In an election campaign that has seen some big whoppers, describing the federal Liberals as the “progressive” answer for voters has to take the prize.

Let’s just see how progressive the Paul Martin Liberals really are.

Would this be the progressive Liberal government that joined with the Conservatives to defeat — by just a handful of votes — legislation to ban replacement workers in labour disputes?

Would Paul Martin be the progressive Prime Minister who couldn’t bother to even be in the House of Commons for that vote? Was that the progressive Liberal cabinet which voted solidly against the anti-scab bill to ensure its defeat?

Jack Layton’s NDP voted in favour and vowed to fight to get it passed in the next Parliament.

Would the progressive choice for voters be the Paul Martin whose Canada Steamship Lines runs ships under flags of convenience countries like Liberia and the Bahamas rather than Canada? Whose company fired Canadian crews and replaced them with foreign workers?

Would David Emerson, the Vancouver-Kingsway Liberal cabinet minister, be the progressive guy who, as chair of B.C. Ferries, decided new ferries should be built in foreign shipyards instead of B.C.?

Was he also the CEO of Canfor, one of the forest companies that have failed to stop the needless deaths and injuries of loggers?

Is Vancouver East Liberal candidate Dave Haggard the progressive former president of the woodworkers union who did absolutely nothing while a corrupt local union leader took members’ money for personal profit?

How progressive is Vancouver Centre Liberal MP Hedy Fry, who became a national embarrassment by falsely accusing Prince George of “cross burning” and used dirty tricks to keep her Liberal nomination in 2004.

What’s progressive about “Liberal” MP Keith Martin, a former Reform/Alliance/Conservative member who betrayed the party that supported him for years and who so strongly advocates for privatized health care that Paul Martin won’t be seen with him in B.C.?

How progressive are the new federal Liberal recruits from the provincial Gordon Campbell government?

Former B.C. Liberal MLAs Joyce Murray, running in New Westminster-Coquitlam, Brenda Locke, in Fleetwood-Port Kells, and Sheila Orr, in Saanich-Gulf Islands, were part of the wrecking crew that slashed services, broke legal contracts with unions and sold off B.C. Rail.

Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh — the turncoat former B.C. New Democrat premier who also voted to defeat the anti-scab law — tries in new TV ads to sell the Liberals as progressive.

Progressive? Don’t make me sick.