was visiting, pt. 2

We've been considering Conservative Prime Ministers who, by the standards recently established by the Conservative Party, were merely visiting our country.

Exhibit #1 was Kim Campbell, who now lives in France and has not lived in Canada since 1993.

Exhibit #2 is Conservative R.B. Bennett, who retired from politics after losing the election of 1935. He stayed on as Leader of the Opposition until 1938, when he resigned and moved to England, where he was appointed to the House of Lords. Bennett died in 1947 and was buried in Mickleham, Surrey, becoming our only ex-PM not buried in Canada.

Again we must ask whether the fact that Bennett's actually left the country forever within months of leaving politics means that Conservative PM Bennett was "just visiting".

And again we see how vacuous the Conservative accusation is.

What is important is not what politicians do after they leave political office. What is important is what they will do while actually serving. And on this front they are failing miserably.