Paul Martin calls new Trudeau supporters “brave”

A brave young Liberal jumpin for Justin?

In a recent fundraising email from the Liberal Party of Canada, former Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin references “6,309 Liberals – including 1,619 brave first time contributors.”

Why is a first time contributor to the Liberal Party “brave”? Apparently, it requires courage to give money to support Justin Trudeau, though La politica would suggest the better term would be “reckless”.

Mr. Martin begins his missive by stating that in the 1990s the Liberal Party “certainly didn't spend millions of taxpayer dollars on ads to buy public support for our budgets”. While we at La politica are no fans of the Conservative Party’s tactics, in fairness perhaps Mr. Martin should have mentioned the multi-million dollar corruption that formed the basis of the Sponsorship Program, which ran from 1996 until 2004.

Instead Mr. Martin claims that “We just worked hard to grow the economy so Canadian families could build a future. We knew they were counting on us.”

He then shifts gears to say that “we've got a chance to offer Canadians hard-working leadership in 2015.”

What on earth does this mean? What hard work? Trudeau endlessly refers to this presumed hard work. Where is it? He has one of the worst attendance records in Parliament. He has no platform. All he does is glad hand and make silly, dishonest videos and ask for money. Seriously – where in the world is all this “hard work” the Liberals reference ad nauseum?

And of course in short order we get to Mr. Martin’s real message: send us your money! In this the Liberals are putting in a lot of effort as they endlessly shill for cash. We track these things. The NDP was awful at harassing for funds for the longest time, but has since slowed somewhat, perhaps because they  were irritating people no end. And of course the Conservatives can be the most puerile fear-mongers.  But the Liberals now take the cake for relentlessness of their desire for more money.

We at La politica get lots of emails from the Liberals. There is never a word on what they will actually do, but apparently they need tons of money not to do it.

Martin says that “Every dollar we raise now is an investment in our Liberal values for years to come.” We have no idea what that means, though the Liberals themselves gave us a hint not long ago. Are these new Liberals really “brave”? According to multiple dictionary definitions a brave person is “ready to face and endure danger or pain.” One supposes even the former Prime minister knows that could sum up a Justin Trudeau government.

(TE Wilson is the author of Mezcalero, a Detective Sánchez novel.)