Having seen both parties' ads, I find "da-grit-yout" one an attempt to forget 1993-2004.

The "dork" Tories, Alliance/Reformer may change names but the "on-the-take" Grits spent 11 years talking, looting and accomplishing nothing.

The key issue in the ad campaigns is leadership, and if Stephane Dion was PM he would have Peace-Keepers (all good Young Liberals) doing hearts & minds patrols in Maui . . . at tax payers' expense of course.

The Alliance doesn't exist anymore. Ad is a waste of time.

The Liberals have little to stand on in terms of credibility.

I find "da-grit-yout" one an attempt to forget 1993-2004.
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It's true that Stephane Dion is a bit difficult for Anglophones to understand.

But what the heck does this sentence mean? In French or English, please?

I look forward to Satan, Blue and other "new" Conservatives respond intelligently and with "credibility" to the issues raised on the Harper Index website:

http://www.harperindex.ca/index.cfm

I first came across these ads through a Liberal Weblog, Nottawa.Blogspot.com, run by a former Ministerial Assistant to Social Development Min Ken Dryden. My immediate reaction to them was that they were incredibly sophomoric, and my opinion hasn't changed.

Since the days of Pierre Trudeau federal Liberals have figured that they really don't have to committ themselves to anything concrete, just appeal in a bland sort of way to a complacent sense of "feel good" politics, Canada is the best place on earth kind of garbage. These adolescent youth spots are in keeping with that kind of approach.

Great Satan: No kidding, I find it exasperating to see words which have no meaning whatever. So what does this mean, please:

"I find "da-grit-yout" one an attempt to forget 1993-2004."

To SM, The Great Satan supports no party and does not endorse anyone, and equally dislikes them all.

To Pie-in-the sky, you are obviously too young to recall the public & private xxx-ploits over the last two decades of of federal Young Liberals aka . . . da yout wing.

Budd, come on.....I often respect what you have to say but really, Pierre Trudeau of the Constitution, Multiculturalism, no state in the bedrooms of our nation etc etc etc????

I LOVE the "adolescent youth" ad - very funny. Here's to adolescent participation in the politics of our nation!

I hate to burst your bubble, SM, but I actually lived under Pierre E. Trudeau. And as the saying goes, "he was no Jack Kennedy!"

That's not to say there weren't some accomplishments, and you've mentioned some of them. I notice you didn't mention the issue that temporarily ended Trudeau's career, the imposition of wage and price controls in 1975. Anger over that 180 degree betrayal cost the Liberals the 1979 election, but thanks to Finance Min John Crosbie's simple-mindedness they were soon back in power. The next time they lost, due largely to Trudeau's repulsive patronage excesses, they came within inchs of being permanently disenabled.

But my real point has to do not with the substance of the Trudeau years, but the approach Liberals take to winning elections. Trudeau was really the Canadian Ronald Reagan, a TV generation politician whose personal image was the entire campaign. Other parties could busy themselves with policy papers and earnest speeches if they felt like it, but the Liberals would simply run on Trudeau's image. It worked for a long time, until the recession of the early 1980s made it all feel hollow and the patronage was no longer a pardonable error, not when everyone else was facing much harder economic conditions.

To a large degree that approach to winning public support is still in vogue with the Federal Liberals. You can recall Jean Chretien trumpeting UN reports that rated Canada favourably, and Paul Martin boasting that Canada would "punch above it's weight" in world affairs, and you can remember what else? What was the Liberal party's number one issue in, say, the 2004 election campaign? A national highway system? A reduction in EI premiums? A restored Atlantic fishing industry? No, ... not really, just Canada = Best Place on Earth, Don't Let the Right Wing Nuts Spoil It stuff. You can see an minor echo of this in Gordon Campbell's TV ads, BC, The Best Place on Earth. Which stupidity will now I see be on all our bloody licence plates!

Budd, I lived during the Trudeau era too but not in Canada during those years. Until Trudeau came along, many people living on the same continent with me thought that Canada was another US State - they are beginning to believe the same thing now - for obvious reasons - but there were many, many years that we had an international profile separate from the United States and frankly, I liked that then and would prefer it now.

When I returned to Canada well into my adulthood I was surprised to learn of the historical animosity between the NDP and the Liberals. It doesn't serve the country from my point of view.

