Some last minute electioneering – make your vote count

Dear Ceasefire Community,

This is our last blog post before the federal election on Monday, 21 October 2019.  I wanted therefore to take this opportunity as President of the Rideau Institute to send a personal message to you all.

Throughout the campaign, time and again, Andrew Scheer has demonstrated, like Stephen Harper before him, that he would not be a good leader for our country.

He wants to cut foreign aid, already at an historic low, thus denying help to the world’s neediest and undercutting global health and security. He attacks Justin Trudeau’s China policy but offers only increased bellicosity and trade friction as his preferred approach.

He wants to waste billions of taxpayer dollars by trying to join the American ballistic missile defence boondoggle that successive governments, Progressive Conservative, Liberal, and even Harper Conservative, have heretofore wisely avoided. His response to increased gun violence is a mirror image of failed American policies that try to ignore the role that easy access to firearms plays in their misuse.

His climate plan has been described as an effort to build a house without a hammer and a “mirror” of fossil fuel industry demands. Scheer’s promise to move the Canadian embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem not only contravenes international law and longstanding bipartisan Canadian policy, but lays bare his callous disregard for basic Palestinian human rights.

Canada needs a government that is not just willing but eager to ensure we do our part in tackling the myriad challenges facing our global community, whether this be:

  • successfully transitioning to a green, sustainable global economy;
  • easing nuclear tensions and rebuilding strategic stability;
  • placing diplomatic solutions at the heart of peacemaking efforts; and
  • eschewing endless wars and regime change efforts in favour of long-term support for building good governance, strengthening civil society and deepening respect for human rights.

Meanwhile, here at home, we need a government dedicated to an inclusive, just and prosperous society where every Canadian can celebrate this country as well as their individual heritage, whether that be indigenous or from Europe, the Asia Pacific, Africa or the Americas.

We can do this!  Make your vote count.

Onward in peace and solidarity,

 

Photo credit: Cartoonstock.com

 

Tags: American ballistic missile defence, Andrew Scheer, China policy, climate policy, CPC Leader, firearms regulation, Israel-Palestine, Jerusalem