"Dear Paul:  The West Can't Be Bought"

July 23, 2003

OPEN LETTER TO PAUL MARTIN

 Dear Paul,

 Now that John Manley has given up his bid to lead the federal Liberal party, it appears almost certain you’ll be the next Prime Minister of Canada – Jean Chrétien’s replacement.  Congratulations, the backroom deals and power plays at Liberal Party headquarters have obviously paid off.  

Your next task will be to seduce Canadian voters in a general election and, while you’ve already spent months, even years, preparing to do so, it’s your recent campaign to ‘woo the West” that prompted this letter.  While we westerners are far from flattered by your unsolicited attention, we’re always prepared to listen, provided that you come to us with reasonable ideas and constructive policies that respect our role as taxpayers and citizens.  And that brings us to your problem Paul. 

You and your campaign team have begun making some big promises to the West.  Last week, we heard that your “western reform package” would put an end to western alienation by hiring more westerners in government and by ensuring that more federal contracts and funding programs, which normally favour Ontario and Quebec, are re-directed to the western provinces.

Paul, you just don’t get it.  Westerners don’t want a bigger piece of over-ambitious federal feel-good programs, make-work projects and lucrative patronage contracts.  We don’t want more federal largesse for western Liberals.  We want the flow of patronage and government goodies to stop altogether! That’s our tax dollars you’re spending.  We don’t want them wasted in any province! 

If you really want to get our attention, you could start by promising to scrap the colossal waste of money otherwise known as the gun registry.  We also want the GST reduced and for you to stick to your 1999 pledge in the House of Commons to protect the traditional definition of marriage. 

And we want you to stop gouging our hard-earned paycheques. Though we realize that after building a multi-billion dollar shipping empire by registering your interests in other countries to avoid paying Canadian taxes, you may not have felt the burden of the income tax hikes you implemented when you were Finance Minister as heavily as the rest of Canadians. 

Based upon what you’ve told us, you stand for anything to anyone at any given time.  Among the many issues on which you’ve flip-flopped are the Kyoto Accord, same-sex marriages, the War in Iraq, military spending and Senate reform.  Incidentally, if you really want some tips on how to win the West, you should give Bert Brown and Ted Morton a call.  After all, they each captured more votes in the Alberta Senatorial elections than all the 26 Liberals candidates combined received in the last general election. 

No matter what the coming months hold for you Paul, I suspect you’ll learn what federal Liberals have always learned.  Your attempts to buy westerners with our own money will fail.  The West can’t be bought!