{"id":1949,"date":"2013-04-21T05:02:19","date_gmt":"2013-04-21T12:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/66.147.244.209\/~canadiu3\/?p=1949"},"modified":"2014-02-09T05:05:51","modified_gmt":"2014-02-09T13:05:51","slug":"grits-101-canadas-liberal-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2013\/04\/21\/grits-101-canadas-liberal-party\/","title":{"rendered":"Grits 101: Canada\u2019s Liberal Party"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_1950\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1950\" style=\"width: 620px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/66.147.244.209\/~canadiu3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/justin-trudeau1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1950\" alt=\"The face of Canada\u2019s Liberal Party, Justin Trudeau: vanguard of Canadian values, working towards making Canada a model for the world. (Photo by Fred Chartrand\/The Canadian Press)\" src=\"http:\/\/66.147.244.209\/~canadiu3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/justin-trudeau1.jpg\" width=\"620\" height=\"349\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1950\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The face of Canada\u2019s Liberal Party, Justin Trudeau: vanguard of Canadian values, working towards making Canada a model for the world. (Photo by Fred Chartrand\/The Canadian Press)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>CANADA\u2019S Liberal Party. The Grits, colloquially. <i>Parti lib\u00e9ral du Canada, <\/i>French-ily.<\/p>\n<p>Its poster-boy is Justin Trudeau: media darling; eldest son of\u00a0Margaret Trudeau\u00a0and former Canadian Prime Minister\u00a0Pierre Trudeau; and, on April 14, 2013, elected leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. Initially elected as Member of Parliament for Papineau on October 14th, 2008, Justin Trudeau\u2019s platform is to uphold Canadian values, bring forward a new perspective on the relationship between government and its citizens, and to help Canada be a model for the world.<\/p>\n<p><b><i>Hope and Hard Work \u2026 Be part of the change<\/i><\/b> is their current aspirational \/ inspirational slogan.<\/p>\n<p>It is the oldest federal political party\u00a0in\u00a0Canada, espousing the lofty ideals of\u2014to state the obvious\u2014liberalism: liberty, equality,\u00a0free and fair elections,\u00a0civil rights, freedom of the press,\u00a0 freedom of religion,\u00a0free trade, and\u00a0private property.<\/p>\n<p>Canadian Liberals stand for:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Equality of opportunity<\/b>, believing that when individuals and families are provided the opportunity for success, this strengthens the economy; ultimately strengthening Canada and Canadians.<\/li>\n<li><strong>True fiscal responsibility, whereby deficits are turned into surplus, with the growth of the economy and the creation of new jobs through <\/strong>competent, accountable and successful economic management.<\/li>\n<li><strong>A clean environment and a clean energy economy, given the inter-dependence of <\/strong>environmental and energy concerns and solutions.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Affordable access to post-secondary education, with the firm belief that all Canadians have the right to access an affordable education.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Sustainable universal public health care; providing Canadians high quality and relevant health care through an <\/strong>efficient, accountable, and sustainable public health system.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Open, fair, and strong democratic representation, with the Parliament belonging to the people, not the Prime Minister.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>An evidence-based crime policy, implementing a \u201csmart on crime\u201d approach, with real criminals as the target, in order to keep the communities safe.\u00a0 This involves dealing with crime at its root causes, in order to achieve real results.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Liberal Party of Canada is generally positioned at the center of Canada\u2019s political spectrum; to the right of the New Democratic Party, and the left of the Conservative Party of Canada.<\/p>\n<p>Historically, the party has set the tone of the Canadian political landscape, being the major force in federal politics throughout the greater portion of Canada\u2019s history; a total of 69 years in the 20<sup>th<\/sup> century. As a result, the party is, on occasion, referred to as Canada\u2019s \u201cnatural governing party\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>However, it has been noted that over the course of the last 10 years, the party has seemingly lost some ground and support, benefitting both the Conservative Party and the NDP. The most recent federal elections held on May 2, 2011 saw the party at its poorest showing in history; capturing only 19 per cent of the popular vote and winning 34 seats. This put the Liberal Party at a third-place ranking in the\u00a0House of Commons: a first for the political powerhouse.<\/p>\n<p>As Canada gears up for its 40<sup>th<\/sup> provincial elections on May 14, 2013, the Liberal Party\u2019s Premier Christy Clark embarks on an election campaign that will be the toughest fight of her political life.<\/p>\n<p><i>For more on the Canadian Liberal Party, visit <\/i><i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.liberal.ca\" target=\"_blank\">www.liberal.ca<\/a>.<b><\/b><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CANADA\u2019S Liberal Party. The Grits, colloquially. Parti lib\u00e9ral du Canada, French-ily. Its poster-boy is Justin Trudeau: media darling; eldest son &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-news-ca","mauthors-angie-duarte","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1949\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}