A Challenge to President Kerry

[yvr girl]

The CBC is running a series called the Greatest Canadian. For months, we've been able to vote on our choices. Today, they announced the 10 finalist. They are doing profiles on each of them over the next few weeks, so we can pick a winner.

Tonight's profile was on Tommy Douglas, an early leader of the CCF (later to become the New Democratic Party.) I learned much about him that I didn't know. He is widely recognized as the father of Universal Health Care in Canada, which in itself is a tremendous accomplishment. But there's more.

-There were only 138 miles of paved roads in Saskatchewan (where he was Premier) when he took office! He paved the roads.
-He introduced power and sewage systems to people who didn't live in the city.
-He allowed women to go into bars. By the way, before he was a politician he was a Baptist minister.
-He introduced car insurance
-He introduced many labour reforms. He had witnessed times when labour was shot at for protesting being exploited.
-He denounced Hitler in 1936, long before everyone else got that he was 'a problem.'
-He passed more than 100 bills in his first term in office, he was elected for five.
-He introduced a charter of human rights, 18 months before the UN did it
-And by the way, he did all this while reducing the provincial deficit by 20 million (in the 1940's and 50's)

After he did all this on the Saskatchewan stage, he want national. Thank you Mr. Douglas for creating the much of what is great about the country I live in. By the way, the above list only contains highlights of his achievements.

Now for the challenge. I have been a supporter of John Kerry since he announced. He has the potential to not just be an improvement over the current resident of the White House, but I think he can be a great president. Mr. Kerry, don't compromise on your vision. Push the boundaries. Lead the transformation. American's deserve so much more from their government.

Here's a link to the series if you're interested in extra credit.

http://www.cbc.ca/greatest/top_ten/nominee/douglas-tommy.html