Corruption and the Liberals

Well the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada has decided to step down from his position as soon as his new replacement is voted on by the members of the Liberal Party. I had hoped that this humiliation would have woken up the Liberals and they could have begun to show themselves as a plausible alternative to the government as opposed to the stink of corruption they still have on themselves.

Years ago, there had been evidence presented that money from the government was used to promote the Liberal Party in a very positive light. The law prevents public money to be used to promote a political party and it had been shown that this was the case where the Liberal Party had benefited from such an arrangement, it was all steeped in secrecy and money exchanges were by cash with no (or ambiguous) receipts. The leader of the Liberals at that time was Prime Minister and he admitted that wrongdoing had been made and the ones responsible were a minority within the Party. The Liberal Party should not be punished for the wrongs committed by a tiny minority and that he as leader was rectifying the problem.

How did this leader of the Liberal Party pass on his message to the population of Canada? Simple, he spent government money to have a national television broadcast for the Prime Minister. When he had the attention of the Canadian population in their living rooms, he admitted that there was corruption within the Liberal Party, he claimed that this corruption was a minority within the Liberal Party, he claimed that he would clean it up as leader of the Liberal Party..... then to add insult to our intelligence, he claimed that he would never use public money to promote the Liberal Party. HE HAD JUST DONE SO! For whatever reason, many didn't even notice this flagrant slap in the face.....

Well a new leader was chosen afterwards, why they chose a leader who had been known as a bully against the Quebec sovereignists which just strengthened their resolve to show how Ottawa was against Quebec.... well I'll never figure that one out, I guess they really are clueless about how to deal with Quebec. If you make a claim that you think is correct and someone threatens to beat you up for expressing that claim.... do you not think that you will be that much more determined to express it? The 1995 sovereignty referendum showed that to anyone who cared to notice. First the Liberal leader of that time discounted the message like it wasn't even worth his time to reply, then when it was discovered that this angered many, they tried to use threats and fear-mongering which also backfired (remember how close that vote was?). This is where the current leader, Stephane, made his entrance in the public sphere. He decided to use the strategy of being a bully. And even today, people wonder why he is not respected in Quebec.

This humiliating defeat in the election that just happened should have taught this leader a lesson which he could have used to become a better leader. No such luck; he spent his goodbye speech to blame the Conservative Party of using a smear campaign against him. Previous errors were not admitted, if the Liberal Party lost so many seats it was because the Conservatives had a better advertising campaign. Stephane makes the claim that people just didn't understand him because the Conservative Party painted him as incompetent.... ironically his own words then say that what we knew of him was the "old" him and that people did not get the chance to know the "new" him (can you see the irony? Stephane says that the claim of incompetence is groundless yet he just admitted that it is based upon what he was--> the "old" him).

Someone asks Stephane how he felt when no one jumped to his public aid for him to stay as leader of the Liberals.... How does this misunderstood leader answer? He continues to relay his message that the Liberals had a great platform, that if the Conservatives had not attacked his personal competence (they had more money for advertising, so we will have to find more money so that we can inform the voters of our platform in a better way).... (irony #2, a perfect opportunity to relay to Canadians that he is someone with feelings, that he is not a high-minded intellectual with views that are inaccessible.... and how does he answer? by repeating the same stuff that the Conservatives have used to fuel their propaganda against this leader). So much for answering the question asked.

The last irony, which is as glaringly obvious as when Paul Martin used a national broadcast to promote the Liberal Party's ratings by using government money and then claiming that he would never use public money to support his political party and that others had done this.... Well a journalist asked a very astute question, she pointed out to Stephane that he was blaming the Conservative Party for negative propaganda and that this seemed to be the main reason of why the Liberal Party lost in the last election, she then asked him if he had any personal responsibility on the defeat of the Liberals. Now two things to point out here, and these can be used in propaganda classes as a perfect example of rhetoric and propaganda.

First, the rhetoric: Stephane says (and I paraphrase): "of course I have personal responsibility in this" then he proceeds with the a big "but".... he starts saying that the Conservative Party used negative advertising that is low (unsubstianted claims against the Liberal Party), but this action only demonstrates that they are using American Politics tactics, the Conservatives import tactics from the Americans or even sometimes from the Australians. This is the glaring irony.... Now whether or not the Conservatives have used low tactics is irrelevant, the implied message is that Stephane or the Liberals are above such low tactics, and yet he attempts to paint the Conservatives as following in the footsteps of American politicians (here in Canada, this is seen as un-Canadian, therefore bad), Stephane further implies that the Conservatives can not have their own Canadian ideas because they import the American way (UNSUBSTIANTED CLAIM) as well as the Australian way (AN ACTUAL CASE WHERE A SPEECH WRITER COPIED A SPEECH FROM AN AUSTRALIAN SPEECH BUT THIS SITUATION COULD HAVE HAPPENED UNDER ANY POLITICAL PARTY EVEN THE LIBERAL PARTY).... So here we have Stephane claiming that the Conservative Party uses low blows against him and provides his own low blow against them while implying that he would never do that. (Brilliant use of rhetoric: an appearance of his opponent's wrongdoing to smash them while claiming to be the victim of the same sort of attack from them that he just delivered to them). Of course, if you look more closely, you will find that the Liberal Party engaged in more "low blows" against the Conservatives than vice versa.... (the Conservatives are definitely not white as snow, but they are substantially whiter than the Liberals and the wrongdoings were acknowledged and corrected).

Second the propaganda--> Now I can not say that this was planned by anybody, but it is the nature of the current media system that we have. It is an example of a blatant lie, but there is no evidence that anyone masterminded this..... (maybe it was planned, but it seems highly unlikely). Stephane answered the above question by spending 95% of his time blaming the Conservative Party.... yet at the beginning of the question he answered that he had personal responsibility in this.... this was more of a sidestepping of the question asked without really answering the main question (something most politicians do, unfortunately.... and we let them get away with this). The irony is that minutes after the question was answered and that Stephane was in the middle of some other question, I noticed at the bottom of the screen the news highlights of the day. Can you guess what I saw? The news brief stated that Stephane said he has personal responsibility for the defeat of his party. True, the words were spoken by him. The implication of that quote contradicts what was actually said, contradicts the very essence of the message that was conveyed. This quote will be used to paint a picture of Stephane as being something that he did not convey at the actual interview.... and if the Conservatives would decide to use other excerpts of that same answer, they would be accused of being "low". This shows the seed of a propaganda being formed to convey the opposite of what just happened.

My rhetoric example above was to show the contradiction (linking to the former corruption which does not seem to have disapeared) of the Liberal Party (focused on its immediate leader). Anyone who is astute can find more examples if they so choose. This is not a personal attack on any one party because any party can be corrupted in a similar way.... I just use this as one example of the inadequacies in our current system of politics (by promoting the lie). My propaganda example above is more an attack on the media, one of the unofficial branches of government. They should be more responsible and take that extra 10 minutes to convey more truth than rushing out a quote that actually misleads the intent of its message.

On a different note about an interview done before the elections even happened:

To be fair to Stephane, he was inapropriately treated when one news channel decided to show their entire personal interview prior to election day when Stephane asked to have his lack of understanding of a question be edited out..... the reason that this was not fair to Stephane was because this kind of editing happens all the time for everyone else..... why treat Stephane any differently? Had this news channel been known to not edit others during such interviews, then I would not defend Stephane on this issue. Now that was a low blow against Stephane (done by a news media who usually edits interviews). But the irony is that this news media usually portrays the Liberals in a much more positive light than the Conservatives.... perhaps they wanted to balance out? More scrutiny would be needed.