More Hands Found in Harper's Deep Pockets

In 2007, knowing that they couldn't ride Adscam forever, the Harper government put our tax dollars to good use, by hiring a private investigator to dig into the Liberal's polling expenses.

However, the firm he hired did not uncover the results he was hoping for.

An independent investigator hired by the Harper government to look into past Liberal polling practices has wound up shining an unfavourable light on the Tories' penchant for polling. Daniel Paille notes that the Conservative government has commissioned more than two polls per business day, a figure he calls "quite astounding."

His report shows that the government spent $31.2 million on opinion research in the last year - more than any previous year and almost twice the $18 million spent on average during the Liberal years. Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed Paille, a former Parti Quebecois cabinet minister, last April to conduct a probe of federal contracts for public opinion research between 1990 and 2003.  The objective was to determine whether a judicial inquiry into the previous Liberal government's polling practices was warranted.

Since it cost taxpayers $610,000 for the report, should there not have been a judicial inquiry into the Harper government's polling practices? Of course there should have been, but the whole thing got swept under their lumpy rug.

To avoid such dangerous transparency dinging them again, the conservatives limited their polling and instead hired a rash of "consultants" who do everything from monitoring the internet to "advising" elected officials.

And to keep them all employed, they create offices with lavish titles, making it appear that they are doing wonderful things on behalf of Canadians.  Unfortunately, many are not working at all.  Like the Appointments Commission:

Canadian taxpayers have shelled out more than $1 million for a federal appointments commission that has no commissioners and hasn't overseen a single appointment in four years. In fact, it isn't even supposed to exist.  Stephen Harper created the commission in 2006, and promptly scrapped it in a huff.  Yet the spending continues, and indeed the commission lives on, despite serving no apparent use.

In 2010 they were actually asking for a budget increase, despite being a phantom commission.

Harper's longtime friend Bruce Carson, was awarded $5 million to study something or other, though his studies appear to stop at escorts. 
 
The ethics czar had 50 pending ethics violations waiting to be investigated when she was paid $500,000 to just go away.

Recently another bogus office was uncovered by Greg Weston. 

A federal agency created by the Harper government with great political fanfare in 2008 is costing millions of dollars to achieve pretty much nothing.  The Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board has just about everything a budding government agency could want.  So far, it has spent over $3.3 million for new offices, computers and furniture, well-paid executives and staff, travel budgets, expense accounts, board meetings, and lots of pricey consultants.  All that's missing is a reason for it to exist at all.

The Harper government had already spent through the almost $9 billion surplus of EI funds, so there is nothing left to invest. That hasn't stopped the bogus board (run by Tradex) from demanding bigger offices. Guess where the surpluses went?

The conservative base allows this man to get away with anything.  Had the Liberals done this, they would have been all over it.
 
A columnist for a Western paper once wrote a piece praising Harper for not appointing staff based on patronage.  I promptly reminded him that the Harper government had just set a new record for patronage appointments, even beating out Brian Mulroney.  He demanded to see my sources.  After providing them, he never contacted me again.
 
Maybe it does just come down to the size of their brains.

Elections Canada to Investigate Bogus Phone Calls

Elections Canada will investigate bogus phone calls made on election day, telling people that their polling stations had closed:

Elections Canada has launched an investigation into an election day telephone hoax designed to prevent voters from reaching the polls in three ridings in Ontario. CBC News has obtained a copy of a fraudulent automated telephone message reported in Guelph, Ottawa and Kitchener-Waterloo telling people their polling locations had moved.

"This is an automated message from Elections Canada. Due to a projected increase in voter turnout your poll location has been changed," says one message retrieved from a resident’s telephone voicemail system in Guelph. "Your new voting location is at the old Quebec Street mall at 55 Wyndham Street North, " the message states. But Elections Canada said it’s a hoax, that the polling locations had not been moved and frustrated voters were left scrambling trying to determine where to vote.

It happened in Kingston as well, prompting our local Liberal riding association to contact it's members, and warnings were also given by the local media.

This election we witnessed more dirty tricks, scams and hoaxes, than I can ever remember. We can't let this go.

Thank You Mr. Valeriote. We Can't let Election Fraud Go

Liberal MP Frank Valeriote promises to actively pursue the election fraud, where people were being called in close ridings, being told that their polling station had moved.

Just because the election is over, doesn't mean that we can let this go.

We just experienced the most undemocratic campaign on record, so we have to salvage something from the chaos.

During every federal election campaign issues surface that give rise to complaints to Elections Canada. Sometimes the agency responds to the complaints quickly and very conspicuously. It did so in the just-ended campaign when it confirmed receipt of a Conservative party complaint arising from the special ballot staged at the University of Guelph, and then quickly ruled on the complaint. ..This election saw its share of local matters referred to Elections Canada. On the last day of the campaign alone there were bogus recorded phone calls misdirecting local voters to incorrect polling locations and signage that allegedly skirted federal elections law. Each generated Guelph complaints.

It wouldn’t even surprise many locals if this campaign saw a high-water mark for complaints to the agency arising from electoral goings-on in Guelph. We’re pleased that Guelph MP Frank Valeriote has signalled his intention to follow-up on these matters — with particular emphasis on a few of them.

