Harper's Lies & Deceit regarding the Canadian Economy

Stephen Harper is continuously deceiving and lying to Canadians about the state of our economy. Yesterday, Stephen Harper claimed:

There are more people working in Canada today than before the recession, the ONLY advanced country where that is the case.

This sounds all very positive, but, unfortunately, it's far from the truth.

Let's analyse.

Canada's unemployment is up (NOT down).

1) "There are more people working in Canada today than before the recession." That might well be the case, but there are also more Canadians without a job than before the recession. 

You don't believe me? 

Check out this report from our own Stats Canada (9 September 2011), and see the unemployment figure, which I have copied below:

You see? 7.4% of Canadians are unemployed now, while that number was close to 6% before the 2008 recession hit.Harper's "there are more people at work now than before the recession" implies unemployment is down, when in reality  unemployment is up.

But then it get's worse, and Harper moves from implicit deceit to explicitly lying, all in a single sentence (what a craftsman):


2) "Canada is the ONLY advanced country where that is the case" - Really? How about one of Europe's strongest economies, Germany?

Canadas economy performs far worse than Germany's (yes, Germany is an advanced country...) 

Apparently Germany has been doing really well throughout this recession. A simple Google News search shows how Harper is lying through his teeth. On August 31 Bloomberg's BusinessWeek.com reported:

[Germany's] jobless rate held at 7 percent, the lowest since records for a reunified Germany began in 1991.

Yesterday, the same website explains:

German unemployment at a two-decade low of 7 percent may boost household spending and help offset slowing exports.

This information is being backed up by a recent (and highly reliable) report by Germany's own Bundesagentur fur Arbeit (Germany's Federal Employment Agency.) On page 12, figure 6, the "Deutchland" line represents the falling unemployment (Arbeitslose) of all of Germany (copied below):


Germany's current unemployment numbers are far below those right before the recession, so, Harper, isn't it time for an apology to the Canadian people. Apparently not. Today Harper makes the same false claim again. Both times journalists (Gloria Galloway from the G&M, and Mark Kennedy from Post Media News) do not refute the false claims made by our country's Prime Minister. 

MSM journalists are failing us
Personally I don't really blame Stephen Harper for his lies and deceit.Apart from being a heartless asshole, he's just doing his work by playing politics with the facts. What bothers me most is the complacency of the Canadian newspapers, who simply copy and paste whatever comes out of Harper's ass. Journalist are supposed to keep our politicians honest by refuting lies and deceit, so why is it that they aren't doing their homework?

I get the impression that The Globe and Mail, a corporate entity, believes that painting rosy picture of the economy is good for business (and investment), and therefore G&M sides with their corporate advertisers (who, BTW, believe the same thing).NOT refuting Harper's lies is a "cheap" (or sophisticated, depending on one's own bias) way to feed the rosy picture of the economy and keep corporate advertisers happy, without doing the actual lying (Harper lied, G&M just spreads the lies); a win-win for the corporate elite, if you will.


Lame MSM has become mouthpiece for Conservatives and Corporate power
G&M (and Canada's MSM) clearly have become a mouthpiece of the Harper government, and one starts wondering how different such a media/government relationship really is from the one the Russia had some 30 years ago. They equally produce propaganda, journalistic garbage.

Stephen Harper comments on death of 134 Canadian soldier in Afghanistan

SH: It's really unfortunate for his family, and we would like to send our sincere condolences.

GIR: Prime minister Harper, do you feel at all responsible for soldiers returning home dead?

SH: Not really. You know, that's part of waging a war against terrorists. There's lots of bad guys out there, and, unfortunately, the family of this last soldier has to deal with the consequences of him volunteering. Besides, this happened thousands of miles away, and, as far as I can tell, no Canadians were involved in the killing itself.

GIR: But the soldier is Canadian...

SH: yes, yes, but we feel very sorry but it's really not my problem.

GIR: Isn't that a bit insensitive?

SH: ...

GIR: Prime minister...?

SH: Sorry, I got distracted by some emails from Peter...

GIR: Peter?

SH: You know, Peter MacKay. He's asking how to mark emails as "unread", any ideas?

GIR: No, I don't. Prime Minister, don't you think that when you say that the death of a Canadian soldier is "not my problem", that such a statement can be regarded as a tad insensitive?

SH: Oh yes, of course, don't write this stuff down! This is not for publication, is it?

