This week, Conservatives come under fire because the NDP did a "Freedom of Information" search on departmental spending. At first, it seems kind of petty. But think about that. They had to do a FOI search and those are a huge pain. For all the Conservative talk about transparent spending and how evil those nasty Liberals were with the Adscam fiasco, they've got a lot of nerve.
Let's have a look at some of that nerve. Here is Jean-Pierre Blackburn in the House:
Okay, that really looks more constipated than nervy, but I digress.
And the defense offered? "We're not as bad as the Liberals." That's like Saddam Hussein saying he wasn't as bad as Hitler. I'm glad Layton got a laugh out of that, but he's one to talk. His entire shtick is making fun of whoever happens to be under fire. He's like the court Jester of the House of Commons. Not an admirable position. Layton shot, “They campaigned on accountability but they're governing like the Liberals” and Van Loan countered with a shot about Layton being busted riding in a limo when he was a city councillor in Toronto. PUNCH BUGGY BLUE!! NO PUNCH BACKS!!
So then a couple of days later, this article is written, with Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon being raked over the coals.
A picture really is worth a thousand words, isn't it?
Enter the Communications Professional
Catherine Loubier, Mr. Cannon's communications director, confirmed there is no distinction between “program-related business” and departmental business.
But she said the minister can't claim for costs incurred by the department. If the Transport Canada flight was the only expense for the minister's trip, he has nothing to declare, said Ms. Loubier.
Dear Ms. Loubier. Everything that comes after "but" is bullshit. That makes no sense whatsoever.
Jim Meek, of that Halifax Chronicle Herald wrote:
If you have expenses as a minister of the Crown, you needn’t go to all the fuss and bother of telling people about them.
You can just dump your groceries in someone else’s shopping cart and get him to pay at the cash.
And there’s no need to worry about all that disclosure nonsense.
This probably explains how cabinet ministers have been dining for free at fancy restaurants in Ottawa.
The high-flying Cannon has got this one figured out as well.
In the three months or so ending in early March, he filed zero dollars worth of hospitality claims.
The job of spending taxpayers’ money was left instead to civil servants and others – including his chief of staff, who billed the government for $557 for a Dec. 13 event that included the minister.
In fact, the impulse to get minions to buy the drinks and the canapés has spread like a fast-acting virus in the federal cabinet. Of Harper’s 25 cabinet ministers, 13 filed hospitality expenses totalling a big fat zero in the first few months of 2007.
So the message in the Harper cabinet seems to be: it’s alright if you have expenses – as long as you hide them.
Meek's article is less biased. Cheadle writes very little about the Liberals, the Gomery Inquiry and "Adscam" but that is a crucial part of the whole debacle. Many people voted for the Conservatives because they promised transparency in spending and they did a great attack job on the Liberals because of Adscam. Neither the Conservatives or the Liberals (or Layton in his limo) are beyond reproach here. I want to nip this in the bud, so I'll just end by saying that the voters are not idiots. We get that Ministers have to travel and they have to eat. We just want some accountability. After all, we're accountable to them when we all get our T4's.
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