reek

This really disturbs me. Emphasis mine.
Harper failed to meet ethics czar on Grewal

Stephen Harper failed to meet federal Ethics Commissioner Bernard Shapiro despite repeated attempts over four months to interview him for an inquiry into the Gurmant Grewal affair, Mr. Shapiro noted in a report released yesterday.

Despite a code of conduct that says it is an MP's duty to co-operate with an inquiry by the commissioner, Mr. Harper's office told Mr. Shapiro he could not find time in his schedule to answer his questions between August and November of last year. Instead, Mr. Shapiro spoke to an aide.

The report was ready last Friday but delayed to prevent accusations of political favouritism in the last days of an election campaign. In the report, Mr. Shapiro wrote that he wanted to ask Mr. Harper when he knew about the surreptitious recordings of conversations that Mr. Grewal, then a Conservative MP, had with senior Liberals about switching sides for a crucial no-confidence vote.
So this report was suppressed, but in the middle of the same campaign, the RCMP went public with an investigation of a Liberal cabinet member, for which they admitted there was no evidence?

The Conservatives based 90% of their campaign on the Liberals' supposed corruption and their own squeaky-clean image, harping on government accountability as if no Conservative would ever dream of doing anything but the upstanding straight and narrow. Lo and behold, mere days after the election, we learn that Mr Harper wasn't quite as accountable as he likes Liberals to be.

And this was known during the campaign and suppressed?

This stinks.

Comments

  1. barefoot hiker26 January 2006 at 06:29

    Yeah... say, someone wanna remind me again; what was the big reason we needed to replace the Grits with the Tories? Was it... the Grits were making a mess of the economy? No... no, that wasn't it... uhhhmm... was it that the Liberals had involved us in bloody, imperialistic wars where our young people were being chewed up as they became murderers for Big Oil? Nope... no, I don't think that was the reason. Was it that they'd mishandled the Constitution and had us on the brink of dissolution and civil war? No... it wasn't that either. Now, what was it again? Ohhhh yes! They were arrogant, they thought the rules didn't apply to them, they were doing sneaky things behind our backs, and we needed someone ethical who'd restore Canadian politics to the above-board and fair. THAT was it, wasn't it?

    Again, like I said yesterday... guy's not even prime minister yet.

    ReplyDelete
  2. laura k26 January 2006 at 06:44

    And the Tories won by such a slim margin! How would the vote have gone if this was known???

    I'm seething.

    This really sucks.

    LP, I don't know enough (yet) to understand what you posted about yesterday - so I couldn't really the discussion very well. Could you summarize or explain?

    ReplyDelete
  3. allan26 January 2006 at 06:54

    The report was ready last Friday but delayed to prevent accusations of political favouritism in the last days of an election campaign.

    Seems like delaying this information -- Harper didn't have any fucking time since August?!?!? -- was a wee bit of political favouritism.

    I see the Globe and Mail could barely fit this on its front page. Bah.

    ReplyDelete
  4. barefoot hiker26 January 2006 at 07:30

    LP, I don't know enough (yet) to understand what you posted about yesterday - so I couldn't really the discussion very well. Could you summarize or explain?

    Could you be a little more specific? I was spouting off quite a lot yesterday. :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. laura k26 January 2006 at 07:44

    Polunatic, thanks for that. I'll check it out.

    Could you be a little more specific? I was spouting off quite a lot yesterday. :)

    Ha! :)

    You linked to a column by John Ibbitson and said "The guy's not even prime minister yet and he's already setting up the first lethal injection" - then you and Sharonapple were chatting about it. I need more information!

    ReplyDelete
  6. barefoot hiker26 January 2006 at 08:49

    Meech Lake? Mulroney's 1990s Barney-Fife-on-a-bomb-squad style constitutioneering? Is that what the question was about? We had that out in spades last summer, as I recall, up and down, left and right. I didn't think there was much more to (re)say on that point...

    ReplyDelete
  7. laura k26 January 2006 at 10:58

    OK, I will read and try to understand Wrye's links. I do remember the old discussion re Meech Lake, but I barely understood it at the time, not having the background or context with which to make sense of it. I'll read all this (later) and give it a go.

