Dear Editor:
Congratulations to Terry Beech, Justin Trudeau, and all the Liberals on your huge success. I did not vote for you, because I wanted more than you promised, and the federal Liberals have a history of breaking their election promises. However, the early evidence indicates that the Justin Trudeau Liberals are very different from previous incarnations of the party. There are very good indications that they will, indeed, fulfill all their election promises.
I'm only going to address two of the issues here. First, proportional representation. I don't consider proportional representation to be an important issue, but many Canadians do. Proportional representation would give us a more democratic form of government, and a modern electoral system. Hopefully, it will lead to greater participation by the citizens in the political process. It should allow us to elect more greens, and maybe even a couple true socialists.
The really big issue, of course, is global warming. This does not affect Canadians as directly as having a functioning economy, but it is nevertheless the critical issue that must be dealt with right now, or all the other issues won't matter. However, it needs to be understood that dealing with global warming does not prevent us from having a functioning economy, as the Harperites would claim. Bear in mind that the Harperites have a pathetic record on global warming as well as doing everything in their power to wreck the real economy, as you can see by simply counting the number of people who are working for minimum wage and the number of people who are homeless.
Dealing with global warming right now may be expensive, but probably far less expensive than most people realize, and definitely far less expensive than not dealing with it. Dealing with global warming right now will benefit all of us, except the oil producing companies, and they can retool. After all, they have to keep retooling anyway to find new oil resources that are getting harder and harder to exploit. Canada can and should take a leadership role in dealing with global warming, even if we are only a medium-sized country.
Justin Trudeau stands on the threshold of a great opportunity. Give us proportional representation, Justin, and that may be enough to allow us to deal with all the internal matters, even if you don't. But give us strong action on global warming, and history may judge you as being the best Prime Minister Canada has ever had.
I will end with what I hope will be my final dig at the Conservative Party, because they will become irrelevant. It's not about experience. It's about heart. You know, the thing that your lot don't have.
Victor Finberg, Burnaby
