Harper Cons Are Feeling the Heat on Quebec Ad Scheme

So the Cons are feeling the pressure of the national party funnelling funds through local constituencies into Quebec based advertising and allegedly exceeding legislated spending limits.

They have done some homework on Dion’s 2004 campaign and Steve Janke of Blogging Tories has done an interesting post on the findings. He seems to be alleging a Dion scandal with this post that parallels the Conservatives scheme. I will deal with the merits of the Janke claim in another post. In the mean time lets catch up on the recent developments om Cons version of Adscam.

The opening paragraph of the Janke posting reads like a Statement of Defence for the Cons in their pending Federal Court action. The Blog post provides what might be suggested as the redeeming fact they want us to focus on as the justification for the scheme.

The ad-scheme money was aggregated through an in-and out payment using the campaign bank accounts of 67 Con candidates across the country. The funds once back in the national party accounts were used to buy ads in certain regions of Quebec that were deemed winnable by the Cons. The justification for this scheme seems to be that while the ads were the same ones that were used by the Con in their national campaign they apparently had “the local candidates name added to the end.”

Since the funds were funnelled through the bank accounts of some 67 “local candidates” it would be expected the names added to the advertising would state that a certain candidate “authorized the ads.” Logically the names that should be added to the commericals would be those of local candidate’s whose bank accounts were used to funnel the funds – right? After all the way the schmes is set up it is supposed to look like those 67 candidates used their own campaign money to pay for the ads.

Media reports have indicated that some of the 67 candidates and their official agents did not even know the national campaign office of the Conservative Party was doing this funnelling through their campaign bank accounts. Classy don’t you think? If they can’t be open and transparent with their own candidates, on what basis do they think the rest of us should trust them?

I have not seen the Quebec ads that the Cons bought with the money they funnelled through 67 other candidate’s bank accounts. But my suspicion is any efforts to make the national campaign ad buy in Quebec look “local” was focused on the local Quebec candidates in the regions where the ads were purchased. The candidate "authorization" tag at the end of the commercials I'll bet at best was only the names of the Quebec regional candidates where the ads were televised.

The meltdown gets worse. The timing of the Harper Cons re-launch of their version of the famous “Sponsorship” program in the front page of the Globe and Mail could not have been worse. This is the program that has been working it way through the system for a while. There were media report that the former Minister (Bev Oda) was sending memos to her caucus asking for the Cons MPs to submit ideas for how this $30m could be spent in their local constituencies. Was that co-incidental to when Harper was trying to get traction for an election a few weeks ago?

Dion Announces Policy to Protect Canada's Water

Tip of the Hat to “While the Earth Burns” on his posting on Dion Liberals proposal for a Task Force of the Protection of Canada’s Water Resources.”

Here is a taste of the posting and the policy proposal:

"Today, the climate change crisis makes it more important than ever to preserve fresh water supply in Canada,” added Mr. Dion. “Our fresh water resources aren’t as abundant as we think. While Canada houses almost a quarter of the world’s fresh water, the renewable amount that can actually be replenished by rain fall, and that is safe for sustainable use, is about 7 per cent.”

Lazy Lawmakers Cause Judicial and Administrative Activism

There is an irony of some politicians who are constantly complaining about activist judges and interfering bureaucrats these days. I’ll bet that far-right grumpiness is wafting through the political air in Ottawa these days.

There needs to be some truth brought to power methinks. Dear politician, the way to avoid judicial and bureaucratic “activist” interpretations of your laws it to pass better and clearer laws. It is that simple.

We too often see weasel words and implications woven into legislation because politicians seem to lack the courage to say what they mean and mean what they say when they draft our laws. That intellectual laziness or lack of intellectual integrity merely invites activist interpretations BECAUSE it creates a need for interpretation. This clarity rule of law making cannot be iron clad and absolute obviously. Some laws are living things and are intentionally designed to have adaptive interpretations to deal with and accommodate a changing society – like the Charter of Rights and Freedoms for instance.

