Leader Justin Trudeau

This post was originally posted at FRS Daily Times on Blogger

National Post: Full Comment: Jesse Kline: Liberal Party Talks Tough But Still Struggles to Define Itself

It seems to me at least as a Liberal American that if a political-party is going to call itself the Liberal Party, then it should be a Liberal Party and not try to occupy the center and focus on purely centrist positions. That if you want to be a Centrist Party, then that’s what you should call yourself or the Independence Party. Perhaps Mushy Middle Party, or the Radically Moderate Party. But if you are going to call yourself the Liberal Party, then that’s exactly what you should be. Otherwise you are falsely representing and advertising yourself.

We all know where the Conservative Party in Canada is, they are a Conservative Party that’s exactly what they are representing, the center-right in Canada. And we know where the New Democratic Party is, the lets call it the far-left party in Canada. Even by Canadian standards they are on the far-left and are a social democratic Party that probably represents Quebec or Scandinavia better than Canada as a whole. Canada is not as socialist as people tend to think and actually has a smaller Federal Government as percentage of gross national product than America.

I’m not an expert on Canadian politics obviously being a life-long American whose never lived in Canada. But I do follow Canadian politics and a lot of their elections going back to the late 1990s. Thanks to C-Span and the internet and what I get about the Liberal Party in Canada is that the reason why they are out of power is because Canadians and perhaps even Liberals themselves up there do not seem to know what the Liberal Party stands for anymore.

What it means to be a Liberal? That if you are trying to just occupy the center and not look like Social Democrats, you are not only giving away the center-left in Canada, because you are not even trying to occupy what you claim to be which are Liberals, but you are also giving away the center because people don’t know what you are. You say you are Liberals, but you are trying to tell Canadians you are Centrists instead, so what are you.

All I’m saying is that if you are going to be the Liberal Party, then that’s exactly what you should be and that’s what your platform should look like. “We are the Liberal Party in Canada that represents the center-left. We are not Social Democrats on the far-left and not trying to be the New Democratic Party. But we are Liberal Democrats that believe in freedom and that its the number job of government to protect freedom for those who have it and still deserve it. And expand freedom for people who do not have it, but deserve and need it”.

It’s not the job of government to take care of people with a superstate. But to protect their freedom and expand freedom with opportunity for people who need and deserve it. Thats what a Liberal platform would look like, that’s what the vision would be. And if Justin Trudeau are actually Liberals, than that is what they would be pushing. And perhaps even get support from the growing libertarian movement in Canada who are not Social Democrats or Conservatives either.
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