For the first time I can recall, I don’t want to vote in a federal election. What a mess we are in. The Liberal Party has decided to beat up on Canadian corporations with an attitude reminiscent of the cries of corporate welfare bums of bygone times and the reign of Bob Rae when he was premier of Ontario. The present Liberal tax attack on the slowly recovering Canadian business community proves that an unrepentant Bob Rae is alive and well, wrapped in Liberal red. The NDP has swallowed the once nimble Natural Governing Party.
As for the present governing party, the progressive component of the Conservative Party has been expunged. Its leadership has shown itself contemptuous of parliamentary democracy, arrogant and secretive. Thankfully, so far they have handled the federal finance portfolio well, having the good sense to listen to the governor of the Bank of Canada and our senior federal public servants. Occasionally moving to the centre politically in order to get their budgets passed in Parliament has obviously been painful, but the results have so far been pretty successful. That is their one saving grace. Turning Canada into a big Texas is not a national goal I look forward to.
So why not just go fishing? Well, it was the words of ‘Old Joe’ that gave me pause to think again. The nickname is his. Joe was a distinguished Canadian soldier. He passed away three weeks ago in Ottawa in his 90th year. Joseph Roman Romanow grew up in Saskatoon. In 1940, he left high school and joined the RCAF. He piloted antisubmarine patrols and convoy escorts in the Battle of the Atlantic and then flew supply transport planes in India, Burma and China. After the Second World War, he remained with the armed forces and became an aeronautical engineer assigned to the Avro Arrow project. His analytical and administrative talent led to postings with NORAD and NATO. Rising to the rank of General, ‘Joe’ was Canada’s senior officer with the Allied Tactical Air Force before he moved to National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa at the rank of Brigadier General.
It was in his book Just Joe that the retired brigadier general reminded me what it means to be a Canadian. In Burma, near Rangoon, there is a British Commonwealth military cemetery with 6,400 headstones over the graves of those who died in the Second World War Burmese campaign. There is also a memorial honouring 27,000 armed forces men and women who lie unmarked and missing in Burmese jungles. In 1997, the remains of six Canadian crewmembers from the Second World War 435 RCAF Squadron, whose plane didn’t return from a supply mission, were discovered. They were all in their early 20s. They came from Nova Scotia, Ontario, Manitoba and Alberta. These young men now have headstones with names. They are Canadian. They will never come home. They will never get a chance to vote on who will speak for us on the world stage.
We owe them respect. Voting in Canada is a privilege of citizenship. My vote won’t make any difference on who will get elected to represent St. Albert in Ottawa. But I owe it to six Canadians who lay undiscovered in a jungle for 50 years to respect their sacrifice. I think I will have to figure out who I want to speak for Canada in the community of nations and vote with my eyes open.
Dr. Alan Murdock is a local pediatrician.
