Dear Editor:
I was disappointed by the Conservative performance at the all candidates meeting hosted by Panorama Neighbourhood Association on Oct. 4, which was, frankly, dismal.
And it was a performance featuring transparent rhetoric and parroted lines delivered almost apologetically – or at least, so quietly that Dean Drysdale was asked to speak up in a classroom-sized space.
His comments about the universal childcare benefit elicited shocked exclamations, grumbles of disbelief, and shaken heads from the audience.
He seems to think that it would tear families apart and force them to enrol their children at childcare facilities. He added that he disapproved of having children raised by “strangers” and praised Canadians for their ability to work around the lack of universal childcare by playing Tetris with work shifts or getting grandma to raise the kids.
Cries of “what about single parents?” and similar comments were disregarded.
Perhaps the most offensive moment occurred when the subject of Bill C-24 came up. When asked if he would disavow Harper’s euphemistic “old-stock Canadian” comment, Drysdale gave a long-winded no.
He said that he thought the term was an appropriate description.
The sight of the Conservative candidates Drysdale and Harpreet Singh trying to sell the party line to an audience that had started out open minded but ended up mostly unsympathetic, their faces carefully blank as they gave increasingly scripted and vague answers, was almost amusing.
Less amusing is the fact that some people are still going to vote for them on Oct. 19.
Sylvia Traphan, Surrey