Stephen Harper: A Litany of Sins

Well, it certainly didn’t take Stephen Harper long to start the mud slinging... barely hours, and we’re still two years away from an election. It’s going to be a long damned two years. The interesting thing is what the mud-slinging is about; personal records, trust, experience, qualifications...

Well, Dear Stephen, perhaps you might want to cool your jets a minute, because in the great swamp of life, you are the toad that sits on the rock of deceit. Let us, perhaps, take a stroll through St Stephen’s litany of sins. Better pull on your hip-waders for this one, because it might just blow your socks off.

Let’s start with some of those wonderful little promises and observations you've made over the years.
- "When a government starts trying to cancel dissent or avoid dissent is frankly when it's rapidly losing its moral authority to govern."
- “We don't think as a party that patronage has any place in the Parliament of Canada." (Calgary Herald, March 22, 1995)
- "We don't support any Senate appointments." (Winnipeg Free Press, January 29, 1996)
- "Stephen Harper will cease patronage appointments to the Senate. Only candidates elected by the people will be named to the Upper House." (Stephen Harper Leadership Website, January 15, 2004 – I especially love when he refers to himself in the third person. It’s hawt.)
- "… the Upper House remains a dumping ground for the favoured cronies of the Prime Minister." (Stephen Harper Leadership Website, January 15, 2004)
- "I don't plan to appoint senators; that's not my intention." (Cornwall Standard-Freeholder, January 14, 2006)
- “You've got to remember that west of Winnipeg the ridings the Liberals hold are dominated by people who are either recent Asian immigrants or recent migrants from eastern Canada: people who live in ghettoes and who are not integrated into western Canadian society.” (Report Newsmagazine, January 2001)

