Pearls of wisdom (en francais)

Since old speeches by politicians seem to be all the rage these days, I thought I would grab an extra large Tims, fire up Google and spend an afternoon doing some research. Imagine my surprise when I found this speech in my first ten minutes. The Atlantic Tiger: Sharpening Our Regional Claws - Hon. Frank McKenna, P.C. Q.C. - Speech, Septemer 29th 2004 APEC conference

"I’m from the school of thought that believes that retired politicians should be seen but seldom heard and I always fancied myself in retirement as being a wise old man who would occasionally drop a few pearls of wisdom to those who wanted it instead of being a kind of yappy know-it-all…a person who didn’t know when to leave the political stage."

Ouch! I hope Brian Tobin and Allan Rock didn't hear that. Not a bad opener, but you have to wonder if this is just going to be the same old, same old, boring political speech.

"The only asset, I repeat the only asset that I can bring now to you is that I have no axes to grind, I have no special interests, I have no constituencies that I have to suck up to get elected, so I can say whatever I think."

Wow! This one should be a barn burner. Nice to know, though, that that's all Frank has been doing all these years is 'sucking up' to people to get elected.

"Now, there has been some interest in Ottawa expressed at different times but there’s always the suggestion that this would end up violating the Charter of Rights, directing immigrants as to where they have to go. And I’ll tell you frankly, I can’t for the life of me see how a refugee from Bangladesh would have more rights than a community of two million people here in Atlantic Canada that simply want a chance to grow and thrive and make this region better"

Charter rights and immigration all in one. So let's follow along here. The "refugee from Bangladesh" should go where told to go and like it, regardless of the Charter of Rights. Very enlightening.

"And this issue of one region didn’t seem to be a factor two weeks ago when the Government of Canada gave a special side deal to the Province of Quebec in order to get them to sign the healthcare accord. When it’s done in that context, it is called asymmetric federalism. When we want it, it is called special deals for our region and I do not think that is right. So in my humble view this issue of politics and regional politics is the last refuge of political cowards."

Well, we know what he thinks of Paul now.

Take a few minutes and read the speech. It's very interesting.