The Proletariat Congress

Nothing like a foreign summit to bring out the “best” in one’s national leaders. Of course, we use “best” very loosely and sarcastically.

Here’s a couple of little gems I found while reading a story in the Toronto Star.

“And really, my reply to that general line of discussion is that that’s fine as long as we all accept the legitimacy of that criticism.

“We’re prepared to listen to it and be open to it and allow that kind of debate to occur in our societies. That’s the real test – not whether we’re perfect but whether criticism can happen and is tolerated and is part of the political process.”

The above are quotes from the Canadian Prime Minister, who is notorious for selecting who he answers to in the press, being insistent on controlling every element of his party and thinks he’s immune to criticism.  He prefers to ignore the opposition and stifles his own party members so they don’t say anything incriminating in front of the press… like answer questions.

What more can we say really? This administration’s days are numbered.

Harper lectures Putin

Am I the only one who finds it ironic that he’s lecturing Putin about the principles of democracy while blatantly ignoring the process back home?

One in five Canadians are uninsured for drug costs and 3.5 million Canadians have no coverage at all.

There are 33 million Canadians and counting according to the last census conducted. Even those who are covered, they are covered to various degrees under a variety of programmes; either through a private plan they have bought, a plan provided by their workplace or a provincial plan.

I take a plethora of medication but I am one of the lucky ones who has coverage. If my household didn’t have the generous prescription drug plan offered by my fiancé’s workplace we would be paying through the nose. We wouldn’t qualify for social assistance if we needed it. We would be like the many Canadians caught between a rock and a hard place.

Why should Canadians have to pick between putting food on the table and buying their medication? Why should it be a choice at all?

There’s a patchwork of coverage across the country. “When it comes to health care, every Canadian should have equal access, it doesn’t matter where you are in the country,” [Layton] told the Canadian Pharmacists Association’s annual meeting.

At least there are some politicians who know what Canadians really need.

We don’t need a Ballistic Missile Defence Shield; we don’t need our politicians debating about whether or not we should take away the right for gays to marry; we don’t need politicians who cut taxes and trash a childcare programme. We need politicians who look out for Canadian interests that actually matter to everyone.

Why get “tough” on crime when there are people are dying because they can’t afford their prescription drugs?

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. And the Conservatives are the weakest link. They are out of tune with what Canadians really want. We want healthcare. We want strong cities. We want to see our environment last long enough for the next generation to enjoy.

Layton asks for support on drug plan

Or even Dion seems to know what Canadians want. He may be rejecting Mayor Miller’s call for a 1-cent of the GST but he knows what needs to be done to keep the heart of the country ticking. He knows tax cuts don’t achieve anything because it takes money out of the government coffers that could be used for the betterment of the nation.

“The Prime Minister is committed to decrease the GST by one additional point, that’s $5.5 billion. I will use it to fight poverty, and I will work with municipalities on that.”

Dion acknowledged “tremendous” needs to fix Canada’s infrastructure. “I want to deliver what I am able to deliver, and I want to be strong partners with (municipalities) for all the needs we mentioned today: Poverty, infrastructure, environment, immigration, aboriginal.”

Dion rejects cities’ call for 1-cent of GST

While he chooses to close a door, he leaves the window open and acknowledges that the cities have needs and knows what matters. Provided that he does make good on it, it shouldn’t matter that he has a different plan than that the mayors of Canada have in mind as long as all roads lead to Rome.

Slanderous lies are the only way a party like the Conservatives can even hope to have a hope in hell of staying in power in Canada. They take facts and distort them to appear as the truth. They live under the guise of lies; lies protect them until the day the Canadian public decides it’s time to take out the trash, and in the next election, the trash will have the reputation of the Conservatives in it; a pile of steaming, festering rancid crap.

The Conservatives have no morals, no scruples and no idea how to run a democratic nation and listen to the will of the people.

They squander tax payer money on Republic-style mudsling ads that seek to defame the Liberals, dragging the Liberals through a muddy quagmire of twisted lies and deceit. The Liberals have been caught in the web of lies woven by the woefully dishonest Harper administration that can’t stand on its own two feet without kicking its opponant in the legs and using it to prop up its amoral agenda.

