A11

Brian Murphy

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Speak Up

Summer is over now and I hope that it was filled with memories of time spent with family friends, being busy trying to take in to warm summer air before the fall and winter. Unfortunately, I'm sure that your summer was also filled with confusion about election calls.

This week, next week- back and forth. Well, that's what the Harper government was busy doing this summer, in addition to its efforts at excluding vital communities, and evading responsibility on important issues. What they weren't busy doing is listening to Canadians.

I'd like to take this opportunity to look back at the Conservative summer of 2008.Let's start off with the Parliamentary dysfunction that kick-started the summer. As a member of the Justice committee I saw firsthand how Conservative MPs used their party's "playbook" to block committee proceedings. Their sole objective was to prevent the committee from looking into bribery allegations connected to former MP Chuck Cadman.

Then there's PM Harper's Olympic hypocrisy. On the one hand, he refused to attend the Olympic Games; an opportunity to both show support to Canadian athletes and engage the Chinese government on their improper behaviors, especially human rights.

On the other hand, his government proposes a plan to provide funding for the 2010 Vancouver Olympic ceremonies on the condition that they reflect a conservative government agenda. So no actual support for athletes, no serious discussion regarding human rights, just another opportunity to impose Conservatism.

Then there's the massive disregard for human life taken up by the Health minister Tony Clement. He started things off by going to an international conference and calling Canada's medical experts unethical for their support of safe injection sights.

Then he turned around and supported the creation of a similar site in Quebec - where Conservatives are trying to gain votes. The Minister ended his summer of hypocrisy by simply bailing out and attending the Democratic National convention, while our country was going through a national food safety crisis, with the Listeriosis outbreak.

This summer my party, the Liberal Party and our leader, Stephane Dion, have been criss-crossing the country talking to Canadians about our economy, our environment our values and our legacy to our children.

We've been focused on what we can do now to make sure that Canadians have a stable economy to make sure that we have the natural resources and develop the right industries for the next few months years and decades. I am looking forward to continuing to challenge Conservatives on what they say they're doing for Canada and Canadians to show that what they're doing is only for their own interests.

* Brian Murphy is the Member of Parliament for Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe. He can be reached by e-mail at murphb@parl.gc.ca or at 851-3310.