I wrote a blog entry last year criticizing the Prime Minister for skipping out on the Toronto AIDS Conference. The kernel of my argument, I think, was the issue of leadership over partisanship; that sometimes it’s the Prime Minister’s job to show up even if he’s guaranteed to get booed. I remember some of the comments from that posting had to do with how malaria is a much larger problem than HIV, that Canada does its part in AIDS funding, and that a politician should be allowed to reserve the right to not be booed. I can’t remember if Harper travelled to the far north in order to talk about the problem of malaria, but that’s a side issue I guess.
Annnnyway, I was getting ready to practice non-partisanship and congratulate Stephen Harper on the recent announcement of AIDS vaccine research, and was steeling myself for hard-lefty cries of sell-out to both the Conservatives and evil Microsoft.
Then the Prime Minister showed me again that, mostly, his issue is one of leadership. The real kind. The inspiring kind.
So congratulations to the Prime Minister. He could have had any one of his MPs make unsupported, classless allegations about an opposition MP’s family. He could have shielded himself from Parliament’s outrage and the general disgust of the nation. But instead he chose to lead the House of Commons to its new low.
The vaccine thing is hopeful though, isn’t it?