Ralph Goodale of the Liberals, the former Finance Minister was originally indicted by the House of Commons as being involved in an Income Trust Tax row, wherein he and/or his department had leaked information to the press, which effected the market. The RCMP had been called in on a criminal matter to investigate.

14 months and millions of tax payer dollars later, the Liberals; former Prime Minister Paul Martin and Finance Minister Ralph Goodale were cleared of any direct or indirect involvement. It was also found that there was no political motivation involved and that there was only personal gain. The person responsible had no direct or indirect ties to the minority Liberals at the time.

Under the Conservative minority government, there was an income trust tax introduced, which created a fury amongst namely senior citizens, who relied heavily upon those trusts to pay their income in their retirement years. Under the previous Liberal administration, the income trust tax law had been contemplated, but in the end, it was decided that they would not go ahead with such plans and scrapped the idea all together.

Now, under this corrupt, immoral administration, we have income trust tax and Republican-style attack ads.

And while the tax on the income trusts may have been unavoidable and perhaps inevitable, the attack ads are not.

They are in violation of a person’s right to not be defamed or slandered in any way. They have chosen to sink to the level of primary school children whose capacity is limited to finger pointing and name calling.

But does a conservative really have enough guts to apologise and admit fault?

It seems that the Liberal Leadership is overly optimistic about that…

Liberal leader Stephane Dion said in a statement today: “The Prime Minister should immediately ask that his party withdraw their French attack ad that smears the reputation of the Hon. Ralph Goodale.”

But, Mr Dion, these are not your average Canadians we’re talking about here. These are people who would lie and cheat their way into office and have failed to live up to their standards of accountability and transparency.

“On the contrary, I actually believe Mr. Goodale owes Canadians an apology. You will recall that he told Canadians that no one in his office or his department was involved in any kind of activity. It was the position of the Liberal party prior to the last election that this should be swept under the carpet,” Harper told reporters during a visit to Mississauga.

And it seems that the Liberals indeed did not mislead the Canadian public. If anything, the Conservatives have spent more tax payer dollars misleading the public than the Liberals could ever dream of.

The Conservatives have released a series of attack ads, questioning whether or not Dion is fit to be a leader, using footage from the debates leading up to the leadership convention and the subsequent voting. This was deemed acceptable and was aired, despite that the Liberals obviously objected to it. This is a blatant 180 degree turn from when an independant source wanted to make an ad for TV, using public footage from the debates during the last election to call on Harper to act on the environment and accountability. It was never aired because the PMO prevented it from being aired… you can dish it but can’t take it, can you?

A real Prime Minister can take the heat, but when it gets too warm, you bail, don’t you?

It’s easy to keep up the attacks until the other side retaliates, then it just gets dirty, but we won’t know until that happens because some people like to let their opponent bury themselves alive first…

The Prime Minister said his party has no intentions of pulling TV ads in Quebec attacking the federal Liberals on the income trust scandal and other matters.

The Liberals have the balls to do the same thing, but will they? This blog is betting Dion is too classy for that, or that he has something much worse planned, and that it will be the Conservatives’ undoing. They will be returned back to where they were after Mulroney left them high and dry in the 90s, a nothing party with blow-hard ideas and a legacy of a shadow cast over their existence.

Income trust woes Liberals’ Fault: PM
Liberals cleared in trust case

Accountability means being accountable for the actions, or inactions that you have either done, or have failed to.

When you’re a leader, it means ensuring that there is a consistent level of integrity and that your followers are accountable for their actions. They have made the choice, and you the leader must ensure that they are accountable for what they have decided to do.

Unfortunately, this is not the case in Canadian politics.

The only people that must be held accountable are those who cross the floor to join the Liberals, but not the ones who join the Conservatives.

Politicians like Belinda Stronach and Scott Brison who both were previously Conservatives, having turned Liberal were called to account for their actions; for them to face their constituents. They had to explain their actions; they had to face the media circus and a barrage of questions in Parliament regarding their actions.

They survived re-election as Liberals.

