Reform Conservatives Launch Art Show: "Taking Corruption to New Heights"

When a Conservative logo appeared on a stimulus cheque presented by Reform-Conservative Gerald Keddy, Stephen Harper said it was a mistake. A one-of, and wouldn't happen again.

However, since that was made public, several people have presented photographs of cheques that came from the Canadian taxpayer, with clear partisan messages. 181 to be exact, from 47 different violators.

They range from the party logo to photos of Ref-Con MPs, to signatures of Stephen Harper or the MP presenting the cheque. All clear violations.

The NDP were the first to report this to the ethics officer, and now the Liberals have launched several charges for misuse of our tax dollars.

If we thought the ridiculous ten per centers were a flagrant abuse, the Reformers latest actions are absolutely criminal. First they spend two million tax dollars to set up a website in Tory blue with 40 pictures of Stephen Harper, and then another almost sixty million for television spots with a link to the website in Tory blue with 40 pictures of Stephen Harper.

Enough is enough!

Novelty Cheques, Novel Portrait?

The giant novelty cheque story appears to have inspired the the Liberal party's artsy side. Today at a news conference, Liberal MPs David McGuinty and Marcel Proulx announced the party is launching 47 complaints with Canada's ethics Commissioner, saying that they've found 181 examples where Conservative MPs have taken credit for taxpayer-funded Government of Canada funding announcements through the use of "personalized partisan cheques" since 2007.

Why 47 complaints? One for each Tory MP the Liberals say handed out the cheques. Today's news conference also featured a crafty multi-media presentation, which included an image of Prime Minister Stephen Harper made up of a collage of those over sized cheques.

Ben Parsons, 24, created the portrait. He works in strategic communications at the Liberal Research Bureau and says it took him about an hour on Adobe Photohop to arrange all the cheques and alter the colour scheme. Parsons says he then layered a transparent photograph of Harper over this collage.