I hope we learn the source.

The Election Fraud Scheme and Why the Latest Talking Points are Nothing But Hot Air

Harper's latest talking points on the election fraud scheme dubbed the "In and Out" is that he didn't know he was doing anything wrong and once he realized that he was, he stopped the practice. I wonder how far this would get a suspect under this government's "law and order" regime.

"I thought it was OK to rob that bank. There were no signs saying not to, and I promise I won't do it again."

For the prime minister of Canada to suggest that he wasn't aware, that fabricating receipts to get money that you're not entitled to, was illegal, is inexcusable.

And frankly. A lie.

And for the prime minister of Canada to suggest that he didn't know the election laws after spending thousands of dollars to take Elections Canada right to the Supreme Court, so that he could change the election spending laws, in favour of corporations, is inexcusable.

And frankly. A lie.

Harper vs Canada: Practice ‑‑ Stay ‑‑ Federal elections ‑‑ Spending limits ‑‑ Plaintiff granted interlocutory injunction against enforcement of third‑party spending limits pending decision on his constitutional challenge to legislation ‑‑ Whether injunction should be stayed.

The respondent sought a declaration that the provisions in the Canada Elections Act, S.C. 2000, c. 9, imposing limits on third‑party spending on advertising in the course of a federal election campaign are unconstitutional because they unjustifiably limit the right of free expression guaranteed by s. 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

He would probably know the election laws in this country better than almost anyone.

But when he lost an opportunity in court to change those laws, he just decided that when given the chance, he would simply break them.

And he got caught.

And raking Marc Maynard over the coals suggesting that he has a vendetta against Stephen Harper because he referred to his department as "the jackasses at Elections Canada" and took them to court is nonsense. Maynard wasn't even with Elections Canada then.

Which brings us to the fabrication of invoices. Basic law. Everyone knows that if you present fake invoices to get a larger income tax rebate, and get caught, you will be in trouble and probably go to jail. This is what may happen to the four conspirators already charged.

They can't use ignorance as a defense. This was willful and calculated.

Another thing to note, is that when the Conservatives challenged this in court, it was only to get the remaining rebates to the former candidates. Only 17 had slipped through the cracks before auditors became aware of the fraud scheme. The company handling their national campaign, when presented with one of the doctored invoices, said that it wasn't theirs and that it looked as though someone had photocopied their letterhead and then added the figures themselves.

The Conservatives argument was only that Maynard had no authority to investigate the scheme.

Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand overstepped his bounds by probing the Conservative party's 2006 campaign financing before rejecting the expense claims filed by some candidates, the party’s lawyer argued in court Monday. Mayrand’s role in assessing returns filed by candidates is confined by law to approving the documents provided to him and he is not empowered to launch a more detailed audit, Michel Décary told the Federal Court of Canada on the first day of hearings into the party’s legal action against the top election official.

Quite the defense.

And the 17 caught with their hands in our cookie jar, included several MPs, some cabinet ministers:

The MPs who were reimbursed are: Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon (Pontiac), Conservative whip Jay Hill (Prince George-Peace River), former foreign affairs minister Maxime Bernier (Beauce), International Co-operation Minister Josee Verner (Louis St. Laurent), Daniel Petit (Charlesbourg-Haute-Saint-Charles), Steven Blaney (Levis-Bellechasse), Jacques Gourde (Lotbiniere-Chutes-de-la-Chaudiere), Luc Harvey (Louis-Hebert), Pat Davidson (Sarnia-Lambton), David Anderson (Cypress Hills-Grasslands), and Colin Mayes (Okanagan-Shuswap).

Someone suggested yesterday that we should stop calling it the "in and out", because it oversimplifies the matter, taming it down. This was a deliberate and wilful attempt to ignore the laws that protect our democracy and cheat the Canadian taxpayers out of a great deal of money.

It's just that simple.

David Marler has been vindicated.

Secret Memo Reveals that Canada Action Plan Was Nothing but a Massive Ad Campaign. Duh!

The Canadian Press is reporting: Documents show Economic Action Plan marketing blitz a PMO production from the get-go

A flashy taxpayer-funded website was conceived as the "key component" in marketing the Conservative government's Economic Action Plan, a secret memo prepared for Stephen Harper reveals. And right from the get-go, images and video of the prime minister were integral building blocks that pre-occupied programmers building the site, according to internal government documents obtained by The Canadian Press.

Two years later, Canadians are still being blanketed with Economic Action Plan marketing, an all-of-government program designed to enforce "a single, consistent brand ... across all departments and agencies." On Thursday, some 80 government MPs, ministers and senators were dispatched across the country to tout EAP projects, even as the program officially winds down. Television viewers have been bombarded since January with a fresh round of pricey, action-plan advertising — ads that uniformly direct viewers to thewww.actionplan.gc.cawebsite. Documents reveal it is part of a massive, centrally co-ordinated campaign — critics call it partisan propaganda — orchestrated out of the Prime Minister's Office at taxpayer expense.

