VICTORIA-Conservative leader Stephen Harper is “not equipped” to oppose Quebec sovereignists, because of Tory policies that are at odds with Quebec values, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff told a Victoria town hall meeting Sunday evening.
Repeating a message he gave a few hours earlier at a Liberal event in Vancouver, Ignatieff accused Harper of fear-mongering by suggesting the Tories needed a majority government to fight the sovereignists.
Ignatieff noted that Quebecers were opposed to Harper’s views about issues such as the long gun registry as well as arts and culture.
He also praised the Victoria community’s awareness about and commitment to protecting the environment.
He stressed the importance of protecting Canada’s oceans and said Harper was wrong to suggest that politicians must choose between protecting the environment versus the economy.
“We have to protect Canada’s oceans, we have to protect our water, we have to protect our watersheds,” he said at a town hall meeting.
“We hold this in sacred trust. The candidates here have made this so clear to me, every time I’m in Victoria. This is the city in Canada with the deepest and most passionate environmental commitment of any community in the country. You should be proud of it.”
He said that British Columbians also needed a government that is committed to a tanker ban in the northern Pacific and also understands the need to create thousands of green jobs, through policies such as incentives for home energy retrofits.
“Mr. Harper has said you got to choose between the environment or the economy,” Ignatieff said. “We’re saying we won’t have an economy unless we go green and this is where we have to go.”
Ignatieff was backed by local Liberal candidates, including Renee Heatherington, running in Saanich-Gulf Islands against incumbent Conservative cabinet minister Gary Lunn and Green party leader Elizabeth May, and NDP candidate Edith Loring-Kuhanga.
He also said the government needs to do more to investigate what’s happening to declining fish stocks. He said it should start by listening to scientists at the nearby University of Victoria, noting that the issue goes beyond economic interests.
“There’s something deeper here,” he said, in response to a question about halibut stocks from a woman who said her husband was a sports fisher. “Are we messing around the environment in ways that we don’t understand with potentially catastrophic consequences? The halibut matters to us, and the salmon matters to us because they’re kind of canaries in the mine, if I can change metaphors.’’
He suggested that declining fish stocks suggest existing practices could lead to catastrophic consequences.
“What happens to the halibut, what happens to the salmon, could be what happens to us,” Ignatieff said. “I think it’s one of the things in the politics of British Columbia, which I’ve learned most from.”
He said it was important to use science to find the right solutions, while also ensuring that the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans has earned the trust of local and Aboriginal fishermen.
“If fish farming is harming the wild salmon, we got to stop it we got to put it on land or stop it altogether,” he said.
He then proceeded to take questions on a wide range of issues, including benefits for the disabled, the labeling of genetically-modified products, and the proportional representation.
Ignatieff told one man he was not in favour of legalizing marijuana.
He also highlighted a Liberal plan to improve proceedings in the House of Commons by opening up a new online question period which would allow Canadians to ask questions to the government, and drew cheers when he told the crowd that a Liberal government would stage a summit within two months of an election to address long-term healthcare funding issues with a focus on drug insurance coverage and home care.
Ignatieff was scheduled to fly to Yellowknife on Sunday evening in advance of campaign events on Monday in the Northwest Territories.
Mdesouza@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/mikedesouza
