“I just want to say though that our policy about Afghanistan is realistic.The one of the NDP is not.

“I want to become Prime Minister of this country. Mr. Layton will never bePrime Minister of this country and he’ll say anything that people want tohear. I cannot do that.”

Stéphane Dion after the Liberal lost the riding of Outremont to the NDP.

When Stéphane Dion describes Liberal policies as “realistic” what he means is that powerful people are not offended by what his party espouses. Thinkof this as the Paul Desmarais test. Liberal policies for the last 20 years were designed to please people like Desmarais. Not coincidently, most of the money the Liberals raised in that period was from corporations.

For instance, Stéphane Dion has just proposed an economic strategy in whichtax cuts will have a prominent role. Would Paul D. or his two sons approve do you think?

Marc Lee of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has pointed out how corporate tax rates have fallen from the 40 per cent level down to the close to 20 per cent level. With about one-half of Canadian manufacturing foreign owned, all this policy does is reward the absentee landlords, and weaken our capacity to deliver on basic human needs: education, healthcare, environmental protection, recreation and culture.

Is it realistic to think that by invading Afghanistan under the American flag, as Canada did when the Liberals were in power, peaceful change would be the result? At that time the mission was described as “peace-keeping.” Later the Canadian military changed the focus to war making. How realistic was that?

Successive invaders of Afghanistan, going back to Alexander the Great, andcontinuing through the British invasion of the 19th century to the Sovietinvasion of the 1970s, right up to the current invasion by the U.S.,Canada, and a few others, have all been repulsed. Is it realistic to thinkthis invasion will succeed where all the others have failed?

The U.S. under Jimmy Carter, bragged about enticing the ex-Soviet Unioninto a “pacifying” war in Afghanistan, knowing they would get bogged down, and hoping such an adventure would weaken the Soviet Union. They wereright, it did. Indeed, the Soviet Union was not only weakened, itcollapsed a few years later.

The U.S. and Canada invaded Afghanistan because it harboured terrorists,notably Osama bin Laden. What the Americans did not say was that bin Ladenwas in Afghanistan because they put him there to fight the Soviets, andprovided him with money and arms.

What the Liberals did not say is that Canada went into Afghanistan toplease the Americans, and their supporters in Canada, principallycorporate groups anxious to pursue business as usual with the U.S. TheLiberal Afghan policy passed the Desmarais test. Withdrawal from a combatrole now does not.

Outremont electors may have regularly voted Liberal in the past, but thatdoes not stop them from thinking about which party to support in aby-election. What Dion seems to have missed is that for many voters it isnot realistic to think that invading other countries to promote peace issound public policy.

The anti-war vote in the Outremont riding, as in the country, issubstantial. The Liberals should have learned a lesson in realism from theresult: it is not realistic to think voters can be duped into supportingpolicies that make no sense, just to make business leaders happy.The days in which the Liberal party was funded by business are over. Ifthe Liberals still want to support business friendly policies, they willsee pay the prices at the polls in the next general election.

Hearing Stéphane Dion say that Jack Layton will never be Prime Minister ofCanada, brought to mind what Jack said about Stéphane Dion at the last NDPconvention in Quebec City. Commenting on the Liberal leadership race, Jackpraised Dion as a man of intelligence and integrity, who therefore was disqualified from winning the Liberal leadership. Like Jack, he may see theday when he regrets that comment.

Duncan Cameron

Duncan Cameron

Born in Victoria B.C. in 1944, Duncan now lives in Vancouver. Following graduation from the University of Alberta he joined the Department of Finance (Ottawa) in 1966 and was financial advisor to the...