And while you are at it Dear politician, when you pass laws, show some respect for jurisdiction and the Constitution in your law making. A few years ago the Alberta legislature passed a law defining marriage in Alberta during the same-sex debates. They did it even after being told through undisputed legal opinions that it was outside their jurisdiction. At the same time that Alberta government was very happy to tell the federal government to keep its face out of provincial jurisdiction like education (remember Millennial Scholarships?) and health care. I suspect this pretensive political positioning was more about hubris and stupidity than it was about mere hypocrisy.

Contentious legislation that requires social, economic and ecological values trade-offs are exactly why we have democracies and the politicians are preferred our proxies to make these hard choices on our behalf. When we vote for you and grant you our consent to govern us we do not expect you to take the easy way out. We expect your insight, wisdom and judgment to be applied to serve the best interests of our society to the best of your ability.

We know politics is a difficult job and often a messy business. Get over it or get out of it. When you don’t do the difficult jobs and intentionally leave philosophical fuzziness in your legislation you are inviting, no you are requiring, the courts to be there. All to often they end up doing your job.

The problem is usually not judicial or administrative activism. Most often the problem is inadequate politicians.

So Mr. Harper, get off the backs of Elections Canada. If you want to eliminate the wearing of veils at voting stations – say so in the law and make it absolutely clear. You and the rest of the politicians were already forewarned by your administration this would happen and you let it slide. Not good enough. Not good enough at all.

Greens Breathing Down the NDP Necks in Ontario Election

The Greens (11%) are within the margin of error of the NDP (13%) support in the first poll in the Ontario election since the writ was dropped.

Come on Greens!

Politicians Are Pandering Over "Veiled" Threats.

The silliness that has emerged over the “veiled threat” is unhelpful at so many levels. The allegations abound as to the motives. Some say it is political pander to Quebec angst over religious minorities in the face of the by-elections next week. Others say it is Harper taking on Elections Canada because he is ticked over them disallowing the advertising scheme the Cons did in the last election. Others accuse Harper of using this to change the channel on the advertising scam issues with Elections Canada and to focus on this voter identification issue.

Still others see this turn of events as politicians of all stripes talking out of both sides of their mouths since they all just agreed and passed the legislation amendments that enabled this silliness to prevail and now they are blaming the Elections Canada administration.

The Cons have added a partisan spin to this saying Dion is flip flopping on veiled voting. The Cons make a stretch in their own credulity when one day he says he does not like Election Canada’s decision and asks them to revisit it. Two days later Dion say he still disagrees with Elections Canada decision not to revisit it but he can live with the law as it is. A visit to the CPC official website shows Dion's picture 3 times and Harper's only once. Are the Cons that afraid of Dion?

This is no Dion flip flop it is enlightened accommodation. How you ask? The Muslim community itself has said women are more than prepared to raise their veils and identify themselves – provided it is to another woman. In fact they do it now when doing banking, crossing a border or writing an exam.

People have a responsibility to reveal their identities for purposes of voting. That problem is solved in very practical terms already according to Muslim leaders. Those veiled woman will willingly show their faces to another female official at the polling station for purposes of identification. That is no different to my mind than same-sex personal security searches at airports. So the posturing and pandering around this stuff is pointless and obviously purely political…and the politicians involved should be embarrassed.

What I am really wondering about all this is why a women would choose to submit to such attire in a free and democratic society like Canada in the first place. I know I have a lot to learn about this culture and its beliefs. I have made some effort to try and understand but I have to admit – I don’t get it as to why women are wearing burkas, abayas and niquabs in Canada. It is still pretty foreign to my values and very hard to comprehend.

What that leads me to wonder is will our high minded and principled politicians do when a woman wishes to breach such religious requirements? Will they rush to her aid and support her individual expression of her rights in the face of some inevitable cultural-community pressures? Or will they choose to run for cover themselves?