March 20, 2000
Please! No more! - THE COMMENTARY
By Joseph Planta
VANCOUVER -- I was greeted last Tuesday with the beaming headline that our Prime Minister, Jean Chrétien will stay on as leader of the Liberal Party and run for a third-consecutive term. After seeing that headline and the, nearly half page colour mug of Chrétien splashed across the front page of The National Post, I was crestfallen.
I don’t hate Jean Chrétien personally. He must be a nice man, (at least he seems it, in the couple of letters he’s sent my way) but the problem I have with him and his party is that they reek of arrogance. I have said many times that Mr. Chrétien tries to be arrogant in the same way Pierre Trudeau was an arrogant charmer, but Chrétien ends up being an arrogant bully. Case in point, his snappy and stupid lines retorting to the press: “What is a boondoggle?” “Well, they can’t do anything, because I’m the leader.”
Sure, politics is a profession for this type of people, but when you act like this in its extremist form and you run the country, you ought to refrain from being so stupid.
Chrétien is far from charismatic. He attracts people simply because Joe Clark is a stinking bore, with Chrétien, at least we have something to laugh at. Jean Chrétien represents something that Canadians can’t relate to. He’s a man who’s stuck it out for more than 30 years as a cabinet minister who’s rode on the coat tails of excellent timing and even-more opportune chance. Chrétien, even though he inhabits 24 Sussex Drive, still is being a little opportunistic. He’s only been elected, the last two times (perhaps, God-forbid a third time,) because of the apathy and complacency amongst Canadians. The Liberals feed on our unknowing and disregard for all things fair and correct, and that’s why no matter if it’s Preston Manning, Giles Duceppe, Joe Clark, Alexa McDonough or Stockwell Day, they can’t lose.
What Paul Martin has that Jean Chrétien doesn’t is his far superior grasp of both official languages. Sometimes it’s embarrassing to see Mr. Chrétien try to weasel his way through scrums or conversations using both languages. We shouldn’t hold it against him, but I think it’s safe to say most “Westerners” can’t relate to the mangled orator from Saint-Maurice. (See the amount of Liberals elected in the four provinces west of Ontario.)
Maybe that’s why Stockwell Day is seen as the solution?
Mr. Chrétien, kindly return to your riding (I hear it has some neat stuff in it) and to your wife Aline. You have served this country well, both in the Liberal caucuses of Pearson, Trudeau and John Turner. You served the Trudeau government in upstanding form, through your championing of the Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And through your Prime Ministership of this country since 1993, you’ve done some good, among other things. I sincerely hope you understand that Canadians want a new leader, one for a new century, not one who’s dead set in repeating the achievements of Trudeau or Laurier.
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An archive of Joseph Planta's previous columns can be found by clicking HERE .