A Letter Addressed to No One
Below is how this email I received began:
Yesterday`s Liberal motion did not call for the withdrawal of Canadian troops from Afghanistan, merely an end to some combat operations. (John Ivison, National Post, April 25, 2007.)
Thank you for writing about the recent vote on the Liberal motion to keep our troops in Afghanistan until at least 2009. The NDP does not support the extension and therefore could not support the Liberal motion.
The NDP has been clear from the beginning that Canada needs to begin a safe and immediate withdrawal from the counter-insurgency mission in Afghanistan. I and my Party are not prepared to compromise on an issue as serious as war. My question for the Liberals is simple: If the mission is wrong for Canada, why are they asking our brave men and women to participate in it for two more years?
Yesterday, we tabled our own motion to be debated on Thursday calling for an immediate withdrawal. I've attached a copy of our motion below and you can find the press release at: http://www.ndp.ca/page/5205. Too bad that the media did not report this. The NDP motion will be debated tomorrow and the vote will likely be on Monday.
Our position on this matter is supported by many in the peace community right across Canada.
"I have always urged the NDP to take a principled position on the war. I think that is what they did in this case by not supporting the motion. No one can fault them for that, for if they voted for this flawed Liberal motion, they stood to be accused of abandoning their convictions for political expediency." Steve Staples, founder of Ceasefire.ca, April 25, 2007
"The Liberals are saying the same thing that the Conservatives said last year. They have not called for the troops to be brought home. They are supporting the mission extension that Canadians oppose." Christine Jones, Co-Chair of the Canadian Peace Alliance, April 19, 2007
We all should be concerned over the inconsistent position of the Liberals on this issue. To quote from an editorial on Wednesday, “of all the parties on Parliament Hill, none have been greater hypocrites on our military mission in Kandahar than the Liberals”. (Lorrie Goldstein, Edmonton Sun.)
Another article stated that “the Liberals, perhaps embarrassed by their flip-flop on the Afghan deployment and determined not to be seen as anti-soldier, hemmed and hawed and hedged……….. Denis Coderre, the Quebec Liberal MP who moved the pullout resolution, at times sounded as if he were supporting the other side”. Thomas Walkom, Toronto Star
I trust that you support our motion. Again, I appreciate having the opportunity to clarify our position. All the best.
Sincerely,
Jack Layton, MP (Toronto-Danforth)
Leader, Canada’s New Democrats
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Comments
Layton and Harper
Both Jack Layton and Stephen Harper are quite prepared, it seems, to severely tarnish Canada's international reputation. Harper wants to abandon our Kyoto commitments, while Layton wants us to break our promise to the world that we will remain in Afghanistan until 2009. Many of us did not agree with the extension of the mission, which Harper hastily pushed through parliament, but the decision was made and must be accepted. As is the case with Kyoto, though there are even fewer in disagreement with this. Canada must keep its commitments to the world.
Neither Harper nor Layton seem to believe in democracy. Our elected representatives both ratified Kyoto and extended the Afghanistan mission. Newly elected governments should not be undoing what a previous government has done in such a cavalier manner. At least not without a clear expression of the will of Canadians.
Layton seems determined to prop up Stephen Harper. And as is indicated once again in the above letter he sent out, he is more concerned with attacking the Opposition than he is the Party in power. It appears that Don Newman was correct when he suggested that perhaps Layton still thinks he can supplant the Liberals. A Party that obtained more than one hundred seats despite the disaster of adscam! Layton is dreaming.
If Layton had voted with the Liberals on Afghanistan, Harper would have been put under great pressure by a united opposition. What is Layton going to do next, agree with Harper on the default of Kyoto because Kyoto does not go far enough? Just as, in his view, the Afghanistan motion did not go far enough?
Good point: Kyoto not going far enough.
I strongly agree with your last point. There are many people I know that believe Kyoto doesn't go far enough. If this were a legitimate reason for not going at least that far, then I suspect we would never have signed and ratified Kyoto.
If the NDP thought that they were wordsmithed into a corner by the Liberals and Bloc then the right way to handle that is to refuse to answer the question they didn't like. This would have been done by abstaining. By voting with the Conservatives they were saying something entirely different, which is that they agree with the Conservatives on this issue.
Bills are not yes/no questions. There is always yay, nay and abstain.
If this really was a set-up by the Liberals to harm the NDP as they now claim, then the NDP fell for it hook-line-and-sinker.
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Russell McOrmond (Constituent, Ottawa South)
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