CKNW Editorial
for November 17, 2000

I have watched politics now for a good many years ... and I have never seen anything as slimy as the attack by Immigration Minister Elinor Caplan on Stockwell Day and the Alliance Party.

Now there is plenty of meat for a full, no holds bar fight in this election. The two major parties have considerable differences and certainly have opposing views of Canada. But I can only assume that the Liberals are running scared.

First we had Captain Medicare, Jean Chretien, using a private elite hospital for his own health problems while condemning Stockwell Day for being in favour of two tiers. But however outraged we might be at Chretien's hypocrisy we can accept that as pretty routine.

But no campaign deserves the kind of stuff Ms Caplan is dishing out. If you missed it, Ms Caplan is claiming that because noted anti Semites and holocaust deniers Jim Keegstra and Doug Christie have indicated support of the Alliance that this means that the Alliance is full of "holocaust deniers, prominent bigots and racists." This is no accidental slip of the tongue as we have seen by Mr Chretien's defence of Ms Kaplan's remarks.

This is truly disgraceful. If this is the way political parties are judged then what about the fact that Ernst Zundel, the man who has made a living out of denying the holocaust was once a candidate to lead the Liberal Party?

To pronounce this sort of guilt be association tells me that Jean Chretien so badly wants to retain power that he will go into the depths of the sewer in order to fling excrement into the fan.

I think I can understand someone like Elinor Caplan, a Jew who is in trouble in her riding over Canada's vote in the Security Council condemning Israel, lashing out at anything she thinks might help her. I certainly can't condone it but desperate people do desperate things when they are backed into a corner. But for Mr Chretien not to condemn such rubbish in the strongest terms at the earliest opportunity ... for his to in fact support what Ms Caplan said, ought to be taken as a sign that this man cannot lead and simply has lost it.

And Mr Day is also attacked for his religious beliefs because he is a creationist ... he believes in the literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis. I don't believe this myself nor do a great many other Christians. But there are legitimate scholars who believe that one can find evidence to support Mr Day. But, Mr Chretien and Mr Clark deride Mr Day for what they see as antiquated views that no rational human would believe. I wouldn't normally bring this up but Mr Chretien and Mr Clark believe that when one takes bread and wine as communion that it is transformed into the actual blood and flesh of Christ. To me that is every bit as preposterous - indeed more so - than Mr Day's beliefs since a simple autopsy would prove Mr Chretien's and Mr Clark's views to be silly. Yet no one, least of all I would criticize either Clark or Chretien or any other Roman Catholic for what they believe. I don't agree with Mr Day that creationism ought to be taught in schools but Education is a provincial matter and the question is therefore moot.

But I reserve the most troubling to the last, namely what could be known as the Shawinigan Shenanigans, We've known for some time, thanks to Andrew Macintosh of the National Post that $615,000 went from the Business Development Bank of Canada to one of Mr Chretien's cronies for a bankrupt hotel Chretien once had shares in. This is only part of the porkbarrelling that went on in Chretien's riding and I suppose we've become immune to this sort of stuff. But let me put this in a local context. Supposing Glen Clark had been partners in a hotel in Vancouver East with an out and out crook.

And supposing shortly after he sold his shares in that hotel Mr Clark not once, not twice but three times but the arm on the president of the British Columbia Development Corporation, whom he had appointed to the job and whose job depended on the good graces of Mr Clark for a loan to his buddy of over $600,000.  Suppose one of those meetings took place in Mr Calr's house?

Would there be anyone in the province not demanding the premier's immediate resignation? And when thinking of such a transaction, wouldn't a simile about a dog's hind leg come to mind? Then Jean Chretien gets away with first denying he exercised this kind of influence for his convict crony but then admits it and gets away with it!

I have a great deal of trouble with much of what the Alliance stands for. I'm way to the left of them on social issues. I happen, on the other hand, to endorse their stand on reforming the system. But I have to tell you that if the Canadian public supports this Jean Chretien and his candidates they must be taken to endorse a man that makes Brian Mulroney look like a statesman.