A Canada That Canadians Want

I am almost afraid to pick up the newspaper in the morning these days.

We have a Prime Minister who was going to spend 2 million dollars of taxpayers money on a new press theatre so he could control who entered and what issues were covered. Does this make any sense when we have a perfectly usable National Press Theatre a block away. A Press Theatre that has been used by all prime ministers and cabinet ministers since it opened in 1965??

We have a Minister of National Defence, Peter MacKay who is deliberately misleading Canadians and other countries about the Liberal record on defence spending. The fact is when the Liberals were in government 12.8 billion dollars in new money was committed for defence - the largest increase in 20 years. Why is Minister MacKay spreading false partisan propaganda to our NATO allies? To divert attention away from the Conservative Government's mismanagement of the Afghanistan mission.

If we dare to go beyond the daily newspaper, we can also read the book published by Tom Flanagan, one of the Prime Minister's closest advisors. It is a fascinating read. Mr. Flanagan brags about the things he helped Harper do while in government:
- stopping dead the national plan for early learning and child care
- ending the Court Challenges Program
- breaking up the Wheat Board and planning to end Supply Management
- ignoring kyoto, because global warming is good for Canada's weather
He truly believes it is ok for the Conservative party to mislead Canadians if that's what it takes to win.

Well I don't believe it is ok. It is not right to mislead Canadians, it is not right to mislead Canada's allies and above all it is not right to try to end freedom of the press in this country.

This is not the Canada that Canadians want.

Signed,
Susan Whelan