Why didn't Stephen Harper fire Richard Colvin back in 2006 when Colvin made his ludicrous allegations?

Because Steve LLOOOOVVEEEESS torture! He always did and always will! Torture is cool, as long as nobody knows about it.

Better keep Colvin quiet and don't get your hands dirty.

The unholy Ipsos Reid + CanWest alliance; junk-polls and media bias shaping Canadian opinion.

Paul from Paulitics has revealed that Ipsos Reid has been releasing numbers with a pro-Conservative bias. Well, I hate to say it, but bias stemming from illegitimate polling practises and media bias is everywhere. Take one of the latest Ipsos Reid polls, just as an example. Respondents were asked the following question:

(a) Stephen Harper and the Conservatives are doing a good job of managing the issues that are most important to Canadians (b) and should continue to govern.

1. Junk Poll: Misleading question (read it here).

The above is a classic misleading question (actually, it's not even a question...). The technical term for a such a misleading polling question is double-barreled question, one of the "Top 10 Ways to Get Misleading Poll Results"

How it works

John Wright and his conservative buddies (a.k.a Ipsos Reid Canada) know quite well that Canadians “don't want an election” (68% of respondents don't want an election, June 2-4 Ipsos Reid poll). It appears that Ipsos Reid Canada used this information to craft a double-barrelled question in order to confuse respondents and get a more positive result on an on itself perfectly legitimate question (that should have been asked in the first place):

Do you agree that Stephen Harper and the Conservatives are doing a good job of managing the issues that are most important to Canadians?

But by adding the b part ("and should continue to govern" = avert an election) Ipsos Reid seems to have been aiming at those 68% of respondents that don't want an election, hoping that at least some of them would respond more positive to the question as a whole

“I don't want an election (b) so therefore I still “somewhat agree” with the question as a whole (a+b).”

And by putting this part into the latter half of the question, Ipsos Reid is giving the b part some extra weight too. Bruce Grundy explains:

If you ask a double barrelled question [..] you will almost certainly not get answers to all the matters raised. Usually, only the last point will be dealt with.
- Bruce Grundy, "So you want to be a journalist?".

Perfect!

2. Junk-results: Misleading, again, and again.

The results of the misleading poll question were as follows:

Strongly agrees (20%)
Somewhat agrees (34%)

I don't have access to the full results of the poll (update below) but given the likeliness that this poll was in the 'Strongly Agree', 'Somewhat Agree/Somewhat Disagree', 'Strongly Disagree' format, it's probably safe to assume that the rest of the respondents (46%) either strongly disagreed with the statement or has no opinion (or were offended by the biased question and therefore not answering).

Let's assume the following:

31% strongly disagree
15% no opinion/offended

Logic also teaches us that if a person somewhat agrees (34%), they also somewhat disagree, right?

Then we can conclude that also the presentation of the results is misleading. From the results above, it would be just as well to conclude that an overwhelming majority of Canadians agree (strongly 31%, somewhat 34% - totalling 65% !!) that Stephen Harper is doing a bad job, right?

3. Junk-Journalism: Misleading, again, and again, and again.

While Ipsos Reid is happy to supply misleading results from a flawed polling practise, CanWest uses these faulty results to push an even more positive image onto Conservative Party.

Here's a good example how CanWest misrepresents the already flawed poll:

(1) Harper has the edge, however, with half (54%) of those polled saying he should continue to govern. (2) Five in 10 (54%) Canadians agreed Harper is doing a good job of managing the country while four in 10 Canadians agreed Ignatieff would do better. - italic inserts mine

Indeed, both (1) and (2) are first order fallacies because one cannot make these assumptions based on a single double-barrelled polling question.

Fallacy explained
Let me explain this with a simple example:

Jan (15) was asked to respond to the following statement:

(a) I dislike my current math teacher and (b) she can drop dead.

Yes, you've got it right, this is also a double-barrelled statement!

Let's assume that Jan doesn't like her math teacher. Let's also assume that Jan is not the hateful type either (even towards her math teacher that she really dislikes); then what is she supposed to answer?

Obviously she's NOT going to choose "strongly agree" because she doesn't dislike people in that (b) way . She's also NOT going to choose "strongly disagree" because she really dislikes her teacher. It's therefore quite likely she will choose "Somewhat agree" given the fact she really dislikes the teacher (a).

