Canada's May 2 federal election is about character and vision, according to Bob Rae, the Liberal Party's foreign affairs critic.
"This is an unusually important election," he said at a town hall meeting in Powell River on Saturday morning, April 9.
Rae attended the meeting with Dan Veniez, the Liberal Party candidate in West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country. About 40 people joined them for the event.
The reason the country is having an election is not just about the government's budget, Rae said. Over a period of four months, Prime Minister Stephen Harper would not give Parliament information it needed to make decisions on the government's proposal to purchase fighter jets, to build more prisons and to proceed with corporate tax cuts.
"The whole principle of our government is that your members of parliament, your members of council, your members of the provincial legislature have to have information about what it is the taxpayers' money is being spent on," Rae said. "This is the most secretive, closed, top-down, command-and-control government in Canadian history."
In his opening remarks, Veniez said he was not running against incumbent Conservative MP John Weston; his opponent was Harper and the Tea Party agenda the Conservatives promote.
"We can not allow a majority government, that's one thing, clearly," Veniez said. "But we can not afford another five years of that gradual incrementalism where our basic fundamental values, the tenants that have made this country what it is, are being chipped away and eroded."
While the riding has benefited from the government's stimulus funding, Veniez said, "It's our money. We should not be grateful to a member of parliament or a government for returning our money to us. What we have to be mindful of and concerned with is how our money is spent."
