daveberta.ca leaving liblogs.ca

Just a quick note to let readers know that I’ve officially requested to be removed from liblogs.ca. As I no longer associate myself or this blog with the Liberal Party of Canada, it seemed like the honest thing to do (as opposed to the dishonest thing to do). As previously mentioned, I haven’t held a membership or been active with the Liberal Party of Canada for a couple of years and the recent quality of federal-level leadership from all parties have convinced me to keep my federal partisanship at an equal null (also, if someone figures out what the Liberal Party of Canada is standing for today, please let me know).

Like many politically active and aware Canadians, I've had a difficult time getting excited about politics with the current lack of political leadership in this country. This has led to a pretty strong disenchantment with the current pack of political leaders. Though I continue to support individual MPs and candidates on the federal scene (such as Elizabeth May, Irwin Cotler, Jim Wachowich, Olivia Chow, and Nathan Cullen), I can’t help but wonder what the days of Canada’s exciting leaders felt like – Lester B. Pearson, Robert Stanfield, Pierre Trudeau, etc and etc. I'm sure that I'm not the only Canadian look forward to the day when we will again witness some real debate on the federal political scene in Canada.

One would have hoped that three well-educated leaders like Stephen Harper (M.A. in Economics from the University of Calgary), Stéphane Dion (Ph.D. from Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris), and Jack Layton (M.A. from York University) would be able to raise the level of debate in the House of Commons, but it seems to have degenerated into something that would be more appropriate to a group of political bloggers…

Even imagining what the days of notable provincial leaders – Peter Lougheed, Allan Blakeney, Bill Davis, and René Lévesque – felt like leaves this politico wondering how Canadians ended up with their current (and for a large part uninteresting) group of provincial premiers. Is being boring an electoral strategy? Premiers Ed Stelmach and Dalton McGuinty would certainly lend credence to this theory.