The example above shows that, although Jan does not have a deathwish for her math teacher, she might as well have chosen "somewhat agree". So how could someone take the "somewhat agree" as evidence that she has a deathwish for her teacher?

What we are dealing with here is fallacy of distribution. Jan's "somewhat agree" to the full answer can not be translated to a "somewhat agree" to the single parts (in this case the death-wish) of the statement, as shown above.

Back to our Ipsos Reid/CanWest poll and "analysis"
All that we can know for sure is that only 20 percent agreed to the full a+b question: we can only speculate on the other 80% due to the confusing and misleading double barrelled question.

It's very likely there are many people like Jan among the respondents of the Ipsos Reid poll who fully agreed with one part of the question (b part, to avert an election) , but not so much with the other part (a part, Harper and Cons do a "good job").

4. Conclusion
The unholy alliance of Ispos Reid and CanWest is good for some good laughs, but their polling (Ipsos Reid) and journalism (CanWest) practises presented in my examples are clearly and severely flawed. The confusing polling question (Ipsos Reid) in combination with the flawed analysis (CanWest) appear to have been designed to inflate support for the Conservative Party and deflate criticism of the current government: hard to fully proof, but I'll let you decide.

5. Recommendation
You think this example is an exception to the rule? Think again. I see this kind of junk polling in combination with junk-journalism EVERYWHERE in the Canadian press.

The best thing to do is to ignore all polls and stop reading the corporate media/press: it's junk. I've given up cable TV and newspaper subscription a long time ago, and I advice you to do the same. Please support the CBC for a more objective and unbiased presentation of Canadian news.

UPDATE

I noticed this post which is helping me out with the missing date:

A majority (53%) of Canadians ‘agree’ (20% strongly/34% somewhat) that ‘Stephen Harper and the Conservatives are doing a good job of managing the issues that are most important to Canadians and should continue to govern’. On the other hand, four in ten (43%) ‘disagree’ (23% strongly/21% somewhat) that this is the case.

It now looks like the poll was in the following format, and the numbers read as follows:

'Strongly Agree' (20%), 'Somewhat Agree (34%), Somewhat Disagree' (21%), 'Strongly Disagree' (23%)

Even if we accept these latest poll numbers as being legit results, then one can only conclude (and even this can be questioned) that there are more people disagreeing (23%) with both parts of the statement than agreeing (20%) ! All others respondents appear to be highly confused how to answer the question.

Furthermore, if Ipsos-Reid/CanWest is allowed to misrepresent the facts, then Getting it Right (GIR) feels fully entitled to do the same. The actual results with an explanation by GIR:

Strongly Agree (20%) - Okay, these people seem to support the Conservatives regardless of the stupid question.

Somewhat Agree (34%) - Logic will explain that people who somewhat agree (opposed to those who "strongly agree") also "somewhat disagree" with the statement, right? Right!

Somewhat Disagree (21%) - These bunch are as confused as the ones above, but they surely "somewhat disagree" too.

Strongly Disagree (23%) - The ones that clearly don't support the Cons and really don't mind election either.

6. Do the math and make your own headline:

Math:
20% agree, 78% disagree (23% strongly disagree, 52% somewhat disagree)

Headline:
Large majority (78%) of Canadians disapprove of Stephen Harper and his cronies and want elections now!

I feel great being so creative with flawed polling numbers!

Footnote:
Q: What's more flawed than an Ipsos Reid Poll?
A: Tons of them!

LINKS
- What is John Wright reading when he's not blogging, or, double-barrelled polling questions are misleading and should be avoided
- Ipsos junk poll using double-barrelled polling question - so much for credible polling
- Be warned if you dare to critisize us, because John Wright (vice president Ipsos) is ready to sue you too.
- National Post + Ipsos alliance: Canadians don't want an election right now
- Paulitics: "I'm John Wright from Ipsos Reid", or "why the recession has given me more time to piss off other bloggers"
- We at CanWest love the polls from Ipsos. They are so well crafted. We especially love results from double-barrelled question since those numbers can be used so easily to mislead our reader
- Wikipedia: Fallacy of distribution

FULL CANWEST ARTICLE

OTTAWA — Conservative and Liberal MPs united Friday to pass a government confidence vote — averting a tight summer election, which a new poll shows very few Canadians wanted.

