Conservatives, mostly, but other opponents of the Liberals have been pooh-pooh-ing for weeks the very notion of the Liberal-organized Canada at 150 conference to be held this weekend in Montreal. Now, though, on the eve of the nominally non-partisan event, the attacks are gearing up. Here's B.C. Conservative MP Jim Abbott in the House of Commons Monday:
Hon. Jim Abbott (Kootenay—Columbia, CPC): Mr. Speaker, later this week the Liberal leader will be holding his so-called thinkers conference in Montreal to try and scare up some new policy ideas for the tired old Liberal Party. Sadly, this conference will be more like a spenders conference. It will only dream up big expensive ways to raise Canadian taxes.
What is more though, this event reveals a lot about the Liberal leader. It is a closed door event and if one does not get an invitation, one cannot attend. The event is so elitist that the Liberal leader did not even bother to invite his own MPs. Does that mean he does not believe his MPs can think? The location of the conference does not even show up on its website.
Clearly, the leader does not want average Canadians to attend; his thinking being, what would ordinary Canadians be able to bring to a so-called thinkers conference? The Liberal leader had better rethink his conference. After 37 years away, the Liberal leader is clearly out of touch with Canadians.
Then, this morning, the poster at the top was delivered to my e-mail inbox by an unknown correspondent.
The attacks from the Conservatives continued in Question Period Tuesday:
Mr. Randy Hoback (Prince Albert, CPC): Mr. Speaker, this coming weekend, Liberals will gather in Montreal for their spenders conference, and make no mistake, they are planning big expensive programs that will come with high taxes and a big price tags for Canadian families.
However, I could not help but notice that out of the more than 50 guest speakers at the spenders conference, not a single one of them is from my home province of Saskatchewan.
Is the Liberal leader suggesting that the good people of Saskatchewan do not have any ideas? Apparently, not even the member for Wascana has any good ideas, because like the rest of the Liberal MPs, he did not make the invite list.
Canadians know that when the leader of the Liberal Party holds a big spenders conference, the only thing that will come out of it is new and creative ways to raise the taxes of Canadian families. That is because the leader of the Liberal Party is not in it for Canadians; he is only in it for himself.
well david…that is the level the conservatives think and act like…it is unfortunate that several ottawa based journalists seem to fall for the conservaties message and bring this forth….i guess when the journalists do start asking questions to the government they just unleash vic toews on you and other reporters. The conservatives have reduced political discourse in this country to the minimum something similiar to the republican congressmen yelling out “you liar” to obama or this weekend's just as worse rant.
These guys obviously haven't been keeping up.
This conference WAS originally going to be a rather exclusive, elitist affair. However, after pressure from grassroots party members it has been transformed into an experiment in decentralized discussion, where Montreal is merely the nexus for dozens of events being held in ridings all across the country – all of which will be monitoring AND feeding into the discussions in Montreal via the internet.
I'm proud to be involved with organizing the Canada 150 forum here in Halton, being held on Saturday at Sheridan College. We have three separate discussion topics lined up, with over a dozen panelists including local municipal councillors, environmental and social policy leaders, members of the media, and many other eminent community members.
All are welcome to attend and participate.
This thing hasn't been well organized at all. You can't possibly expect people to contribute financially to the Liberal Party and then call it a non-partisan event. I am all for the LPC being able to recover costs. But to make an electoral contribution to the party in order to provide my industry advice. The logic is not there.
“Conservatives, mostly, but other opponents of the Liberals have been pooh-pooh-ing for weeks …”
Oh, don't worry, Liberal-friendly media will soon be touting the marvelous ideas emanating from the conference.
Don't worry the media are invited to what Weston accurately portrayed as a wind-athon. Lots of people sporting ideas that are not practical to implement or would cost a fortune. Of course the latter doesn't bother the Liberal party. The more expensive the more they will like the idea. Iffy is so incompetent as a political leader he can only make himself into a professor any chance he gets. Hence his fixation on visiting schools and lecturing kids who don't have a clue. However, the media will build this thing up like the second coming because they know the Liberals need all the help they can get to defeat that “nasty” Mr. Harper.
Dave,, The conservatives are attacking, get real, the MSM is the one doing most of the attacking and fellow members of the LPC or their supporters are mouthing off, very few conservatives are saying much at all, I am betting they are just sitting back and enjoying the chance the LPC gave them to change the channel.
1) It's my understanding that the speakers aren't being charged a registration fee, but other invited guests are.
2) Apparently the conference is going to cost the Liberals more than they will recoup through the fees, so you wouldn't really be giving the party anything.
3) Registration for the annual TED Conference is about $6,000.
4) If you really want to participate, go to one of the local events. They might pass the hat to pay for the room and the sandwiches, but I doubt if they'd kick you out if you didn't chip in.
I think the Liberal Party should be commended for holding an ideas conference. I want to see intelligent discussion in Ottawa, not just PMO attack ads.