Dear Conservative Party of Canada
While you spend some time ‘studying what went wrong’, let me offer some insight. Canadians were tired. We were tired of the bullying that Stephen Harper had perfected, the behind-closed-door deals, the lying, the contempt of Parliament, and the contempt for democracy. While I absolutely believe you went to Ottawa with nothing but the best intentions to serve your country, you all allowed one man to control you, control your thoughts, control your message and sadly, to control your actions (or lack thereof). You not only turned a blind eye to the indifference that Mr. Harper showed for Canadians, you mirrored his behavior. You never once stood up for your constituents, the people who elected you – who were essentially your board of directors, who offered you a mandate to speak on their behalf – when Mr. Harper told you to toe the party line. You ignored the hypocrisy of a leader who was elected to be honest, transparent and accountable, who then broke every one of those promises daily. We saw it. I have absolutely no doubt that you saw it as well, but it was not in your best ‘political’ interests to call him on it.
Yours was a government that refused to be accountable. You refused to talk to the media. You refused to answer questions. You passed massive omnibus bills – something that Mr. Harper adamantly opposed when he was on the other side of the aisle – knowing what odious deals were contained within them and then you upped the ante by refusing to allow discussion or debate. You then even blatantly tried – yes, you tried – to destroy the integrity and equality of our electoral system with your 'Fair' Elections Acts and your gerrymandering.
You willfully participated in election fraud, among you were people who participated in criminal activity, yet your arrogance did not allow you to stand up to do the right thing. You were dishonest with Canadians continually, and when someone dared to attempt to hold you to account, you ignored, then you redirected – to issues that had the sole intention of creating hatred and fear.
Here is the saddest aspect of the last 10 years. You may well have had some good ideas. You may well have had good intentions, at least when you arrived in Ottawa, but with all of the arrogance, dismissiveness, divisiveness, patronage appointments, indifference and lies, not one of you could be trusted. You all sold out to one man who was, at best a megalomaniac, and who may well have been a sociopath... and YOU DID NOTHING TO STOP IT OR TO HOLD YOUR PRIME MINISTER ACCOUNTABLE. You were active, willing participants in the destruction of a once-proud, credible, honorable party. Shame on all of you.
This election was about morals, about standing up for those who need someone to stand up for them (yes, this would include all missing and murdered women), about honesty, and saying we are Canadians who are compassionate, involved, open, welcoming, peace-loving and proud – all things that you have spent the last 10 years proving you were not.
Take heart though. The effort to determine what went wrong should not take long. Start with the gutter-crawling you did in your campaign, and with the fact that you spent the last four years campaigning to keep power instead of doing what you were supposed to do with the authority you were given by the voting public. You forgot who you worked for, who you were to answer to, and it was NOT the Prime Minister or the PMO. You allowed Stephen Harper to be a party of one, so yes, this is on you. Hopefully, Canadians have now seen what can happen when elected politicians become too entitled. Hopefully it will never happen again. Stephen Harper and ‘His Conservative Government’ will be a stark reminder of this for many years.