Conservative and Liberal MPs voted 214-82 against the New Democratic Party and Bloc Quebecois to ensure passage of government budgetary spending estimates, and to set the stage for a Liberal confidence motion during the week of Sept. 28 that could trigger a November election.

An Ipsos Reid poll for Canwest News Service and Global National found 60 per cent of Canadians do not want a summer election, though half agree Parliament is not working. It found a statistical tie of 35 per cent for the Liberals and 34 per cent for the Conservatives, but a large gap in favour of Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper over Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff in who can best manage the issues facing the country.

After a week of high political drama, ending with NDP and Bloc MPs accusing the Liberals of propping up Harper's government and abandoning the unemployed, MPs headed back to their constituencies for a three-month recess and preparations for a potential fall campaign.

The poll of 1,000 adults found a tie in vote-rich Ontario, too, with the Liberals at 40 per cent and the Conservatives at 38 per cent.

Harper has the edge, however, with half of those polled saying he should continue to govern. Five in 10 Canadians agreed Harper is doing a good job of managing the country, while four in 10 Canadians agreed Ignatieff would do better.

The survey was taken June 16-18 as Harper negotiated an agreement with Ignatieff to allay a Liberal threat to defeat the government Friday if he did not respond to concerns about unemployment, stimulus spending, the deficit and the isotopes shortage. The poll is accurate to within 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

The poll found 53 per cent of Canadians agree Parliament is not working.

At the same time, Quebec stands as the only province where a slight majority of 52 per cent wants an election to clear the air.

In Quebec, the Bloc maintains a lead of 38 per cent, followed by 33 per cent for the Liberals, 16 per cent for the Conservatives, seven per cent for the New Democratic Party and four per cent for the Green Party.

The Harper-Ignatieff deal established a working group of Conservative and Liberal MPs and officials to study two potential employment-insurance reforms. One would allow self-employed Canadians to participate in the program. The other would establish a uniform eligibility rule to collect benefits, replacing a patchwork of requirements that are linked to regional unemployment rates.

During debate before the votes, NDP and Bloc Quebecois MPs blasted the Liberals for withdrawing their support for a long-standing NDP-Bloc call to lower the minimum number of hours required for EI benefits to 360 from 420. Ignatieff pulled that from the table on the eve of talks with Harper.

"I know we're going to meet people who've now run out of their EI insurance and are going to fall off into extreme poverty this summer, and the unemployment rates seem to be still rising, so it's going to be a tough summer," NDP Leader Jack Layton told reporters.

© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service

Harper is liar; national outrage confirms he needs to be removed

Given that Ed Broadbent hasn't been sued by Stephen Harper yet (and we all know Harper loves to sue over "nothing"), we can now be confident to assume that Harper is, yes, a liar.

In Ed Broadbent's own words, "They lie. I repeat. They pay people to lie about other people, and destroy things."

Don't believe it? Here's Ed Broadbent on the CBC:


h/t BCer in Toronto

LINKS:
- Wikipedia: Ed Broadbent
- BCer in Toronto: Harper is a liar
- Why Harper should be in jail

Canada's Democracy-light: it would have been funny if it wasn't so backwards

h/t Paulitics

Stephen Harper Leadership (image)

h/t impolitical

WSWS: Canada’s “constitutional coup” and the corporate media

By Keith Jones
6 December 2008

original here.

Canada's corporate media is either vocally supporting Thursday's "constitutional coup"—the minority Conservative government and the unelected governor-general shut down parliament so as to prevent the opposition parties from ousting the government in a non-confidence vote—or keeping a guilty silence.

Never before in Canada or any other country that follows the British parliamentary pattern has a government prorogued parliament to avoid defeat in an impending non-confidence vote.

That Stephen Harper's Conservative government had lost parliament's support and was facing defeat is incontrovertible. The three opposition parties, who together have a parliamentary majority and polled substantially more than half of the votes in an election less than eight weeks ago, had officially informed Governor-General Michaëlle Jean that they would defeat the government at the earliest opportunity. They had also formally notified her of their intention to form an alternate government, a Liberal-NDP coalition supported by the Bloc Québécois.

Since Prime Minister Harper manifestly did not have parliament's support, the governor-general, according to all constitutional precedent, had no choice but to rebuff his request that parliament be shut down till the end of January.

The anti-democratic nature of the Conservatives' attempt to cling to power in defiance of parliament was further underscored by the visceral, anti-democratic campaign they mounted in the run-up to Thursday's shutting down of parliament. The Conservatives and their supporters in the corporate media openly incited anti-Quebec chauvinism and labeled the opposition's attempt to form an alternate government "illegal," even treasonous.

