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| Rn a political campaign without ever leaving the hose. |
My congratulations to
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservative party; they’ve found an even
better form of voter suppression than robocalls. They have refused to
participate in the TV debates put on for every general election by Canada’s
network television consortium since 1968 — back when voter turnout was north of
75 per cent.
For the life of me, I
don’t know why the PM blessed Maclean’s with the task of conducting the debate,
when party spokesperson Kory Teneycke and the elite journalists of 24/7 were
standing at the ready, fully funded by the taxpayers, to get the job done.
I guess Steve didn’t want the
10 million viewers that CTV, Global and the CBC have to offer. After all, a
mass audience would only give his opponents a bigger opening to
track for the entire nation the death spiral of democracy and the
rule of law in Canada — to say nothing of the parody of Conservative ethical
values the Harper regime now represents.
Maybe that’s why Harper
wanted a change of moderators. Steve Paikin earned a reputation as a fair and
impartial moderator in the 2008 and 2011 debates. Maybe that was
a problem. Or maybe it was the fact that his son, Zach, tried to run for
the Liberals.
The real reason for
Harper’s sudden attack of cold feet is probably the Alberta election — which
offered an object lesson in how a strong debate performance can change
everything. Jim Prentice didn’t have enough spinners and fear-merchants to
scupper the radiant sincerity of Rachel Notley.
There are a lot of
things Steve might not want to be confronted with in a well-watched,
well-researched television debate. Despite balanced budgets, low unemployment
and a booming commodity export market under the Liberals, corruption and
accountability dominated the 2006 election. The defining moment of the 2006
debate came when Stephen Harper said: “Will you tell us Mr. Martin, how many
criminal investigations are going on in your government?”
Martin was defeated by
the Ad Sponsorship scandal, an elaborate kickback scheme that saw public money
directed back to the Liberal party. Martin wore it even though he wasn’t
involved. To his credit, and for all the right reasons, he assembled his own
firing squad in the form of the Gomery Commission.
For all the wrong
reasons, Steve never called an inquiry into the robocalls scandal. Trust me —
you will never see a boomerang leave Steve’s hands if he can help it.
At the time Steve
asked Martin that question about criminal investigations in 2006, the correct
answer would have been “two”. If someone were to ask Steve the same question
during the 2015 debate, he wouldn’t have enough fingers on both hands to
compute the response. By my count, the Harper team has been the subject of at
least 15 investigations. The stable which he was supposed to muck out has
become a pigsty on his watch.
The Conservatives
cheated in the 2006 election. Criminal charges of improper election spending
were dropped in March 2012 as part of a plea deal. The CPC pleaded guilty to
exceeding election spending limits and submitting fraudulent election records.
They chequebooked their way out of the slime — paying a $52,000 fine and then
repaying a further $230,198.
The PM’s former
parliamentary secretary, Dean Del Mastro, has been convicted on three counts of
election fraud arising out of the 2008 election. He is now facing the possibility of jail time. His
cousin, David Del Mastro, is also facing charges related to the 2008 election.
What about the
conviction of Guelph Conservative party worker Michael Sona? Although the
robocall case has faded from view, it remains an unsolved crime — because
although the existence of a conspiracy was acknowledged by two judges, theconspirators themselves remain unknown. Now that Elections Canada has beencastrated by the ‘Fair Elections Act’, their identities probably will never be known ... More
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