RankandFile.ca: Vote Liberal to defeat the Harper Tories

We are only months away from the federal election we’ve all been waiting for. This will be our chance to throw out the Harper Conservatives and put an end to nine years of lies, abuse, bigotry and bullying.

The Conservatives are so bad that we have to make sure we get rid of them.

That is why Rankandfile.ca is endorsing Justin Trudeau and the Liberals.

We have to be realistic. Voting according to the issues probably means not voting for the Liberals. But the Liberals have mounted an incredible opposition since Harper was first elected in 2006. From Michael Ignatieff, to Stephan Dion, to Justin Trudeau, it’s been an unbroken chain of effective opposition unseen since the Liberal stance against free trade in 1988.

It is easy enough to make criticisms of Trudeau. Everyone makes mistakes. Yes, Turdeau and the Liberals have endorsed Bill C-51 which provides new sweeping government powers to violate in the civil rights of law-abiding Canadians.

But remember, it was under the previous Trudeau that the RCMP so wildly overstepped their bounds in spying on Canadians that CSIS had to be created in the first place. So we can at least trust the Liberals to do the right thing years after these problems become public.

On the face of it Turdeau’s support of Bill C-51 looks unprincipled. But that’s not looking at the big picture. Human rights and civil rights are political principles but they can’t be defended unless your party is in power.

The Liberals won’t be dividers
We also can’t have decisive and divisive actions in our next government. We’ve seen how destructive nine years of decisive Tory rule is. The Liberals will try to build a consensus of support across party lines to very slowly implement better changes without rocking the boat. That is why we have to be prepared to elect the Liberals again in 2019 to finish the job.

This consensus-building approach was taken by President Obama and we can see how well it has worked in making sure racism and the war on workers has been defeated in the United States.

This gradual, slow approach is already the Liberal position on home mail delivery cuts. Rather than using its democratic mandate to order Canada Post’s reversal of home delivery cuts, a Liberal majority government will implement a moratorium to cuts and leave the next step undecided. It is these temporary and flexible measures that will make sure all the problems caused by the Tories are eventually reversed one day down the road at some undefined point in the future.

We need the Liberals for National Childcare

Last but not least, we have a better future with a party that has always promised us a national childcare plan. Rankandfile.ca sincerely believes that the Liberals are ready to decisively implement it this time because the economy is not as bad as it was in the early 1990s.

Back then, the Liberals couldn’t implement national childcare because they were busy making decisive and bold cuts to education and health transfers to the provinces. The Liberals had to start the trend of slashing Employment Insurance eligibility to free up billions for general government revenues. This is the decisiveness we can come to expect from the Liberals when cuts need to be made. And in this economy, it could happen again.

It was unfortunate that these cuts created the provincial monsters of Harris and Klein who laid the basis for the Harper Conservatives, but digging up history makes us second guess the bright future Turdeau and the Liberals promise.

Be realistic: Demand the probable
Let’s be realistic and vote for the Turdeau Liberals. It is the only way we can get rid of the Conservatives, and the only way we can have the possibility, perhaps, I guess, of slow, gradual reversal of the Conservative damage done. We need change but not change that will irresponsibly anger Conservatives and corporations.

Remember, democracy happens every four years for a few minutes when we cast a ballot. Let’s make sure we have a large enough minority of voters providing absolute power to the Liberals for four years. If the Liberals aren’t right for this wonderful democracy, who is?

Also the hair, don’t forget the hair.