Many of us have been saying that from the start, but only now have documents revealed it to be true. We are talking roughly $200 million dollars to promote Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada.

So who is going to go to jail over this? We already know that bureaucrats warned them that what they were doing was not only unethical but illegal.

So when one of those 80 MPs come to your town, with your credit card, trying to buy your vote, make some noise and demand some answers.

Just think of what that money could have bought.

And claiming that he doesn't want an election now, when his electioneering is so transparent, is just more smoke.

The Harper Conservatives are hoping for an election despite their claims to the contrary, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff alleged Thursday. "The government is crisscrossing the country by spending money with all kinds of promises, useless promises," he told reporters in Ottawa. "We don't want an election, but I think he [Prime Minister Stephen Harper] is the one that wants an election."

Ignatieff was referring to a series of events being held across the country Thursday involving a spate of Conservative MPs. The events revolved around projects from the government's Economic Action Plan.

Time to pull the plug. We can no longer afford this government. They are bankrupting us.

But now that we know this is a fraud, we need to email or write every television station running these ads, and let them know that they are accomplices in the theft of our money.

Civil disobedience.

The Smoking Gun That Will Help us to Bring Down the Harper Dictatorship?

Canada's former "integrity" officer has been found in Florida. After ignoring a subpoena on the advice no doubt of Harper himself, she's been on the lam.

Ignoring subpoenas is Harper's m.o. When a committee was investigating the alleged election financing fraud, he told witnesses to ignore the subpoenas, then he shut down the committee and called an election, keeping everything tied up in the courts for years.

Taxpayers foot the bill.

When the Afghan Detainee issue was becoming too hot to handle, Harper told witnesses to ignore subpoenas and shut down the committee by proroguing Parliament and has kept that tied up in the courts for months.

Taxpayers foot the bill. (130 million for the prorogation alone.)

So should we be surprised that former, apparently "lack of integrity" commissioner, Christiane Ouimet, has ignored the subpoena and fled the country? And as Lawrence Martin says, Harper will drag this out in the courts, hoping to get an election out of the way before having to answer to over 200 serious fraud related charges?

There’s Bev Oda. Then there is someone who makes Ms. Oda’s actions, judging from a recent Auditor-General’s report, look rather angelic. The elusive former integrity commissioner, Christiane Ouimet, was finally located last week – in Florida. And now that she has been located, the Conservative government may face one of its stiffest tests of damage control. Ms. Ouimet (rhymes with Antoinette) is the public servant who, according to Sheila Fraser’s damning report, did not do her job properly – choosing to investigate just seven of 228 complaints about wrongdoing in the public sector – possibly saving the Harper government multiple embarrassments.

After failing to appear before a parliamentary committee despite being subpoenaed, she sent a rather terse message to the committee through her lawyer
saying she was willing to return March 10 to face interrogators. What a show it promises to be. Given the large number of uninvestigated cases that came before
her, the possibility of smoking guns suddenly appearing on the government’s doorstep can hardly be discarded.

Apparently many are very serious. Could we see some go to jail? I mean the Conservatives claim to be tough on crime. But then if they only stole from taxpayers it doesn't count, right?

Mike Duffy and the CRTC. A Hint at What is to Come

As the Harper stacked CRTC is looking at allowing Canadian news programs to just make stuff up, I'm reminded of Mike Duffy and his role in hijacking the 2008 election.

This was done by creating an entire show around the false starts of Stéphane Dion, when he was asked an obviously carefully drafted convoluted question by CTV's Steve Murphy, that even linguistic professors determined made no sense.

But what didn't come out in the media, was that both Steve Murphy and Mike Duffy were charged with ethics violations, as a result of their complicity in influencing the results of an election.

The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) today released two decisions concerning the broadcast of three false starts of an interview by CTV anchor Steve Murphy with Liberal leader Stéphane Dion during the October 2008 federal election campaign. Each restart had been requested by Mr. Dion and granted by Mr. Murphy, CJCH-TV (CTV Atlantic)’s news anchor.

One decision related to the first broadcast of the false starts (which were followed by the broadcast of the full 12-minute interview) on CTV Atlantic’s newscast CTV News at 6 on October 9. The other related to the rebroadcast by CTV Newsnet of the restarts on the public affairs discussion program Mike Duffy Live Prime Time later that same evening. The CBSC concluded that both broadcasts violated certain provisions of the Radio Television News Directors of Canada (RTNDA) Code of (Journalistic) Ethics and the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ (CAB) Code of Ethics.

After the debates Stephen Harper's popularity had plummeted and he only regained the lead after this little stunt.

The fallout from the French and English debates shows the previous pre-debate 10 point Conservative margin is now four percentage points. Tracking shows incremental movement in favour of the Liberals and Stephane Dion. Dion registered his highest score as the person Canadians think would make the best Prime Minister.

Of course Mike Duffy was rewarded with a senate seat, where the Canadian taxpayers now shell out more than $150,000.00 a year so that he can campaign full time for the neocons.

But this is the kind of thing that the new CRTC ruling would make commonplace. News stories will be about cherry picking statements, and fabricating a story around them. And Canadians won't know what hit them.