Dear Mr. Blackmore:
Excuse my inability to understand your citizenship. I guess I don't know
the answer to your question, however, I am going down to register as a
Conservative Party Member this afternoon and I will inquire.
You asked, "So, apart from MAI and a free trade bias (on what basis?", I
assume you are asking on what basis is David seeking the Conservative Party
Leadership? I don't know. However, I can give you my opinion and that is
there exists an opportunity to enter politics at a high enough level to
provide leadership and thence direction. Normally, David would pick a
party, perhaps the Conservatives, campaign in a local riding and become
another ineffectual Member of Parliament. Perhaps after several terms and
with luck being in a Party that won the right to govern, he might even
become a Cabinet Minister. Perhaps, if history favoured him, he might even
be able 10 - 20 years from now run in a conventional leadership convention
in which he would have to sell his soul to backroom deals to get a majority.
By that time, I assume, like Joe Clark, a good and honest man and Hugh Segal
another good and honest man, he would have compromised himself many times
through Parliamentary politics that he could not honestly hold any
leadership direction that was not compromised by previous exchanges of
favours - not necessarily dishonest, just politically necessary.
This new direction of the Conservative Party offers a unique opportunity for
unconditional leadership to be asserted. Yes, he is a bit of a one trick
pony, but it is a very big pony. The argument that Free Trade has put
Canada on the road to practical if not actual domination and assimilation by
the US is compelling. It is a bad deal and the promised advantages have not
been forthcoming. It is time to renegotiate or get out before they take all
our oil and gas and water under special clauses in this agreement that give
the US certain proprietary rights. Because the media has been so neglectful
in covering all the candidates, I would guess the average citizen has no
facts on what David or the others would do regarding some of our current
issues.
I hope I have given you a little more info. And if I find out about your
status, I will promptly E Mail you the information.
Respectfully,
Thomas Lunde
-----Original Message-----
From: M.Blackmore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: September 21, 1998 8:12 AM
Subject: Re: Tory Party membership - err, what's the position for expats?
>Hi Tom
>
>Err, re-read my query again - I *am* a Canadian, just been resident abroad
>for some 25 years.... and left at an age where I had never got around to
>be voter registered in Hamilton before going (met an English lass who
>would not leave her mother and the rest is history, as they say).
>
>I have followed events from afar with some interest, i.e. recall Kim
>Tankie's demise with satisfaction (my parents were staunch NDP'ers and Mum
>was seriously into Social Credit - *Real* social credit of the
>commonwealth variety, not the pastiche it became - so the idea of Tory's
>makes my skin literally crawl.
>
>What one does not hear, of course, is the fine grain information of events
>apart from elections and such like, so Orchard is someone I have never
>seen reported over here.
>
>So, apart from MAI and a free trade bias (on what basis? We have backwoods
>Torie's here who's only basis for being agin the EC is "we fought in the
>war" and "they aren't English (sic)"...
>
>And my question was ... can expatriatess of many year's abscence join up?
>Sounds like it could be interesting to throw my small handful of sand into
>the gears :-)
>
>Malcolm