I believe that we need to understand where the Old Conservative Government is taking our country and what it will become if it were, goddess forbid, to win a majority government:

http://www.walrusmagazine.com/print/2006.10-politics-stephen-harper-and-the-theocons/

ps. I would agree that Gordon Campbell is definitely the wrong leader for this province. There are no real Values attached to anything he does.

"he was no Jack Kennedy!"

Budd, am I to understand that you actually admired Jack Kennedy?

If so, why?

Until Trudeau came along, many people living on the same continent with me thought that Canada was another US State

To be blunt, SM, this is just the kind of feel good nonsense I was talking about. Entirely fake claims, pure puffery, rubbish from start to finish. It's meant for consumption by an uncritical audience of sycophants who don't have the guts to say the Emperor has no clothes.

Jack Kennedy? John F. Kennedy came from an extraordinarily wealthy and politically connected family. Yet he and his brother Joe both voluntered for active duty during WWII. John was wounded and Joe was killed. Whatever some may think of the PT 109 stories, the simple truth was than John Kennedy had shared in the same deadly risks that millions of others had faced as well. For this if nothing else, he was and remains the best loved American statesman of the Twentieth Century.

In Canada there was no Jack Kennedy. While some veterans of WWII served in Parliament, none became Prime Minister. Diefenbaker and Pearson had both served briefly in WWI, but the WWII generation never saw power in our national politics. Probably the only well-know provincial Premier who was a veteran of WWII was John Robarts of Ontario. A stage in the development of our national political culture was effectively omitted.

'To be blunt, SM, this is just the kind of feel good nonsense I was talking about. Entirely fake claims, pure puffery, rubbish from start to finish. It's meant for consumption by an uncritical audience of sycophants who don't have the guts to say the Emperor has no clothes.'

When I'm in South America in September I'll let my community of friends and colleagues there know what you think of them. Not that they'd care - they have much bigger challenges to deal with, one of which is how well Canadians and United Statesists live on their dime. The fact remains that there were large communities of individuals in the country in which I was raised who knew nothing whatsoever about Canada until Trudeau came along. That this makes you huff and puff with self righteous indignity is very amusing.

I understand why SOME United States citizens would consider Jack Kennedy to be "the best loved American statesman of the Twentieth Century" but why would you be so impressed with his war record? Must be a guy thing...........

By the way, Budd, among the issues that South Americans have with individuals from your part of the world is how you toss around the term "American" as though the only "Americans" are those who live in the United States.

The fact remains that there were large communities of individuals in the country in which I was raised who knew nothing whatsoever about Canada until Trudeau came along. ... why would you be so impressed with his war record? Must be a guy thing........... among the issues that South Americans have with individuals from your part of the world is how you toss around the term "American" as though the only "Americans" are those who live in the United States.

SM, you're such a put on. Do you really think you're fooling any one with this stuff? For one thing, it's well known that John F. Kennedy was particularly popular throughout Latin America, so I don't know what you're trying to prove here.

I suppose you're one of those Liberal propagandists who likes to tell people over drinks that on their many trips to Europe they have found American kids sewing Maple Leaf patches on their packs so that the Europeans will think they're Canadians. Just before they hand over the US currency. Your fake Canadian nationalism, all talk, no action, stands in marked contrast to your party's traditional continentalist stance.

Where have I asserted that Kennedy wasn't liked in Latin America?

I'm not a Liberal ("propagandist" or otherwise) and I rarely drink.

I don't travel to Europe.

Why would I want to "fool" anyone? What it there to "put on"?

You go to bullying when you feel challenged - something I've experienced from other men on the Left - well, not only from men on the Left; it's been my experience that men from all political persuasions don't like to feel challenged, especially by a woman. Robin Morgan wrote so well about men like you in her essay "Goodbye to All That". It's in her book "Going Too Far" just in case you wanted a reference.

You sneer at what you characterize as my "fake Canadian nationalism, all talk, no action blah blah blah" You don't know me; you'll never know me. I don't hang out with people like you.
People like you suffer from M. A. S.* You already know everything there is to know. It's boring for me to be around people with M. A. S. Pathetic, this need to win. Sad really to find that the Emperor, someone I admired from afar, has no clothes.

*Male Answer Syndrome