But rather than telling Harper that the no-confidence vote scheduled for this coming Monday had to proceed, Governor-General Jean, bowing to the wishes of Canada's ruling class, ordered parliament shut down, thereby ensuring the survival of a government without parliament's support.

Given the import and unprecedented character of Jean's actions, one would have expected all of the country's major newspapers to have published editorials Friday analyzing and critiquing them. In fact there was scant editorial comment.

Predictably, the neo-conservative National Post and several other right-wing mouthpieces hailed the governor-general for doing the "right thing."

But most of the press was silent. Neither the Globe and Mail nor La presse, respectively the most influential English- and French-language dailies, commented editorially on the governor-general's action.

The Toronto Star, a newspaper closely allied with the Liberal Party, stated in passing, in an editorial devoted to urging Harper to pursue a less "adversarial" course, that Jean "probably had no choice but to grant" the prime minister his request for parliament to be prorogued "lest her office be accused of partisanship."

The opposition parties, it needs by emphasized, have acted in a like fashion. They have failed to vigorously condemn the shutting down of parliament as a major attack on democratic rights, let alone called on the public to oppose it. As of Friday evening, the web site of the New Democratic Party, Canada's social-democratic party, carried no statement of any kind on the shutting down of parliament. But it did feature party leader Jack Layton's tribute to three Canadian Armed Forces soldiers killed Friday in Afghanistan fighting to uphold the US-installed government of Hamid Karzai.

The media silence has a double-purpose.

First, to stifle public debate of what has taken place and why.

Second, to protect the office of the governor-general and the fictions and fabrications that surround it. The representative of the monarch, the governor-general is a supposedly non-partisan and almost exclusively ceremonial institution. In fact, as the events of the past week have demonstrated, the governor-general has vast "reserve" powers, powers that are subject to no legal check. Jean has not, nor will she provide any explanation for her actions.

The bourgeoisie has maintained this feudal relic precisely so as to arm itself with a means of short-circuiting parliamentary democracy in a time of crisis. And all sections of the bourgeoisie, especially now under conditions of mounting economic crisis and social conflict, are determined to preserve this institution, armed with unlimited constitutional power and utterly insulated from the will of the people.

Given the general lack of editorial comment on Thursday's suspension of parliament, the position adopted by editorial board of the Ottawa Citizen is especially revealing. In an editorial titled "The wounded body politic," the Citizen, conceded that "Canadian democracy" had "sustained long-term damage" as a result of this week's event, but ultimately argued this damage was the necessary price of preventing the coming to power of a Liberal-NDP government.

"A fundamental principle of our democracy," propounded the Citizen, "is that the executive branch cannot govern without the consent and participation of the legislative branch. For the next month and a half, Mr. Harper proposes to govern without a parliament." The Citizen went on to warn that future governments "can now try to escape" parliament's judgment by appealing to the governor-general.

These concerns were raised, however, only to be smartly dismissed: "Practically speaking proroguing parliament will probably make for a better few months for the country, and for the economy, than the alternative that the Liberals and NDP had planned."

In truth, the Liberals and NDP were planning to form a right-wing government committed to Canada continuing to play a leading role in the Afghan war till the end of 2011 and to implementing the Conservatives' plan to slash corporate taxes by more than $50 billion over five years.

But the most powerful sections of the bourgeoisie preferred a government of unabashed reaction and toward that end were quite ready to run roughshod over parliamentary norms and democratic rights.

Whilst the editorial pages largely avoided commenting on the shutting down of parliament, the dailies did publish many copy-inches of reportage. The common refrain of this reportage was that the governor-general had called a "time out."

The "time out" metaphor has a very definite political significance. It is meant to lull the population to sleep, to foster the notion that little, if anything, of significance has taken place and everything will, in any event, soon go back to normal because parliament has merely been "suspended."

The truth is otherwise. The suspension of parliament and of MPs' right to defeat and replace the sitting government strikes at the most fundamental democratic principle—the right of the people to choose their own government.

If not overturned by a movement from below, Canada's constitution, through the power of precedent, will have been rewritten and the powers of the executive, of both the sitting government and of the governor-general, to ignore parliament and rule by decree will have been significantly increased.

