November 04, 2005

 

How can you not vote for this guy?




Stephen Harper unveiled the Conservative Party's new governmental ethics package this morning. Read it. Read it now.

CTV's Robert Fife says "it will strike fear in the hearts of many lobbyists in this town who make their money off of influence-peddling the government."

Here are some excerpts from Harper's speech on the Accountability Act:
"Cleaning up government begins at the top. Paul Martin said he was 'mad as hell' about the sponsorship scandal, so he went on to to blame public servants, he blamed former ministers, he blamed his predecessor. But under Paul Martin's watch, the waste, mismanagement, and corruption has continued. We've seen Art Eggleton - a man even Jean Chretien fired, for giving an untendered contract to a former girlfriend - get rewarded by Paul Martin with a seat in the Senate. We've seen Paul Martin working on a half-million dollar severance deal with David Dingwall - David Dingwall! - the guy who hired Chuck Guite to run the government advertising program, an unregistered lobbyist who accepted improper payments, a patronage champion who quit his job. We've seen lobbyists making their pitch to Paul Martin and his ministers at $5,000 per person cocktail parties. It has to stop. It has to stop around here, and it will!"
And to those in the "all politicians are the same" crowd:
"My friends - and I'm serious about this - politics will no longer be a stepping stone to a lucrative career lobbying government. Make no mistake, if there are MPs in this room who want to use public office for their own benefit, or if there are Hill staffers who dream of making it rich by trying to lobby a future Conservative government, if that's true of any of you, then you'd better make different plans or leave." (Listen to it!)
Speaking in French, he summed up his overall vision for a Conservative government:
"I'm proud, very proud, to be the leader of the new Conservative Party of Canada. But I don't want to be the Prime Minister of the Conservative Party. I'm very proud to live in Alberta, but I don't want to be the PM for the West. I want to be the Prime Minister of all Canadians, men and women, for all of those that are working very hard to give a better future to their children and to their country."

Labels:


Comments:
Scott Brison has quickly stepped forward to do a little character assassination by saying Harper is unethical because he never registered as a lobbyist during his days with the National Citizens Coaliation and that the Coalition broke the elections law six time and was convicted once.

Does anyone know any more about this? Was Harper a lobbyist? I seem to remember he did some research work for the Coalition. Was there a Registry for lobbyists in those days? Furthermore, if I remember correctly, the National Citizens Coalition was challenging an elections law concerning elections advertising by organizations other than political parties.

Fred
 
Scott Brison is talking out of his ass. Basically what he is saying is that anyone who works in a non-profit organization needs to register as a lobbyist if they want to take their issues to the government. This is just a smear tactic.

JM
 
Also how about releasing his own list of financial supporters for his leadership bid?

Why in god's name has that not been released as even Martin released his long, long ago.
 
The job with the National Citizens Coalition is the sum total of Mr. Harper's entire experience outside of politics, and it ain't very far outside.

Never run a business, met a payroll, created jobs, created wealth etc...

I know you right wingers hate hearing it but I had always thought that pricate sector success creating wealth and jobs outside of government was the real test of a man/woman.

Why are you willing to accept so very much less as your best possible potential Prime Minister??
 
You can find the list of financial supporters for Harper's leadership campaign on the Conservative website.

http://www.conservative.ca/EN/key_documents/

It has been there for months.
 
It's too bad that the Conservatives are a party of 'reaction', and not those of 'initiative'. Any monkey-with-a-BA can figure out that to deal with corruption, you campaign to 'clean it up'. When, really, we know that it's just smokescreens. No real solid policy has been outlined here.

And for that matter, who believes any of these leaders? They are campaigning, so anything they say is a campaign promise... now, how much trust do you have?

If you are the average Canadian voter, you have none. And the lack of trust in the system is why governments in Canada (regardless of party) can act like asshats and get away with it.
 
Whether or not you agree with the provisions of the Accountability Act, I don't see how you can claim that it's not a "solid policy."
 
Post a Comment

Links to this post:

Create a Link



<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?