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By Adrian Nieoczym
It’s pretty hard to listen to members of the federal Liberal party whining about Conservatives using tax dollars for partisan purposes–by funneling more economic stimulus money to Tory ridings than Liberal ones and slapping the Conservative Logo on gimmicky novelty cheques.
I don’t mean to say that this behaviour is acceptable, but come on, when the Liberals were last in power from 1993 to 2006, they pretty much wrote the book on that sort of thing.
A 1997 review of Human Resources Development Canada found that there was routine political interference in the approval of Transitional Jobs Fund grants, a $1 billion program meant to help create jobs.
The majority of that money was funneled into Liberal ridings and Liberal MPs were announcing new grants even before they were officially approved.
The audit also found that HRDC bureaucrats were pressured by political operatives to quickly approve many projects that did not meet the fund’s criteria and which didn’t even create any jobs.
And of course when the money was being doled out, Liberal MPs made sure to make as big a splash as possible, so their constituents knew who was responsible for bringing federal largesse into their midst.
And Chretien said there was nothing wrong with that.
“Listen, we are the government,” the National Post quoted him as saying. “I don’t see why we can’t try to get credit for what we do. I hope we do so. There is nothing to be ashamed in that.”
Then there was the scandal that became known as Shawinigate. Chretien sold a golf course he owned in his riding of Shawinigan to a buddy. A couple years later he lobbied the federally owned Business Development Bank of Canada to approve a $615,000 loan for the golf course.
When confronted about it, Chretien defended his actions by saying it’s what an MP is supposed to do for his constituents.
This was the sort of behaviour that drove Stephen Harper absolutely mental when he was in opposition. He mercilessly pounded away on the government for treating the public purse as if it existed to further the interests of the Liberal Party.
It was the sponsorship scandal which finally pushed public disgust at Liberal corruption to the point that Canadian voters kicked them out of office and handed the keys to a minority Conservative government.
Even so, the public–outside of the West anyway–remained weary of Harper and the Conservatives, worried about a possible “secret agenda” they would implement if ever granted a majority. Even in last year’s election, when the Liberals had Stephane Dion at the helm and ran on the unpopular idea of a carbon tax, the Tories could only muster another minority.
Then a funny thing happened. The recession hit full bore and the Conservatives abandoned their core principle of government non-interference in the marketplace and launched a massive public-spending program meant to stimulate the economy.
But when you put billions of dollars in a fund with an emphasis on getting money out the door as quickly as possible, you create the optimum conditions for pork barreling, which is exactly what the Liberals are accusing the Tories of doing.
And as those hokey fake cheques can attest, the Conservatives have been unabashedly partisan in making sure voters know who to credit for the flow of infrastructure money into their communities.
Their poll numbers meanwhile, despite Liberal pounding, keep going up. Today they are firmly in the 40 per cent range, the highest they have been since Brian Mulroney’s glory days. If the election were called tomorrow, Harper and his party would stand an excellent chance of getting the majority government that has so far eluded them.
It seems that voters in Central and Eastern Canada are only comfortable with Conservatives when they behave like Liberals.
Which leaves me wondering, what are people in the Conservative heartland of Western Canada–who embraced Harper specifically because he wasn’t a Liberal–going to turn?
Or will outrage around here be muted, because this time around, we’re the ones benefiting from the political games being played with public money?
adrian@kelowna.com
250-575-3517
25 Responses to “If it walks like a Liberal, talks like a Liberal and spends money like a Liberal, what is it?”
Tags: conservatives, corruption, Kelowna, liberals, stimulus money
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It’s plain that Harper has move the Conservatives toward the centre in a bid to appeal to a broader base of Canadians. Shifting too far right will almost always alienate them into ‘opposition’. Under Dion, the Liberals ‘adjusted’ by moving left. This didn’t work out for them, as it meant the Conservatives filled out more of the Liberals “traditional space”. Seems Ignatieff is a little bi-polar. Not really showing if he wants to stay put, or reassert a move back towards centre.
