On national unity, here's Harper's famous firewall comment (in a letter to the National Post):
It is imperative to take the initiative, to build firewalls around Alberta, to limit the extent to which an aggressive and hostile federal government can encroach upon legitimate provincial jurisdiction.And who can forget this gem?
Canada appears content to become a second-tier socialistic country, boasting ever more loudly about its economy and social services to mask its second-rate status...By contrast, here's Dion in the introduction to Le pari de la franchise:
La première des convictions que j'expose dans ce livre est que notre pays, le Canada, est d'abord et avant tout, un principe d'entraide, l'un des meilleurs que l'esprit humain ait inventés....Roughly translated, "Canada is above all a principle of mutual assistance, one of the best that the human mind has ever invented... The greatest strength of Canada is its capacity to bring together different populations around common goals. This alliance of unity and diversity wouldn't be possible without the federalism that we have invented."
Ce qui constitue la principale force et la vraie grandeur du Canada est sa capacité de rassembler des populations différentes autour d'objectifs communs. Cet alliage de l'unité et de la diversité ne saurait se maintenir sans le fédéralisme que nous avons inventé. [pp. xv-xvi]
From the English edition, Straight Talk, here's Dion on 'Why is being Canadian so valuable?'
No, the reason I consider myself so fortunate to be Canadian is not because of what is distinctive and particular to this country, but because of our achievement of universal ideals. Canada is the greatest example of what the world must become in terms of tolerance, openness, and capacity for harmony between different communities. [p. 132]En français:
Non, si je me sens aussi chanceux d'être Canadien, ce n'est pas à cause de ce qui distingue et caractérise notre pays, mais plutôt parce que nous réalisons des idéaux humains universels. Le Canada est le meilleur example de ce à quoi on doit aspirer dans le monde entier sur les plans de la tolérance, de l'ouverture et de l'harmonie entre diverses communautés. [p. 142]He closed a speech to the Faculty of Law, Université de Montréal, March 18, 1998, with this:
The Canadian ideal is that of a country where human beings have the best chance to be considered as human beings....
We must keep Canada united and make it even better, for ourselves, for our children, for future generations of Canadians, but also for all those human beings throughout the world who love our country as a paradigm of what the world can become. [Source: "150 years of Canadian democracy." Canadian Speeches 12.2 (May 1998): 13-18. ]
5 comments:
Excellent Post! Thank you!
I suspect you're getting no comments because the scowling masses behind Harper can't really respond to Harper's apparent distaste for his own country. And how does any of what Dion says fit the channel everyone seems to be on (libs included) that Dion can't possibly be up to the task at hand.
But he does have a lot to offer, if we actually pay attention.
Good post, might have to pick up a copy of his biography. Harper's comments remind me more of souverainistes than Conservatives. Bien-sûr, conservateurs veulent toujours moins ''interférence'' de l'état, peut-être c'est à cause de lui que c'est suele les conservateurs et les bloquistes qui dominent le Québec.
Thanks for dropping by and taking the time to leave comments, Joseph and Abdul-Rahim!
I'm new in the blogosphere and don't have a lot of traffic yet so it's great to see that people are finding me ;-)
Joseph, you're right, Dion has a lot to offer, and he's been saying many of the same things for 11 years - he hasn't just suddenly seen the light because of the Liberal leadership.
Abdul-Rahim, it's also pretty ironic that, as intergovernmental affairs minister, Dion was a staunch defender of rights for ALL provinces against federal interference in areas of provincial jurisdiction.
Both his bio and his book of speeches on unity (Le pari de la franchise / Straight talk) are well worth picking up.
(By the way, sorry it took a few hours to publish your comments. There's so much hate-speech on the Internet that I've decided to moderate comments because I don't want this blog to be another venue for the moronic drivel that we see so much of.)
Dion thinks like a lefty . . . with his emotions . . . the Canada he described doesn't exist. But spending your life going to school . . . doesn't usually equip one for the real world.
Harper talks about Canada's shortcomings and you all go into spazzz mode . . .
Under the lib watch this country has lost more industry, imported more criminals and taxed the masses to submission.
Mr Dion seems like a very nice man . . . but he did little or nothing as a member of the previous govt . . . and I expect his tenure as LPC leader will be short!!!
Hi Oldschool, thanks for stopping by.
Not surprisingly, I don't agree with most of your comments.
For instance, Dion achieved a lot while in government. For starters, support for sovereignty in Quebec dropped from nearly 50% in 1995, just before he came into the government, to about 30% in 1996. His Clarity Act gets a lot of the credit for that.
He was actively involved in many agreements with all of the provinces while in intergovernmental affairs. A large part of the work of an intergov affairs minister is actually facilitating the work of other departments, so the minister doesn't necessarily get a lot of publicity. You can read more about his intergov affairs work in Straight Talk.
As Environment Minister for just over a year, he achieved an enormous amount, including agreements with all of the provinces. For instance, he had an agreement with PEI that would have seen the province getting 99% of their energy from renewable sources (e.g. wind). His green plan did indeed achieve reductions in industrial GHGs. And his work at the December 2005 UNFCCC conference was seen as "heroic" by environmentalists - but more on this tomorrow for Blog Action Day.
Re taxes - Liberal governments, after eliminating the Mulroney-era deficit, reduced both personal and corporate taxes. The Harper Conservative government actually raised taxes for people in the lowest tax bracket. Dion proposes making deeper corporate tax cuts than Harper.
Losing industry? Seems like we've lost a lot of Cdn industry in the past year, and especially since the Harper/Flaherty income trust reversal. Importing criminals? Huh?
You seem like a reasonable person, and I don't know how to break this to you, but the Harper Conservatives don't always let the truth get in the way of a good story.
If you're really interested in Dion's record, have a look at Straight Talk and Linda Diebel's bio, Stéphane Dion: Against the Current. They should be available in any library.
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