NL-Outsidethebox [confederation]

Now I know why I always loved this guy. Boy did he ever get the final word and did he ever call a spade a spade.
The best part is he wasn't reading from a script it seemed to be of the cuff!


Ed Broadbent's last statement as an MP
Fri 20 Jan 2006 | Printer friendly

Good morning. I expect this will be my final press conference and I want to speak about the opportunity that Monday’s election presents to working people.

I’ve been in politics a long time. I entered in the election that elected Pierre Trudeau as Prime Minister. I worked with Mr. Trudeau on the Charter of Rights and I’m appalled at Paul Martin’s treatment of it as if it is a prop.

I know many long-time Liberals are looking at the Liberal Party they see and concluding they cannot in conscience vote for it. They are right.

No matter how unethical, undemocratic and unprincipled the Liberal Party becomes, the team of insiders at the top can simply not imagine people choosing to take power away.

It should be taken away. The Liberal Party thinks about itself more than working people. Its conduct in office has not been ethical. Its contempt for Parliament is rivaled only by its manipulation of voters.

In this election, Mr. Martin is asking voters who find Liberal behaviour unforgivable to vote for them all the same. And to those who choose a better option, he dares equate that with supporting the Conservatives. He should be ashamed.

I sat in a caucus with Tommy Douglas. With David Lewis. And with Jack Layton. For 40 years, I’ve seen New Democrats work for working people in Parliament. And we have the medicare system, pension system and a new budget to show for it.

Yet Mr. Martin accuses the New Democratic Party of partisanship. Were it not for the NDP putting its interests aside and putting working people’s interests first, the Liberal Party would have been fed to voters last spring.

It now is. And it has run a campaign that at best is incoherent, and at worst is deeply offensive. To women. To members of our armed forces. And to people who long for intellectual honesty in politics once more.

It is clear the Liberal Party no longer has the moral authority to deserve people’s votes. It is, simply, not the party it used to be or the party it portrays.

Mr. Martin’s team is running a campaign based on intellectual dishonesty. Cynical manipulation. And recklessly using significant issues for the sole purpose of continuing Liberal entitlement – which we know is used to benefit Liberal insiders, not working people.

For those reasons, I urge people to look at the option presented by Jack Layton and the New Democratic Party. And this once, vote for the kind of change you want. Vote NDP, for the kind that puts working people first.

Way to Go ED! I wish you all the best you deserve it! Thank-You for serving the Canadian People so unwaverinly well all these years.