If Canadians grant a majority to the Conservatives, it will be interesting to see if the Conservatives shift more right. My guess is that there are elements that will try to demand it, but Harper knows that long term fortunes of the party will be better suited if they hover around that centre.
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At least the Liberals of 1993-2006 were spending the taxes of the current taxpayers, not those of the grandchildren of the current taxpayers!
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“It’s pretty hard to listen to members of the federal Liberal party whining about Conservatives using tax dollars for partisan purposes”
It’s even harder watching the Conservatives do it … with borrowed money.
I guess it depends if you’re a Conservative partisan or not.
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Eye on the Sky – HUH????? This country has a Federal DEBT of more than 1/2 TRILLION dollars. It costs about 30 BILLION each year just to pay the interest on this debt.
WE are already the grandchildren of the people who started defecit spending in the 1960’s – from Trudeau on.
Harper paid down more than $40 billion off the principal in the first three years before the recession along with the $30 billion plus in interest payments.
Get your facts right – this country has a HUGE debt already and that has nothing to do with the current government.
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Harper was able to maintain power during the $1.95 coalition threats. This coalition was screaming for stimulus funds in the order of 50 Billion dollars.
Harpers government actual allotted 20 Billion which was the exact amount that all the G8 countries had agreed to.
He therefore spared the taxpayer an additional 30 Billion dollars of debt.
I’d like Adrian to name any Liberal government who can claim they saved the taxpayer 30 Billion.
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@Mark Shortreed:
Um … Paul Martin? The guy who left us with a $30 billion dollar surplus? Does he count?
Harper needed the opposition to “force” him into stimulus spending, because he’s either a lousy economist or a plain old-fashioned, bald-faced Refor–I mean “Alli–” I mean “Conservative” liar. He either lied to us that “there ain’t never gonna be no recession” or totally failed to spot a recession that was predicted in “The Economist” newspaper two years in advance.
Instead, he spent $30 bn on his own failed ideology, which boils down to “greed is good.” Failed in the 80s and continues to fail today. Just like the current placeholder government.
Heck, we still wouldn’t be in deficit position this year if he hadn’t blown it completely.
So there’s Paul Martin, a Liberal who saved us $30 billion so Harper and Co could waste it. And having had your point rebutted, do you have another member of the Party Formerly Known as Reform to show us?
*Taps foot, looks at watch.
Take your time.
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Paul Martin, how did he raise that 30 Billion dollars? Fact is he cut transfer payments to the provinces. One of the cuts he made was to the health transfer payments to the provinces. The health transfer deal was that the feds would pony up 50% and the provincial govt 50%. Well in Ontario’s case he cut it to 21%. Mike Harris had to make up the 29% shortfall by closing hospitals, cutting doctor and nurse enrollments in university’s , etc. We (in Ontario) are still feeling those cuts as just about 2 out of every 5 people do not have a GP! Paul Martin yuck! Give me a break!
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Paul Martin SAVED us $30 billion???? What planet have you been on? The Federal Liberals ransacked the EI fund which was supposed to be stand alone – separate from general revenues. By how much you ask?
$57 BILLION!!!!
Now the EI fund cannot sustain the EI needs and the Harper government has to top it off with general revenues to the tune of about $6 billion this year alone. They froze EI premium rates for two years to help the economy so the fund is in dire shortfall.
Now, if Paul Martin had NOT raided the EI fund and had not cut transfers to the provinces by 30% which caused extreme hardship where would be his lame bragging rights of “slaying the defecit”. The Libs only managed to pay off $10 billion of the federal debt in 13 years.
Harper put the so called “Liberal surplus” into paying down the debt by $40 billion in just 3 years.
Keep digging Liberal apologists – you bought the fairy tale spin but Canadians are not all stupid.
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To hear all those Liberals complaining about how the government has spent so much money on stimulus they should be reminded what other countries have spent in this near world depression. This has nothing to do with normal times. if you would indulge in a little reading of global conditions and especially the U.S. are best trading partner you would be praising the government instead of whining
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Metro, I love how a liberal never let’s the facts get in their way. First of all Martin never had a $30 billion surplus, if he did then that would be $30 billion we over-paid in taxes.
