This Stimulus Spending Scandal Should be Impeachable

I watched an account of the murder of Kathy Augustine, former Republican politician from Nevada, who was apparently murdered by her husband.

However, what I found interesting about the story was the fact that she had been impeached as state controller for violating the privileges of her office. Apparently Augustine used her staff and office photo-copier in her bid for re-election.

So how is this blatant tax-payer funded re-election campaign, called the Canada Action Plan, not an impeachable offense?

OK. I realize that Canada does not have impeachment laws, but maybe we should.

We could call the new law the Harper Law, in honour of the man who broke all the rules of common decency in the interest of self-promotion. Or maybe the Giorno Law, since he was the man who authorized it. An exact replay of his days with the corrupt Ontario Premier Mike Harris.

Or maybe even the Reform Party Law because back in the day when they were trying to promote principle, they wanted to legislate a recall law, where politicians could be impeached or recalled for abusing their office.

Boy has that party gone down the tubes since Harper took it over. Although I think they dug their grave when they teamed up with Harris himself back in the day.

I never liked Reform because of their narrow minded views, but I thought their hearts were in the right place when it came to some "values", especially anti-corruption. Now we get the corruption and the narrow minded views. Haven't we been blessed?

Hundreds of millions of dollars gone. Tax dollars in the middle of a recession. A recession that we were supposed to have weathered, only to find that when the winds stopped blowing, our house and safety nets had blown away with them.

It's a complete mess and we don't even have the Auditor General's report yet.

50 million dollars for signs and who knows how much for other re-election paraphernalia like bunting, pamphlets and plaques (?)

The contract - which requires recipient groups to submit photos of their Economic Action Plan signs - says eligible expenses for signage include maximum costs of $2,250 for a small sign and $4,250 for a large sign. Another $2,500 can be charged for a "permanent plaque." The club can expense rental fees on chairs, flagpoles, a public-address system and a stage, and can charge Ottawa for light refreshments and snacks (no booze), printing and mailing of invitations, and media kits.

All of this while the municipalities were forced to borrow money for the actual project, and many have still not been reimbursed.

And while they continue to blow their own (taxpayer funded) horn, some of the so-called infrastructure spending was nothing but a family and friends orgy.

World leaders look at what Canada’s doing and they “want to be Canadian,” Mr. Flaherty insisted. Really? It’s hard to imagine there’s much Canada envy over the millions Ottawa has thrown at local pet projects over the past two years, including Kitchener-Waterloo’s Oktoberfest ($700,000), an indoor skateboard park and climbing wall in Winnipeg ($3.2-million), a motorized orchestra pit at a concert hall in Rimouski, Que. ($153,000), or repairing a busted hockey rink in Iqaluit ($2.5-million).

No one begrudges Canadians’ right to knock back some Schnapps or play a little hockey. But to throw billions into a hodge-podge of boondoggles and call it world-beating economic policy is a bit of a stretch.

Or how about the $15-million for something called Prince Arthur’s Landing at Marina Park to "install a water main, fill in a small piece of Lake Superior with dirt and put a sewer in so private developers can cash in with a water park, hotel, and condos."

Sounds like Tony Clement's 50 million dollar boost to help an American owned hotel.

Or thousands for a circus school. Tony Clement is expected to be the first grad.

And millions of dollars for private religious schools. And when I say millions, I mean MILLIONS!!!! Libraries, indoor soccer fields.

The debate over a government grant to build an indoor soccer field at Collingwood's Pretty River Academy (PRA) has turned ugly. Dueling on-line petitions, protests and countless letters to the editor have laid bare the issue
of public money funding a private school and the apparent inability of Collingwood council to get its own recreation infrastructure projects approved. (Pretty River Debate Turns Ugly: Collingwood)

Nothing open to the public. You have to be "saved" first, but even then be willing to open your wallets.

Like Redeemer College, with strong links to both David Sweet and Harper's former deputy chief of staff Darrel Reid. They got three million dollars of "public" money despite the fact that are a "private" Bible school. Or how about the four million that went to build a library in another private religious school? How is this helping the rest of us?

As Barrie McKenna states:

Mr. Flaherty insists the government’s orgy of infrastructure spending “will leave a legacy for future generations.” Unfortunately, the legacy may be a swelling deficit that crowds out spending on the kind of infrastructure the country really needs.

Now how about that recall law?