As for the question of "suspension," this is precisely how democratic rights are taken away. Governments moving in an authoritarian direction don't generally outright abolish democratic rights; they "suspend" them, claiming that they need to be temporarily withdrawn so as to confront a purported crisis or emergency.

Working people must take heed: The corporate media's support for the constitutional coup engineered by the Conservatives and the governor-general attests to the fact there is no significant constituency within the ruling class committed to the defence of constitutional principles and democratic rights.

A little humour never hurts. Heil Harper!

h/t Canuck Attitude

Time for some counter-spin: Stephen Harper is a separatist

Time has come to put some counter-spin on Harper's main buzz-word "separatists".

The reality is that Harper has done nothing to embrace Quebec into a unified Canada, on the contrary. Harper has been burning bridges, so much that you wonder who it really is that wants to separate.

Who's the separatist now?
Wouldn't it be a great idea if, from now on, WE call HARPER a separatist?
That message would certainly not get lost on the public (the Harper machine has done the hard work for us) and is far closer to the truth.

The poll results of Harper's attacks on the Bloc show that Harper's battle to keep the country together resulted in completely the opposite effect in Quebec: the Bloc gained more support while all other parties remained or lost ground.

I'm arguing that Harper has not only united the left, but has also brought us closer to the breakup of Canada (I believe one of his ultimate goals).

Turning your perceived weakness into your strength.
Harper's "separatist VETO" message worked very well outside of Quebec. By blaming the coalition for their willingness to break up the country by working with the separatists, he was able to portray the coalition as an un-Canadian coalition (at least in the eyes of English Canadians).

It's time to turn our perceived weakness into our strength.

Harper has isolated himself with his separatists remarks, yet to make parliament work parties need to work together. Only the coalition is willing to work together, and only the coalition is working to keep this country together.

Anti-Separatist motto....
Which leads me to the coalition's motto: Let's work together.

UPDATE 1
I'm not alone in saying that Harper is a separatist

UPDATE 2
I've added a picture from an anti-coalition rally - h/t daveberta

Change we can believe in, Canada style (video): An all new Progressive Coalition!

Remember my last post? Well, it seems like change is around the corner wherever I look, and this Getting It Right xenophile is liking it!

Much progress has been made in South America (kudos to Morales), so NOW it is time for the North to wake up. Canadians, it's time to dump the criminal and start working on PROGRESS with an all new Canadian Progressive Coalition.

Don't forget to watch the movie:



LINKS
- Change we can believe in, South American style: Neoliberalism Is No Solution for Humankind
- Wikipedia: Movement toward socialism
- Canadians for a Progressive Coalition

Stephen Harper the briber...(reloaded)

...when will he be removed from office?

That post on the Cadman bribery was written March 6th, almost 3 months ago.

It's about time the opposition starts beating the drum for removal of this corrupt government. The Bernier scandal is one thing, but the Cadman bribery really shows how corrupt this current government is. And it's coming all the way from the PMO.

The NDP and the Cadman bribe: "Tommy Douglas must be spinning in his grave like a lathe"

Not my words, but those of Don MacNeil:

Tommy Douglas must be spinning in his grave like a lathe.

The former leader of the New Democratic leader, chosen as the Greatest Canadian of all-time, would be shocked to find out what his party under Jack Layton has devolved into.

This week the New Democratic Party of Canada has decided it will not support an Ethics Committee investigation into the Chuck Cadman Affair.

Yes, yes, we know this. Anything else about the NDP?

Pat Martin, an NDP representative on the House of Commons Ethics Committee, says the Cadman affair is not “a good fit for the ethics committee” and that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police should investigate.

Pat Martin and the NDP may be the last people who still have faith in the Mounties. The Liberals have also asked the RCMP to look into the matter as well, but have also proposed it go to the Ethics Committee. The Bloc Québecois support the Liberals but Jack Layton and the Conservatives oppose public committee hearings into allegations of bribery leveled against the prime minister.

I agree, it's weird for the NDP to fully trust the RCMP. By the way, on other corruption files the NDP had no problem handing it over to an ethics commission first. Double standards for sure.

The Cons motives are obvious. The same could be said about the Liberals and Bloc but the puzzling thing to some is why the Dippers aren’t willing to get to go along.

The conventional wisdom has the NDP in league with the Harper Gang in trying to silence the Chuck Cadman Affair, because they are afraid the only beneficiary, politically, of the whole scandal will be the Liberal Party and the New Democrats would rather be complicit in a cover-up than risk being hurt politically.