Paul Martin gutted health care, the military, all transfers to provinces ( who then became ‘have nots) and he added all the $50 billion of our EI account to the general coffers. ANYONE WHO WAS CRUEL ENOUGH TO DO WHAT MARTIN DID, should be looked at in shame, not idolized. We won’t even get into the $163 million that CSL got while he was fin. Min. or the tainted blood scandal. Paul Martin, no hero, just zero.
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Did I miss something? The Auditor General found Billions mismanaged under the Liberals.
Facts:
Opposition admits they can’t get the information.
Kevin Page admits he can’t get the information.
We have a Liberal MP release a “selective analysis” of information he did get.
We get tabloild MSM jumping on the smear wagon with “cherry picking” projects.
A deputy Premier Ontario Liberal states the Federal Liberals are “cherry picking” projects to skew their spin.
Between 4,700 – 6,000 projects have been negotiated and less than “12%” are underway according to the Liberals.
We have opposition members protected from libel or slander making allegation inside the HOC.
If they had a CASE they would REPEAT those statements outside without legal protection.
Sadly, MSM has failed again to keep political parties honest.
The MSM have become “storm” chasers.
1)Wafers
2)Bodybags
3)Olympic Logo
4)Bubble Boy
5)Novelty Cheque
Research and objectivity is no longer a constraint in producing news on the 24/7 cycle.
Less money, news quality has suffered for quantity.
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The Liberals ae finished as the governing party in both federal and provincial politics.The population eventually gets fed up with the likes of Red Bob Rae and Ruby Dhalla wanting to give old age pensions after a person has spent three years in Canada. Oh Yes they say it only amounts to $38 a month. well thirty eight Canadian in third world countries where you can draw your Canadian pension is big money For example many do not know that there are 200,000 people living in Hong Kong with Canadian passports.How many live in India or Pakistan,Lebanon and other third world countries? No we Canadians are sick of our tax dollars being wasted.Campbell just spent one million on Olympic tickets to pass out to the richest people in B.C Speak up people before these bas…ds ruin us.
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If they did it, we can do it because that makes it alright. I find this typical of the same tired rhetoric of jaded political pundits. Wake up, Canadians are tired of the same menu, do not give us our tax dollars back and hide it under an economic plan when it should be part of regular governance. Do not claim I can do a better job than the other guy unless you can. There is no accountability anywhere in Canadian politics and never will be unless, as in normasl business practice, if you do not deliver you can be fired! Oh, and without huge remittances that have not been earned.
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You know the old saying … Liberal/Tory-same old story.
I too held out hope for Harper, but he has proven himself to be worse than Mulroney was. I recently got my party renewal in the mail but I just tossed it into the recycle bin. I hope many other true conservatives do the same!
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I am not convinced that Tories have favoured their own ridings that much — I think this is optics. Plenty of $$ going to Liberal and NDP. What favouritism there is is probably the result of Conservative MP’s lobbying for their ridings — fair enough, I say.
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RE: “Opposition admits they can’t get the information.
Kevin Page admits he can’t get the information.”
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While many think that info should be readily available, with complicated programs being run out of different agencies it is not always easy to track down data. Diffent departments have different procedures for things. Reconciling differences to make info readily available to the public can be a mammoth undertaking.
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Amazing how what was once ’scandalizing’ and ‘abominable’ is now the conservatives’ right to spend, spend spend. A couple of major differences, if we’re comparing the apples and oranges of mid-1990s and today — emerging from a recession, the gov’t of Canada took major steps to correct a what amounted to systemic deficit issues in the federal operations. The conservatives of the day had not solved it, in fact had contributed to the growing debt. So all these people slamming Paul Martin for having ‘dealt’ with the deficit should have been out protesting those days, because their memories are incredibly selective.