There are two new turncoats who have crossed the floor after the most recent election who have not be held accountable because the Conservatives fail to understand that accountability applies at both ends of the spectrum.

The two MPs in question are David Emerson of Vancouver Kingsway riding. He crossed the floor immediately after re-election as a Liberal. It’s common knowledge in Canada that Vancouver is not a Conservative stronghold, which is known for its liberal attitude towards Marijuana and is home to people like Marc Emery, who heads the BC Marijuana Party, and is a haven for vegetarians and vegans alike.

There had been numerous calls for a byelection, in which Emerson would stand as a Conservative beside a new Liberal candidate, but that didn’t happen. So much for that promise of accountability, eh, Prime Minister Harper?

Or, what of Wajid Khan of Mississauga-Streetsville riding? Has he been called upon to be held accountable? There have been calls, but newly elected Liberal leader Stéphane Dion has decided to shrug it off. The loss didn’t appear to bother him, as he has been quoted by the media as believing that Khan was always a Conservative at heart.

As for Wajid Khan, the GTA MP who turned Conservative a week ago and hosted Prime Minister Stephen Harper in his Mississauga-Streetsville riding yesterday, Dion said that loss was inevitable, too. “Mr. Khan, was in fact a Conservative … I don’t feel like I lost a Liberal.”

The only Liberal MP that didn’t cross the floor that Dion is writing off as a no big loss is Jean Lapierre who has tendered a letter of resignation, indicating that he plans to give up his seat in the next federal election, whenever that may be. Though, it might be sooner than later as the Conservatives are running low on borrowed time.

Dion shrugs off lost MPs

Interestingly, while the Conservatives have declined to comment in relation to accountability in the case of the two turncoat MPs that jumped off the Liberal bandwagon to board the political death-trap that is the Conservative bandwagon, they would have had no qualms with rabble rousing if the case had been that a Conservative MP had opted to join the Liberals.

Or, why there have been a series of patronage appointments, which were supposedly an element of the Liberal era, where entitlement was the trump card.

One of such appointments was commissioned by Harper, a proud advocate of his much touted ‘Accountability Act’. This promise was the centre-point of his election campaign, something that was posted in all of his television ads; something repeated throughout the debates… ad nauseum.

An important component of this act was the establishment of an appointment commission, that would oversee appointments, and ensure transparency in the process. Unfortunately, it seems that the Conservatives are skirting around this to get in their own people…

That’s not to say it has gone unnoticed. In fact, there is quite the vocal opposition to it, as it flagrantly violates the Accountability Act.

After the rejection, Harper said the idea of an appointments commission was essentially dead. However, the commission exists under the accountability act and opposition MPs want to know why appointments are being made when positions on the commission itself – which is designed to make the appointments system more transparent – haven’t been filled.

Government officials say it’s unfair to expect the commission would be running so soon after the accountability act was passed. The Tories have made 118 appointments in the past several months, and critics say many are clearly patronage appointments. The Liberal governments of Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin were often criticized for doing the same.

Unfair to expect immediate accountability? No, it’s unfair to think that the Canadian public is so gullible that we don’t see through this bald-faced façade of Conservative-sanctions corruption.

The only amusing element of this ordeal is the elegant mudslinging that keeps the government ticking.

Liberal MP Mark Holland (Ajax-Pickering) said the point is the Tories have painted themselves as “holier than any government that has ever come before them and are beyond reproach. It’s the hypocrisy of it all … because they have gone and made patronage appointment after patronage appointment, which is completely opposite of the image they are trying to portray.”

Tory MP Pierre Poilievre (Nepean-Carleton), parliamentary secretary to Treasury Board President Vic Toews, said the Liberals have no “authority to lecture” the Tories, adding “they engaged in a Roman orgy of patronage during the 13 years of Chrétien and Martin and then went on to try and block the very creation of this public appointments commission.”

Bolded are the parts I found to immensely tickle my funny bone.

Tories criticized for host of patronage appointments

In all of this, I find it most intriguing that the only parties not to lose people to other political parties are the NDP and the Bloc Quebec…

This isn’t to say that they aren’t disgusted with the whole lack of accountability on the part of the Conservatives.