“I’m ready for change” letter (Sept. 30) by Joanna Lord suggests that “omnibus bills” are a new thing devised by the Conservative Party of Canada. The facts are quite different.
For instance in 1968 one famous omnibus bill became the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1968-69, a 126-page, 120-clause amendment to the Criminal Code of Canada, which dealt with issues as diverse as homosexuality, prostitution, abortion, gambling, gun control and drunk driving.
This was introduced by Mr. P. E. Trudeau of the federal Liberal Party.
The next omnibus bill also introduced by Mt. Trudeau’s federal Liberal government in its first budget after the 1980 election was presented by Mr. MacEachan (finance minister) to the nation which included the National Energy Program (NEP) promoted by Marc Lalonde (energy minister).
The NEP was one of the most sweeping and divisive government policies ever undertaken in Canada.
It was a unilateral attempt by the federal government to achieve energy security, by which was meant oil self-sufficiency; a redistribution of wealth towards the federal government.
Marc Lalonde later acknowledged the motive was what Albertans had suspected all along: to transfer wealth from Alberta to central Canada.
The negative impact on the western provinces was immense and in particular on Alberta where real estate values shrank 40 per cent, bankruptcies ballooned for both small businesses and the general public, many of whom lost their homes.
The NEP was a disaster. Little wonder the west still distrusts central Canada.
Joanna Lord exhorts us to vote for the NDP.
Trudeau senior was a member of the CCF (the forerunner of the NDP) in the 1950s, and when he decided to get into federal politics he chose to join the Liberal Party of Canada.
Trudeau felt the federal NDP could not achieve power, and expressed doubts about the feasibility of the centralizing policies of the party. The current NDP bent of mind is focused on Ontario and Quebec (central Canada). Its budget of bountiful increases in social spending and a balanced budget is fantasy — it is not plausible and it won’t fly.
I hope the voters will stop to think what they are voting for and leave emotion out of the equation. There are plausible options other than the NDP.
Christopher Carruthers
Duncan