Liberal scandal




Our April 18 message was about the PMO, Canada’s 4th unelected tier of power, and why it needs to go. The Saturday Aug 7 Globe and Mail interview with Jody Wilson-Raybould reminded us that we are not alone. When asked if she felt that Liberals worked as a team she replied that they appeared to at first. “​​There was more control that was exerted as time went on by the Prime Minister’s Office, by unelected, unaccountable people in that office. And that was not what I signed up for.” She went on to say she felt handled by the PMO. As our Attorney General she still had to go through the PMO in order to talk to Trudeau. This is the very top level of our government, where communication between the PM and the top justice official had to go through unelected party hacks!

Jody Wilson-Reybould said “I had my eyes opened wide about the nature of hyper-partisanship or blind loyalty when it comes to politics. And for me being loyal to a party versus loyal to ideas creates a toxicity around not actually being able to get things done, and it suppresses individual opinions and debate on issues.”

Here’s a quick recap of what happened to Ms Wilson-Reybold. Mega construction company and big time Liberal Party supporter SNC Lavalin was facing corruption charges for millions of dollars in bribes paid to Libyan officials between 2001 and 2011. Ms Wilson-Reybold was pressured by the Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau and the PMO to interfere with the prosecution of SNC Lavalin. When she came clean and exposed this scandal she had to resign from cabinet and was subsequently booted from the Liberal caucus to sit as an independent MP.

So this election please remember, even if you like a local Liberal candidate, a Liberal vote is a vote for another 4 years of this country being run by unelected party hacks brought into the PMO by the Liberal party, not the elected MPs. We need to break the Liberal-Conservative cycle of scandal and bring in a clean, transparent government that Canadians can trust. Canadians deserve a government that takes the rule of law seriously, even when it’s not politically convenient.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lets end the surgery backlog

Image
  The number of hospital beds in Ontario remained unchanged for the last 20 years (through Liberal and Conservative governments) but Ontario’s population grew by 3 million. Now Ford plans to cut the extra beds put in place for the Pandemic despite Ontario Hospital Association recommendations to keep them. A million Ontario residents are waiting for surgery but Ford is only addressing the delays that exceed medical guidelines! So if you are waiting for surgery the government isn’t going to do a thing about it until your situation becomes critical. Here are the OHA Recommendations for budget 2022. For the 2022-23 fiscal year, annual year-over-year base operating pressure:  3.5% ($735 million)  Dedicated funding to reduce the massive backlog of procedures and services.  Continued reimbursement for COVID-related expenses and lost revenues   2022/23 to be a “learning year” to determine which of the COVID-related expenses and lost revenues plus inflationary cost...
Read more

Tax Avoidance

Image
65 years ago Canadian corporations collectively paid about the same amount of tax as private Canadians. Today private citizens collectively pay 3 times as much as Canadian corporations. “In an average year, the 102 biggest companies in Canada pay $10.5 billion less than they would if they paid tax at the official corporate tax rate.” - Toronto Star. But when Revenue Canada tries to recoup 4.4 billion due to offshore tax evasion they can expect to get, maybe half. - National Post Groups like Taxfairness have plenty of straight forward ideas to turn this around. Like a financial activities tax: “Canada’s biggest banks and insurance companies remained profitable through the financial crisis and topped the list of large corporations making higher profits than usual during the pandemic. A Financial Activities Tax could also help cool the over-heating asset market, including housing. Such a tax, as proposed by the IMF, would generate at least $7 billion annually.” The problem is not uniqu...
Read more

UNDRIP

This weekend the Globe and Mail reported that several provincial governments want more time to examine the legislation that would apply the principles of UNDRIP (the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples). With this bill in place UNDRIP principles would interpret existing laws while helping to shape any future law making. The legislation is built on NDP MP Romeo Sagansh’s private members bill that passed third reading then died when the 2019 election was called. The list of detractors, Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta etc. reads like a list of Conservative Provincial governments in Canada. They want more time for discussions with their “ industry stakeholders and Indigenous communities.” Notice how they put “industry stakeholders” before “Indigenous Peoples”? Of course PC governments want more time to figure out how to prevent a bill that might endanger their unfettered access to natural resources on treaty lands. Their “industry partners” might actually have to pay mineral a...
Read more