That’s enough to give you the drift… no point arguing the rock of lies thing, but read on nonetheless. Now we will venture into the realm of those quippy little scandals, something every journalist craves to uncover if only for the opportunity of the word ‘gate’ -- yes, I was going to call this Harpergate, but I just could not do that to the people of this country. These are in no special order… some he slammed the door on quickly, some he is dragging out in parliament and through the court system, so I figures ‘let’s just throw some shit at the wall and see where it sticks’. I give you The Harper Picasso in Poop, the man elected on the platform of promising accountability and transparency in government.
- Prorogation – Part 1 (to avoid contempt of parliament fallout)
- Prorogation – Part 2 (to avoid NDP/Liberal coalition government)
- Shoe Store Project (2007) – plans for a $2M gov’t controlled media center, run by the PMO to replace the National Press Gallery, run by the national press.
- Julie Couillard Scandal (2007) – Maxime Bernier leaves sensitive NATO documents at ex-girlfriend’s house, a woman with known ties to the Hells Angels
- In and Out Scandal (2007) – Circumnavigation of election finance rules in 2006 election. $230,000 in fines issued for violating spending laws
- Robocalls (2012) – issuing fake, misleading calls to actively interfere with voting public
- ETS Scandal – An IT contract was unfairly awarded to CGI, a known association of Michael Fortier, the then PWGSC Minister in a clear conflict of interest. No fairness monitor was appointed to oversee the process, reported scores by evaluators did not coincide with what they had issued, the evaluation team was advised to destroy all records relating to the evaluation, the government refused to debrief companies that had lost the award, the Canadian International Trade Tribunal ruled against the government, and the government’s response was angry denial and to appoint a new federal crown prosecutor (a former Conservative candidate) to charge the unsuccessful companies involved in the bid process with big-rigging – a charge still unproven but the case continues four years after the fact.
- CFIA (2012) – food inspection services cut, listeriosis outbreak, Minister Gerry Ritz’s tasteless jokes about deaths from outbreak.
- Plagiarizing – Part 1 (2007) plagiarizes Australia’s John Howard’s speech about Iraq
- Plagiarizing – Part 2 (2008) from Ontario Mike Harris’speech
- Repatriation scandal – issues orders that military personnel killed in combat would not receive repatriation attention or coverage and no flags would be at half-mast
- Scrums – all media scrums forbidden. Press statements will be issued when the government feels they are necessary
- Chuck Cadman scandal – bribe for the vote in parliament, then lied under oath about it and the tape evidence of the bribe
- Senior Federal Scientists Gagged – not allowed to speak to media without government permission... still in effect in 2012
- Long-form Census stopped, cutting access to valuable statistics
- Canada Action Plan ad campaign -- $26M taxpayer dollars over 3 months for programs already ended in order to promote conservative party
- Suspended Federal civil servants’ right to strike
- Limiting access of press to PM during election – misusing RCMP to restrict access at private events
- Created a program to monitor and respond to online communications on internet bulletin boards, chatrooms and blog posts
- Omnibus bill to pass non-financial bills with budget, making it impossible to reject pieces of the overall bill, thereby circumventing parliamentary process in the passing on individual bills.
- Stopping debate on bills in legislature
- Was responsible for Canada being removed from their UN Security Council seat for first time.
- Afghan Detainees Scandal- if you don't know this one, I am not going to explain it (Yes, that means you should know it!)
- Withheld financial information from parliament and parliamentary committees about costs of military planes
- Neglected the bid process in awarding of a contract on fighter plane procurement.
- Whistleblower scandal – Christiane Ouimet, integrity commissioner, turned down investigations into 227 whistleblower allegations. She was quietly dismissed with a $500,000 exit payment and gag order.
- Rebranding Canadian Government as Harper Government on communications documents
- Temporary Foreign Workers Scandal with Royal Bank and other large corporations for the importing of foreign workers to replace Canadian workers.
- Bail-In Provision snuck through to allow government access to personal savings accounts to settle government debts (2013)
- Long Gun Registry – stopped then reinstated (April 2013) with increased registration fees for restricted weapons and the yearly renewing of licence for long guns
- Interference in the 2008 US Presidential election
- $54,000 taxpayer money spent on 2-day oil lobby retreat in UK (2011)
- Withdrawal from Kyoto Accord after it had been ratified (said others were leaving. We were the only one.)
- G8/G20 Fake Lake Scandal -- again, if you don't know, you probably want to read and find out.
- Ordering striking unions back to work and quashed the collective bargaining procedure for several national unions (Air Canada, Canada Post, etc)
- Broke his own new set election date law
- Over 1700 patronage appointments (see quoted above)
- Pulls Canada out of UN anti-drought initiative
- Contempt of Parliament – refused to turn over documents on Afghan detainee affair and later refused to submit to a parliamentary request regarding costing of his programs. Much more was involved here. Suffice to say that this is the only government in the history of our country to be found in contempt of parliament. He use prorogation to circumvent the issue
- Issued a 200-page handbook to committee heads advising them on how to disrupt their committees.
- Reneged on promise to allow parliamentary committees to select their own chairs.
- Dictated an order that staffers to cabinet ministers do not have to testify before committees
- Ordered all government communications to be vetted by his office or the Privy Council Office
- Impeded access to information systems, including the elimination of data base CAIRS, delaying responses to requests, imposing prohibitive fees on requests, putting pressure on bureaucrats to keep sensitive information hidden.
- Redacted/blacked out excessive amounts of information, even when shown there was no reason for it to be considered classified.
- Putting Conservative party logos on stimulus funding cheques that were paid out of the public purse.
- Had party affiliates write on-line posts, using false names, to attack journalists.
- In Charlottetown in 2007, he had the police remove reporters from a hotel lobby where a party caucus meeting was being held
- Attempted to tar the reputation of diplomat Richard Colvin for contradicting their position on the afghan detainees situation.
- Defence Minister Gordon O’Connor mislead the House regarding the afghan detainees situation, had to apologize and later resigned
- Terminated Peter Tinsley, the Military Police Complaints Commissioner, when he started to investigate the afghan detainee situation.
- He tried to withhold documents requested by Parliament regarding the afghan detainee situation
- Before his leadership, personal attack ads were used, relatively sparingly, only during election season instead of every day regardless of election cycle.
- Fossil of the Day awards (x3) were awards to John Baird, as minister of the environment, at the UN Cancun climate conference (Dec 2010) awarded by more than 400 leading organizations, to the countries that do the most to disrupt or undermine UN climate talks, citing that Baird and the Canadian government were ‘working against progressive legislation to address climate change” by “cancelling support for clean energy and for failing to have any plan to meet its very weak target for reducing Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions.”
- Worked against NGOs, independent agencies, watchdog groups, and tribunals who showed signs of differing with his intent by firing directors, stacking the boards with his loyalists, sued them, cut funding, etc.
- Made unfounded accusations against the Rights and Democracy group, Elections Canada, Veterans’ Ombudsman Pat Stogran, Budget Officer Kevin Page, Dalton McGuinty, Liberal MP Navdeep Bains, Michael Behiels and more for taking positions contrary to that of the Conservative Party.

