Thursday, June 30, 2011

Then:“I think it is contemptuous to tell people we are going to target your religion...

Now: Liberals launch outreach campaign in bid to recapture ethnic vote.

Oh oh. This isn't going to sit well with Michael Ignatieff or all of the others who took offense to the CPC's efforts in this area.

Michael Ignatieff: “I think it is contemptuous to tell people we are going to target your religion, we are going to target your ethnicity, we are going to target your national origins. No! We must target the fact they are Canadian citizens.”

“I don’t like the word “ethnic,” Ignatieff said, in French. “A Sikh is a Canadian, a Hindu is a Canadian, a Muslim is Canadian, a Tamil is a Canadian.”

What about the current placeholder err leader Bob Rae?  Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae suggested the initiative was more about winning support in ethnic communities — groups that Mr. Kenney has been actively courting for the Harper government in its attempts to build a majority government.
“It has much more to do with Canadian domestic politics than it has to do with the necessity of having a coherent strategy for the promotion of democracy and human rights,” said Mr. Rae.
“It's more a domestic strategy than a foreign affairs strategy.” (ht BC Blue)

BTW how do you reach out to the 'ethnic vote' without a leader or any policy other than 'we will try super extra hard the next time to get it right'. Sorry Liberals but being totally rudderless does not inspire much confidence in your party to anyone, including the 'ethnics'.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It never cease to amaze me what the liberals intentions in this case are-really, these ethnic groups are not fools to see beyond the the liberals propaganda.

Joseph said...

Their conudrum seems to be that no matter what they do to improve their party, be it a so-called brainy new leader, sending the son of trudeau on fund raising tour, or even setting up an endless succession of policy reviews, they always end up being coopted by one of the leftwing interest groups.