A Weekend For Opposition Leaders

It was a political weekend for North Bay that saw two opposition party leaders in town, while John Tory hosted a Northern Summit at the Best Western, Interim Liberal leader Bill Graham was lending his support to MP Anthony Rota at the Clarion.

Graham was at the Clarion Pinewood Park Friday night speaking with supporters about a host of issues that included the leadership race and the Afghanistan mission.

Graham emphatically told reporters that the Afghan mission is not Canada's Vietnam and that he is behind the mission all the way.

“I’d answer that with the reasons that we are in Afghanistan and the circumstances of what’s going on there are totally different from what took place in Vietnam.”

“Without getting into the problems of Vietnam, the fact of the matter is we’re in Afghanistan working with our NATO colleagues, but under a United Nations mandate because the Afghan people themselves wanted us there,” states Graham.

Graham says there are small groups of people that want to destroy the sense of modern society there and prevent it from moving into the 21st century.

“It is not Vietnam, it is a very difficult struggle, it’s very dangerous but it’s something that is winnable and something that we can win,” he explains.

“Our job as Liberals is to make sure the Government understands what are the winning conditions there, and we’ll continue to hold theme to account for that.”

“I saw a mother of one of our fallen soldiers who said, ‘my son said when he left most of us will come back, but those of us who don’t will know that we are making a difference.’ What we (Liberals) have to do is to make sure that we give them the capacity to make that difference and that we’re setting the conditions where they do make that difference. And that their sacrifice has been worth what they’ve done.”

The interim leader said that if the country were to follow Jack Layton and the stance that the NDP have adopted with the conflict, Canada would end up with a big black eye.

Graham said that not everyone in the Liberal party backed the extension of the mission for two years for many reasons but stand behind the soldiers and their efforts.

“They felt the Prime Minister had organised the debate in a way which was inappropriate.”

“They did it (voted against extension) for many other reasons, but I think all of them accept the fact that we’re there and what our job is as the opposition is to hold the government accountable for the way in which it’s managing our mission.”

“Not to let our soldiers down by suggesting we shouldn’t be there,” he states