Of course, he is a man who surrounds himself with only the best, the brightest… those of his same ilk. I give you a peek at some of his swamp-rats:
- Bev Oda – misleading Parliament, mishandled CIDA requests for KAIROS group, overspending (has paid back $4,025.26 to taxpayers)
- Maxime Bernier – 2 ethics investigations for conflict of interest
- Peter Penashue – election overspending, ineligible donations
- John Duncan – improperly lobbied a tax judge
- Bruce Carson – violating lobbying regulations/influence peddling
- Dimitri Soudas – Communications Director for PM questioned over kickback scandal involving Montreal Port Authority
- Jim Flaherty – Finance Minister improperly interfered with CRTC regarding the issuing of a broadcast licence
- Dean Del Mastro – Elections Canada investigation of overspending, etc.
- Arthur Porter – Harper appointee as Canada spy agency watchdog wanted for $1.3B fraud
- Lisa Raitt – left sensitive documents in public AND made the‘cancer is sexy’ comment
- Jason Kenney – used MP stationery for party fundraising
- Rahim Jaffer and Helene Guergis – aids writing letters to papers pretending to be citizens, influence peddling (him), letting her husband use her office, mortgage transgressions, and the Charlottetown Airport meltdown
- Peter MacKay – using military transportation for personal use
- Vic Towes – abusive language and ‘you’re either with us or against us with child pornography’ statement
- Sebastien Togneri, Agop Evereklian, Giulio Maturi, Dale Saip and Kasra Nejatian all involved in ethics transgressions
- Rona Ambrose – told a parliamentary committee that Canada had paid its debt under the Kyoto Protocol but it was later pointed out that it was still unpaid. She refused to add spotted owls, of which there were only 17, needed no special protection. As Minister responsible for the Status of Women, voted for a motion to revisit the Canadian Criminal Code regarding abortion.
- John Baird – Used his cabinet post to interfere with the 2006 Ottawa city mayoral election and the light rail transit system in that city.

…And let’s not forget the old, over-privileged swamp-rats:
- Mike Duffy – improperly collecting housing allowances
- Patrick Brazeau – improperly collecting housing allowances and facing assault and sexual assault charges
- Pamela Wallin – travel and other expenses being audited for irregularities

In all, during the reign thus far of Stephen Harper, he has made 58 senate appointments, 100% from the conservative party. That sort of blows that whole no patronage/no senate promise thingy totally to hell in a handbag, don’t it. "Some of these things are just little mistakes" you say? Well, think of them as a whole, and think of them in terms of 'these are just the ones we know about'; you KNOW there are many more still hidden in the reeds and under rocks in Stephen Harper's swamp. You don’t need me to point out the obvious though – Stephen Harper and his conservative government has a record that speaks for itself, and that is more than worthy of as much mud as we can sling at it. The thing is, do we really want to crawl down in that gutter with him to use the same tactics he does? Perhaps we are better off to let his record, and this Bog of Bullshit, speak (loudly) for itself.