Indeed, we can't trust the NDP on the Cadman file. Shame on the NDP!

Pretty strong language, I agree, but then again it’s a pretty strong topic. This has the makings of the greatest Canadian political scandal since the Pacific Scandal that brought the end to the first Conservative government of John A. Macdonald.

So the question (again) is why is Jack Layton running interference for Stephen Harper? If the answer turns out to be for purely personal partisan gain than Layton and Martin have hands as dirty as they allege the Harper Gang’s are.

Exactly! Dirty hands are appearing everywhere I look.

Also the NDP are coming off a bribery scandal their own.

Really?

One where they had to apologize in the House of Commons and pay a cash settlement to a Liberal candidate in the last election that they accuse of trying to bribe one of his rivals. The story was a complete fabrication by a NDP candidate and the party paid a heavy price, both financially, and what would be more important to Tommy Douglas, to their reputation as being the conscious of the commons.

It might be something they want to avoid as the Cadman Affair may do collateral damage to Jack Layton’s political objectives.

Read the whole story: It's not too late to build a better world

Stephen Harper the briber: when will he be removed from office?

It's time for our elected members to act. Canada is currently being governed by a Prime Minister who has been caught bribing. How much longer will it take before he's being removed from office, one way or another?

Leave your estimated number of days in the comments section; thank you

Wanna topple the Conservative Government? Focus on the Cadman Bribery, Stupid!

Adam Radwasnki in the Globe and Mail today:

In the same Question Period that Jack Layton calls for the head of his chief of staff, Stephen Harper praises the NDP leader for asking good questions.

Naturally, this was in the context of the Liberals not asking good questions. One is left to draw two conclusions:

1.) If the Prime Minister enthusiastic about questions on the NAFTA leak, and angry about questions on the Cadman affair, that's a pretty good indication which topic the opposition should be focusing on. (Hint: not NAFTA)

2.) If you're the leader of an opposition party, and the Prime Minister is saying nice things about you in Question Period, it's pretty obvious you're not doing your job properly.

He couldn't be more right.

LINKS:
- Globe and Mail: Too cute by half

Reading Stephen Harper's mind: "Chuck Cadman is a liar"

Yes, Chuck Cadman is liar, at least for Conservatives he is. It's the only option available after deductive reasoning.

Let's take the following Conservative views for a fact:
- Chuck Cadman has told family members that a million dollar insurance policy was offered in return for a vote. We can trust Dona on this since nobody is arguing this to be false, not even the Conservative Party; she's still the nominated candidate for the Conservatives.
- The Conservatives "categorically" deny having offered anything close to a million dollar life insurance.

Well, then there's no other option available then that Chuck Cadman has been lying about what had been offered to him by Conservatives.

So just say it, Stephen, just say what's on your mind: "Chuck Cadman is liar"

Update 1: searching Technorati I just found this article: Why is Chuck Cadman being called a liar?
Update 2: an other option I didn't think off (read the comments)

LINKS
- Wikipedia: deductive reasoning
- National Post: Harper won’t be pinned down on ‘financial considerations’ for Cadman

Stephen Harper owes us an explanation (2)

From the Toronto Star: Unanswered Questions

Mar 05, 2008 04:30 AM

Why does this have to be so hard? Why can't Prime Minister Stephen Harper stand up in Parliament or go before the House of Commons ethics committee and provide clear answers to simple questions?

It's no secret that Conservative party officials back in 2005 tried to persuade independent Member of Parliament Chuck Cadman, who was dying of cancer at the time, to rejoin the Tory caucus and topple Paul Martin's minority Liberal government in a confidence vote.

But what exactly did the Conservatives offer for Cadman's support?

Three Cadman family members – his wife Dona, his daughter Jodi, and his son-in-law Holland Miller – all say Cadman told them, in separate conversations, that he was offered some kind of million-dollar "life insurance" deal. If so, that might constitute a bribe and a crime.

Harper fiercely denies any wrongdoing, and he has threatened to sue Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion and others who suggest as much.

Yet when asked two years ago about the policy by Cadman biographer Tom Zytaruk, Harper replied that party officials had "discussions" with Cadman about "financial issues" and "financial insecurity." He also said: "But the, uh, the offer to Chuck was that it was only to replace financial considerations he might lose due to an election, okay? That's my understanding of what they were talking about."

