As a lifelong socialist, I couldn’t bring myself to vote Liberal in our last election. I would have been severely tempted, but I was fortunate to live in the constituency of Tom Mulcair, my primary motivation was “anybody but Harper”. Justin Trudeau took the liberal party platform to the left, and if he follows through on everything in their election platform, well the many years of destruction of Canadian values by Harper and the Tories should be erased from history.

Trudeau is already fulfilling some of his promises, and in a way that gives me some hope for the future of Canada.

This is what he said to a group of Syrian refugees a couple of nights ago as they arrived in Canada:

This is a  wonderful night where we get to show, not just a plane load of new Canadians what Canada’s all about, we get to show the world how to open our hearts and welcome in people who are fleeing extraordinarily difficult situations. They step off the plane as refugees, but they walk out of this terminal as permanent residents of Canada. With social insurance numbers, with health cards and with the opportunity to become full Canadians. This is something we are able to do in this country because we define a Canadian not by his skin color or language or religion or background, but by a shared set of values, aspirations, hopes and dreams that, much like Canadians, people around the world share.