    I have a question for the P.M. of Wryeberta. How alarmed are you, really?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Trevor26 January 2006 at 11:29

    no! no constitutional talk! I can't stand it! I think my head nearly exploded when i breezed over someone using the expression "ROC" in that thread! agghhhhhhh! :)

    Not to make apologies for the Liberals (corruption is corruption -- but as it was with Mulroney and with provinicial governments of every strip there, this corruption was a Quebec thing -- not sure when or why their political environment got this way, but it seems to run through everything in the province.), but I still have a hard time balancing bringing down a relatively successful government over AdScam against the frightening team of dictatorial, Orwellian neocons in charge down here. Even progressive Americans who asked me about the Canadian electiuon were wistful - "You can bring down a government for THAT?"

    I wouldn't ever give up that right -- but as always, be careful what you wish for...

    And just today, Dubya gave a press conference, repeating 3x that "Americans and their government do not torture" or sopmething similar. I've given up trying to parse everyone's words for the loopholes, because the regime here doesn't even seem to care about needing loopholes anymore. Nero, bust out that fiddle.

    rant over...

    ReplyDelete
  9. barefoot hiker26 January 2006 at 13:31

    Harper can do some of these things, but one thing he cannot do is willy-nilly reinvent the Senate. Even to change the number of senators provinces have, nevermind the means of getting them there, requires an amendment to the Constitution -- and one with the unanimous consent of the provinces at that, if I'm not mistaken. You might just suck "we'll do anything for Canada" Ontario into gnawing its foot off and handing it over for others to eat... but goooooood luck getting Quebec to give up the tiniest crumb of power at the federal level. You'd have a better chance of peeing your name in linoleum.

    ReplyDelete
  10. laura k26 January 2006 at 14:32

    Alarmed, no, concerned yes. I know what these guys are and what they're capable of. This happened with Mulroney in 1984 and Bush in 2000, as well. The second they're elected, the media "discovers" their platform contains things like the PST, free trade, and so on.

    Grrrrr. [lapses into angry reverie]

    You'd have a better chance of peeing your name in linoleum.

    This man makes me ashamed of my poor command of metaphor and simile. I kid you not.

    I'm going to read all these links over the weekend (when I should be working, but will not be because my editors are so lame and will not start the stupid project).

    By Sunday night I'll be more informed. Thank you very much, signed, your humble student.

    ReplyDelete
  11. noone26 January 2006 at 17:00

    The media was ruled behind the scenes by Mulroney et al. Today, I found an old Globe & Mail magazine dated May 2004 with Mulroney on the cover. It states that Mulroney has a LOT of power, more than he ever had as Prime Minister. He is on the board and actively involved in Quebecor (newspaper publishing ruler!) and very very verrrrry close with Shrub Senior. By now, he's probably also equally close to Shrub Junior.

    Harper has had Mulroney's guidance throughout his entire campaign. This is one of the main reasons by Harper is such a nightmare. On his own, he'd hang himself. With Mulroney's coaching however, we are in dire times.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Echomouse26 January 2006 at 17:01

    Shoot, I posted from my new blog by mistake. The above comment from Carrie is me :) Sorry about that.

    ReplyDelete
  13. barefoot hiker27 January 2006 at 05:20

    Harper has had Mulroney's guidance throughout his entire campaign. This is one of the main reasons by Harper is such a nightmare. On his own, he'd hang himself. With Mulroney's coaching however, we are in dire times.

    I'm not overly concerned by this, oddly enough. And I'll tell you why. First of all, Harper's, what, in his 40s? He's old enough to remember what happened to Mulroney, and why. He might listen to the guy, but I doubt he's going to let Mulroney pick out his tie and matching shoes in the mornings. Secondly, and relatedly, Harper's obviously a guy of some ego. He's a politician. Very few such people are content to be someone else's marionette, even privately. He's going to want to be perceived as his own person... naturally. Combine those two points, mix in the lukewarm mandate he just barely got, and throw in a grain of salt, and I believe you have the recipe for Stephen Harper's relationship to Brian Mulroney, if he's prudent.

    If not, I think you'll see an election no later than 2008.

    ReplyDelete

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