What offer, exactly? What financial issues? What insecurity?

Did anyone from the Conservative party, or claiming ties to it, offer Cadman a million-dollar benefit, with or without Harper's approval?

Instead of casting a libel chill over the Cadman affair, Harper should tell Canadians what he knows. What led him to conclude there was "no truth" to the insurance story when he looked into it? And party insiders Tom Flanagan and Doug Finley need to shed light on precisely what help they offered Cadman and on what terms.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have been asked to look into all this by the Liberals. But Parliament needn't defer to a police probe. The ethics committee should be calling Flanagan, Finley and others to testify. If the Conservatives truly have nothing to hide, they should not be standing in the way of such an inquiry.

LINKS
- Toronto Star: Unanswered Questions

A question for the Prime Minister of Canada that needs to be answered

Prime Minister,

Doesn't the Zytaruk tape tell us that you asked two of your officials, probably Flanagan and Finlay, to make the case that Chuck Cadman could possibly be receiver of financial considerations for supporting the Conservative Party?

If so I can only conclude the following:

Prime Minisiter Harper, (a) being the holder of a judicial office [...] directly or indirectly, [...] [attempted] to obtain, for another person [Chuck Cadman], [financial] consideration, [in return for support of the Conservative Party][...]

And that's a crime: 14 years maximum.

LINKS
- Buckdog: Transcript Of Harper Interview With Author Zytaruk Shows Contradictions With Tories Current Claims
- Wikipedia: Chuck Cadman
- Wikipedia: Tom Flanagan
- Audio: Zytaruk recording
- The Turner Report: "Shame"

Stephen Harper owes us an explanation

How can any Prime Minister start suing members of an opposition for libel when this same Prime Minister is caught on tape, admitting he took part in bribing a member of parliament?

Only a desperate Conservative named Stephen Harper could do that.

UPDATE: Read my "Question to the Prime Minister that needs to be answered" too.

LINK
- Getting it Right: Harper's ordering of Cadman bribery is a criminal offence
- Audio: Zytaruk recording

Stephen Harper sues Stephane Dion, Michael Ignatieff and Ralph Goodale over Cadman bribery allegations

From CTV
Harper files notice of libel over Cadman allegations

Updated Mon. Mar. 3 2008 9:46 AM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has filed a notice of libel against Liberal Leader Stephane Dion and other top Liberals over allegations they've made about him in the Chuck Cadman affair.

Robert Fife, CTV's Ottawa bureau chief, told Newsnet that Dion was served this morning at his Stornoway residence in Ottawa.

"The prime minister is not only suing the Liberal leader, he's suing the deputy leader, Michael Ignatieff; Ralph Goodale, who is the House leader; and the Liberal Party of Canada," he said.

"Mr. Harper's notice of libel says they've accused him of knowing about Conservative bribery in the Cadman affair," he said.

Harper said the allegations, made outside the House of Commons and on the Liberal party's website, are false and misleading. He is asking for an immediate retraction, Fife said.

The notice asks for two allegedly defamatory articles to be removed from the liberal.ca website and provides wording for an apology to be read out by Dion in the House of Commons. The notice requests the apology be given in English and French.

If the Liberals don't provide an apology, the Conservatives want the Liberals to preserve all records and e-mail traffic, Fife said.

Last week, a new book made the claim that former Conservative MP Chuck Cadman was essentially offered financial inducements by Conservative party officials to vote down the Liberal government's 2005 budget.

Cadman ultimately voted to support the budget.

Dona Cadman said her husband, who was sitting as an Independent MP and was terminally ill with cancer, was offered a $1 million life insurance policy to vote against the budget. Her daughter Jodi has also said her late father told her about the offer.

According to a interview with Tom Zytaruk, the book's author, Harper -- then the opposition leader -- said in 2005, "The offer to Chuck was that it was only to replace financial considerations he might lose due to an election."

The Conservatives have said there is no truth to the life insurance allegation.

The Liberals are pushing for the RCMP to investigate the matter.

LINK
- CTV: Harper files notice of libel over Cadman allegations
- CBC: PM suing Liberals over Cadman allegations
- Globe and Mail: Harper threatens to sue Dion, key Liberals
- Getting it Right: Harper's ordering of Cadman bribery is a criminal offence
- All of my Cadman bribery posts