before the Charter I had every right in the world until the elected Parliament passed a law to take it way from me, now I have no rights unless an appointed judge affirms them (Forget who said that, it's a bit simplistic, but hey, WTF). Nothing more inalienable than the democratic will. Besides, Dief gave us the statutory Bill of Rights in the 50's

The Constitution, we've had that since 1867, (arguably since 1763) just by a different name, bringing it home was nice, but it hasn't made gas any cheaper.

Flag's a good idea.

RCN created by the Libs, dissolved by the Libs. This one is a wash.

CPP? $1050 a month is nice but not much to brag about. Buy RRSP's.

Medicare. Hmmm here the old adage "Success has many fathers...." rings true. Mr Douglas adopted this in SK in the 50's (CCF/NDP). Dief talked about and studied it after the '57 election. Justice Hall (PC) reported that that should be extended to all of Canada, 1964 (?). Mr Pearson and Mr Martin (Sr) passed it into law. A thouroughly Canadian solution.

Any way rz350, thanks for coming out, but I'm just way too old to learn a new trick. Canadian politics are a lot less polemic and a lot more evolutionary than most people would think. The Liberal no more 'rule' than the Tories 'suck' or vice versa. Heck even the NDP are good for some things......

Now for that Arrow thing. Why does this still keep coming up? The thing was a long range interceptor, the Soviets had just invented their ICBM, Interceptors became obsolete. What we should have kept it? Kill it cut it up, it would have been useless and expensive by the time it was mass produced...

HaHa all in fun ....

 

[Kalatzi]

Now for that Arrow thing. Why does this still keep coming up?

At the risk of getting waaaaay off topic, A/the friend of mine once opined that what makes us distinct as a nation is ability to bicker endlessly amongst ourselves.

Not sure that he's 100% on but pretty close, and the Arrow meech et are but two examples

 

[cplcaldwell]

Your friend is a very perceptive individual!

 

[North Star]

OK:

1) Right for Gays to Marry - Done quickly and cheaply without building consensus. May have ended up threatening the Right to Practice Religion and has now opened up questions as to Polygamy and the Tax Exemptions of Churches.

2) Charter of Rights and Freedoms - How come everyone forgets Diefenbacker's Bill of Rights, which set the stage for this? Trudeau didn't think it up by his lonesome. Thank you Western Canada

3) The Flag - Cheesiest in the world.

4) RCN - Then transformed into Maritime Command over the careers of a number of Admirals. Then wasted away through neglect.

5) CPP - Don't forget the QPP! Some National program.

6) Universal Healthcare - Yes. What an accomplishment. We used to laugh at the Soviets for lining up for sausages at the grocery store. Now, we line up for hip replacements and consider it Canada's most brilliant civic accomplishment.

7) Peacekeeping - Not a bad idea when originally created, but completely abused as a nation-building myth by the Liberals to denigrate the CF.

I think a friend of mine best sums it up...."Yes, I do like Liberals...prior to Pearson."

 

[Loachman]

The lieberals did not give gays the right to marry. They merely let the Supreme court rule and then lacked the guts to debate the issue in Parliament. That's just a copout. And marriage isn't a right. It's a religious practice, combined in modern times with a legal contract.

It's a Charter of SOME Rights and Freedoms. Extra "rights" can be and have been written in by the Supreme Court. Others have been trampled by the legal system and that has been upheld, in many cases, by the Supreme Court. They're far from being "inalienable". Ask victims of the Terrorism Act, or the Firearms Act upon which many of the worst aspects of the former were based. Property rights were intentionally left out, which is a huge ommission.

Constitutions are indeed nice - the former USSR had a very impressive one.

This country is far less free thanks to the lieberals - in addition to the aforementioned two examples of odious lieberal legislative malignance, there have been a succession of gag laws aimed at limiting the free speech of citizens during elections, in which you and I have been described as "third parties".

Canada had a flag before the current one, under which our veterans served, fought and died with pride. Is it a co-incidence that the current one is in the same colours as the lieberal party insignia? Maybe, maybe not. It's a decent flag, though, and I like it anyway.

The Royal Canadian Navy? On the other hand, there's the abomination of Unification and the demise of the same Navy and the other two services. We still suffer from this today.

The Canada Pension Plan is faltering and chances are you'll get nothing useful from it, despite paying through the nose.

Universal health care isn't, breeds mediocrity, inefficiency, waste, and huge line-ups. Besides, it wasn't a lieberal idea, and health care is provincial jurisdiction anyway.

Now, can you please list the good things that the lieberal party has done for Canada?

 

[cplcaldwell]

6) Universal Healthcare - Yes. What an accomplishment. We used to laugh at the Soviets for lining up for sausages at the grocery store. Now, we line up for hip replacements and consider it Canada's most brilliant civic accomplishment.

:rofl:

 

[Armymedic]

I believe if you were to study more Canadian history, you'd find that most often good things the Liberals have done were someone else's ideas.
Trudeau was a member of the NDP prior to becoming the liberal Justice minister.
Tommy Douglas had many good ideas which won him much popular support across the country, and if the Person Govt didn't implement, may have won the NDP a government in the late 60's

The right for gays to marry. (civil liberty which involves no harm to anyone and is 100% consensual..opposed by the conservatives)

No, the Supreme Court of Canada gave the legal right for them to marry. Nobody has a really good reason for them not to...

