Finally, something good about the Tories

(caption: Secretary of State Jason Kenney greeted former “comfort women” in Ottawa. Ming Pao.)

The ‘comfort women’ motion was finally passed yesterday. It was a day of excitement and happiness.

I really have to commend the Tories this time. As someone who’ve been following the story very closely right from the start, I knew how reluctant the Tories were to offend their Japanese friends at the beginning.

I might disagree with the Tories on many issues, especially ideological ones, but examples after examples, I have to admit that they are efficient and are able to get things done.

The important thing is, they listen. On the comfort women issue, I don’t care whether they did it out of political considerations (Chinese ballots etc) or genuine respect on human rights. The reality that they agreed to sit down and talk and tried hammering out a final version that was acceptable to all parties has already won many hearts.

And they did it fast. At first we all thought the Tories would try to drag on the issue forever and let Motion 291 died in the womb. But suddenly they were willing to talk with Olivia Chow and ALPHA. And suddenly they were bargaining about the final wordings of the motion. Then yesterday, it was passed! All these came in within a couple of months.

Honestly, I was surprised.

It was a very different story under the Liberals. During those years, concerns and requests of the Chinese Canadian community weren’t effectively relayed to the top. Instead of trying to persuade the top to address the community’s concerns, Liberal messengers rather chose to “comfort”, “console” and “suggest” the community to drop its requests.

If the Tories can stay further and further away from their ideology and stay closer and closer to the centre, and given the continuously disappointing performance of Stephane Dion and gang, the Tories do have a good chance.

The only skepticism remains, though, is the general worry that the Tories might reinstall policies that match their ideologies if they get a majority (such as changing the same-sex marriage. I think the Tories still need to work hard on this.

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