New regulations were introduced by that government, being prompted by the opposition of the day and the public. In today’s world, the government is above that law and above its own laws and principles. In fact, they’ve adapted to it, putting their own photo, signature and party logo on the cheques. See who’s smiling the most in those photos? It’s the MP who is acting like daddy warbucks.
The conservatives have now dug us into a hole, an unprecedented hole at an unprecedented rate. And they don’t want to be held to account? That’s rich.
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There is no such thing as a surplus. All the money is the tax payers. Either they have it or the Gov’t has it. Therefore, a Gov’t surplus is a Taxpayer deficit.
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Harper is not Liberal. Playing with the money supply is not liberal its the BOC that would usually do it, but when its unable to get enough money into the economy, the Gov’t in the interest of the Public does so.
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Drop the spin, the Gov’t just took out a loan to take the brunt of the recession. I think the right words here are, Thank you Mr. Harper.
Thanks for lowering the GST to cause the economic cycle to have more money in it. Thank you BOC for dropping the rates, and thank you every gov’t in the world for cleaning up a recession, which is no already on the rebound less than a year later.
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This isn’t about being conservative. This is about understanding recessions and Harper obviously did.
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Difference between the LPC and the Cons here is that Harper campaigned on doing away with this partisan nonsense and bringing greater transparency and accountability to government.
Ask Kevin Paige how easy it is to get data from this government and then compare the Cdn and US stimulus websites.
Liberals remain Liberals in good times and bad. Cons become Liberals in bad times.
Good to believe in values hey Cons?
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In the next federal election, i’m still voting Conservative.
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”Difference between the LPC and the Cons here is that Harper campaigned on doing away with this partisan nonsense and bringing greater transparency and accountability to government”
LOL, and the Liberals campaigned against stopping partisanship, transparency & accountability?
The coalition of losers was spawned BECAUSE the government would not submit to spending $50 Billion on stimulus funding,
that after ‘every’ party (except the BLOC, who only want ‘what’s best for Quebec’) campaigned on balanced budgets and no no no deficit, every party.
You LibDippers got exactly what you asked for,
with the exception of not being the ones to hold up those giant government cheques…..
I’m hoping, the next budget will have some serious fat cutting,
slashing all those vote buying, inefficent and ineffective programs set up by years ands years of LibDipper government!!!
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If it walks like a liberal, talks like a liberal and spends like a Liberal then it was probably the victim of the Coalition’s 70 billion dollar stimulus blackmail to support the government.
Harper never had stimulus in the original budget update, the Coalition demanded the spending.
In our Constitution we are all guaranteed the right to Life, Liberty and the security of person.
When your born into debt created by government how does that jive with our right to liberty?
How can we have Liberty if we are used as collateral for loans that will exist our whole lives?.
Deficit spending is un-constitutional.
Strange how this country cheery picks which constitutional laws it enforces, those that never were now are,, those that are guaranteed are ignored.
99% of us had no hand in creating these debts nor did we benefit by them, but we are legally bound to pay them?, not according to the Constitution.
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The Liberals should not complain about labelling your opponents as ‘just visiting’ or with documented quotes from Iggy. They invented labelling with Harper’s ’secret agenda’ that they had no proof for, nor did it ever surface in years of a Harper government. Wake up grits, your desperate drive to self-destruction is amazing. You’ll soon be in 4th place. I suppose you are already plotting to replace Iggy with Rae, totally unelectable in Ontario and likely in most of the country. We need another opposition party for the sake of democracy, unfortunately the NDP hasn’t quite built up the credibility, their leader should have been the leader’s wife.
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BTW – Thank you Paul and Steve for raiding the public service pension funds for (drumroll, please) 30 billion dollars of EXCESS funding (50% paid by the employees).
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Whaaat! The Liebs starved the blue constituencies for over 20 years with their pork barrelling. Even if you accept the arument that there is an imbalance toward the CPC ridings, it would be justified as “catch up”. Just so’s the Liebs on here know, I enjoy the ability to spend the lower taxes since 2006 the way I see fit, not as decided by some gnome in Ottawa Surplus, courtesy of the Liebs- My Butt.
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