The charter of Rights and Freedoms. (what a horrible thing for a nation, a list of rights and freedoms deemed inalienable!)
Our Constitution. (Which together with the Charter, is the really only legal instrument protecting individual rights. Before that, any law which seemed oppressive or heavy handed had to be challenged only on technical merit.)

Trudeau...OK, he got us the Charter of rights, not really an new idea, but he did get it put into place. I give you one point for that. But the constitution, he hardly can take credit for. We are just lucky that the provincial premiers signed on to it, or that goose would be cooked.

The Royal Canadian Navy. In a bill Enacted by Sir Wilfrid Laurier in 1910.

Ooh, he signed a piece of paper, enacting the Navy...who did it for the RCAF, or the Army?

The Canada pension plan.

Tommy Douglas had ideas for universal pension plans in Sask in the late 40's for farmers to pay into so that when they got too old to farm, they did not become burdens on their families and the province.

Universal health care.

Again something the CCP gave Sask before Tommy went to Ottawa

I just figured, with so many threads showing the negative of the Liberal party, I would show a few of the good things they have done for the nation.

How about the new gun registry?
How about the.....?? uhm?

I am sure your getting the point for all the posts above. Most of the disgust for the Liberals is what they haven't done for the military, for Canada, an their arrogance towards the rest of us. They believe they should rule, and anyone who doesn't agree with them should not...
The Chretien Gov't did not provide any leadership to the country, and let others, primarily the Supreme court but also the popularity polls, determine what action they should take.

Heaven forbid, somebody makes a decision...that's just Anti-Liberal.

 

[Cardstonkid]

The Lieberals have taken a dangerous turn in rhetoric over the last ten years. Now you are not a "real" Canadian if you do not agree with Lieberal values. They have become soft-headed and seem to think they can be everything to everyone. That is how you end up with a party under Martin that had at least 50 "Fundamental Priorities." I dislike Trudeau and his Strong Federalist Quebec-centered vision of Canada, but at least he had a vision. You knew where he stood. What has any Lieberal since him stood for? You would have to look at the polls to figure that out. If the environment was in the news they were "leading the way" on that portfolio, if Gay rights were not popular they were against it, if it was popular. they were for it. If gay trees were being mugged on Indian Reserves they were all for or against that, depending if the polls said it was O.K.

The Lieberals led Canada to near collapse under Chretien and Trudeau. The party is a disgrace, despite some bright and honorable men and women who have served Canada in it.

 

[IN HOC SIGNO]

Had to laugh at Scott Brison on TV last night bashing Michael Ignatieff and Stephen Harper for being "anti-Peacekeeping." That's who Canadians are and what they want he said...not this offensive combat stuff we're doing in Afghanistan. We should be putting money into developing communities in these countries etc.
Has anyone told him that there has to be security before you can build community and that we are doing both in Afghanistan?
What a joke. I hope he wins the leadership...it'll ensure another 10 years in the wilderness for the Very Silly Party. ;D

 

[cplcaldwell]

Heaven forbid, somebody makes a decision...that's just Anti-Liberal.

And if its anti-Liberal then it must be Conservative.

And if its Conservative then it must be neo-con, bible thumping, baby Bush, imperialist, running dog fascism. > (Read the blogs on the Globe and Mail some day, they are so sad they are hilarious.)

or in other words,

Cardstonkid, +1

 

[Cdn Blackshirt]

Well for all the Lib's out there, please stick with nostalgia because your current leaders are a bunch of duplicitous, self-serving, hypocritical apologists who I wouldn't trust to mow my lawn!


Matthew. 

 

[rz350]

I don't know what the Lieberal party is.

When I voted, the Ballot had the Liberal party of Canada. The Conservative party, the New Democratic party and the Communist party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) at least in my riding, there was no Lieberal party.  ;D I dont see it on elections Canada website either.

About the RCN, was it not a Conservative who ditched the idea of Nuclear Submarines? (along with not taking Chinooks) and a Liberal who at least got them Diesel Subs? (maybe not the best of subs, but still subs)

And a Conservative gov't who put in the GST. Only to be lowered by 1% by the next Conservative govt.

Maybe the Supreme court allowed gays to be married, but at least the Liberals did not try to introduce legislation ban it. Like someone else did.

 

[Trinity]

The lieberals did not give gays the right to marry. They merely let the Supreme court rule and then lacked the guts to debate the issue in Parliament. That's just a copout. And marriage isn't a right. It's a religious practice, combined in modern times with a legal contract.

Um.. I would debate that...

Marriage was a contract/property transaction at first.  The woman was property of her father.

Later in years marriages could be blessed by the church.... and then eventually
marriages became a religions service.

 

[cplcaldwell]

It was a conservative who ditched the idea of nuclear submarines, after floating the idea into a barrage of Liberal opposition freaking, that, among other things, claimed that nuclear powered submarines somehow violated Canada's cherished non nuclear weapon status.

But then again it was a Liberal PM who approved of the Nuke warheads for the Bomarcs too.(Who said he would never kowtow to American pressure)

The GST replaced the MFST and it was a good thing because it gave Canadian industry a break in the Canadian Market. (Mulroney made it an election promise and got elected with it as a plank in his platform). It was cut to free up some tax space for the provinces (As promised by Harper)so they could take the responsibility for all their schemes without having the alternative of decrying federal miserliness on transfers (Rather a swift move there Stevie, way to go, shut up the masses while shutting up the provinces, nice feat for a federal PM!).

Who tried to ban it? AB? so what, it's a constitutionally provincial prerogative, if they want to live like red-necks, all I can say is welcome to a confederacy.