“I think I make the rules.” – Harper, August, 2010.
He may have said it that time as a tactless joke, but his
actions as PM indicate he feels he can, in fact, make his own set of rules
while demanding everyone else abide by laws and legislation.
There are many examples over the past few years of harper
engaging in anti-democratic activities that violate laws and legislation, but I’ll
only give two examples here.
“Obligated” means harper did not have the right to withhold them. Pretty clear.
And we have the monster of the month, the Duffy/Wallin
scandals.
The Senate’s internal economy committee sanitized the
original audit of Sen. Mike Duffy’s expenses to remove damning findings,
documents obtained by CTV News show…Sources say the whitewash was part of a
backroom deal with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s chief of staff, Nigel
Wright.
This bit of news takes it beyond a
Senate scandals involving a few porkers.
This shows deliberate, direct interference from the PMO. PMO: that’s “Office of the Prime Minister.” Even if harper managed to keep his name off
all e-mails and correspondence concerning the white-wash, involvement by his
Chief-of-staff makes him responsible.
That’s not an opinion, it is fact.
I’m not going to commit (much)
sociology here by getting into what may have led harper and his group to become
so audacious in their interference and cover-ups. The fact is obvious that he and his entourage
feel entitled to do as they please regardless of laws.
Do I need to say how dangerous
this is? It delivers the ruling power
control over all public servants, departments, communications products,
legislation, laws to some degree (as they apply to their own people), public
appointments, many elected officials, and as we have seen, the Senate. Next up – the Supreme Court, which is already
being sabotaged.
Fortunately, Duffy has been too
big of a bad taste for Canadians – and thankfully, many journalists – to swallow,
and we are getting some good reporting as a result both from traditional
outlets and social media. Since Nigel
Wright’s involvement came out, implicating the PMO, the story isn’t likely to
fade away as yet another instance of a couple of porkish Senators. Wallin and Duffy getting the boot (as we find
out they were not given a choice) will not resolve this issue.
Sanitizing reports? The PMO?
This is huge. Not entertainment-huge,
but implication-huge.
The harper government has done
some damnable things, some outrageous things, but this is the case (while not
necessarily the worst thing it’s done) that shows the depth of corruption and
the relentless abuse of power at the core of harper and the PMO.
2 comments:
As far as I am concerned it was how he got away with the Grewal fraud and subsequent cover-op while still LOO that led him to believe he could get away with anything he wanted. The whole reason I was on that issue for so long and with such fervour was because it showed something I believed to be truly dangerous, a leader willing to personally use fraud to try and bring down a government and when that fraud is exposed for what it was then do all possible to cover it up as dirty politic tricks by his political opponents despite what the facts made brutally clear, not least including the record of Hansard itself.
Then followed the Cadman insurance vote buy issue several months later, and then he became PM, and in his first acts of coming to office bought a Lib cabinet minister and appointed his political Quebec bagman to the Senate AND THEN to Minister of Public Works aka patronage/corruption central. I can do chapter and verse for the next several years showing his increased contempt for the rule of law and the idea that the rules applied to him and his government, but I think the ultimate example is connected to one of your own example regarding the Afghan detainees documents issue where he argued that his minority government had powers superior to Parliament as a whole. This despite the most basic principle of Parliamentary governance being that all governing power comes from the Parliament itself to those able to command the majority of Parliamentarians to their wishes, be it either as a group of independents working together or in the formal party structures we currently use. That showed either a level of profound ignorance (at best) of the most basic understanding of how government works in this nation and the underlying legal structures that define it, or worse and what I believe to be the case, a profound contempt for it.
This business with Duffy and Wright only underscores yet again that my warnings were correct about how Harper was fundamentally more dangerous because his corruption would be in the abuse of power type as opposed to the more traditional and lets face it less damaging form of corruption the money scandal type. I did not fight so hard against Harper for so long because I disliked him personally, or because I distrusted his ideology (although that was another area of concern I will admit), no I did it as I stated over and over because I could see from his actions over the years that he held a profound contempt for this nation, its rules and laws, and saw himself as above them and would do ANYTHING to gain, hold, and cement his power regardless of morality, ethics, and legality. That this was someone who would put all prior scandalous leaders to shame with his actions and do more fundamental damage to our governing structures than any and worse even maybe all his predecessors since the founding of the nation combined.
This man is in a class of his own, and his corruption is far more dangerous and damaging than anything we are used to seeing in this nation federally. Of all the times in my life I've hated being proven right about someone/something I am hard pressed to think of one I would have more preferred to be wrong about than this one.
yes, Scotian, I remember when a few of us wrote on and on about this very thing years ago, and of course, you are right. I think it was just too unbelievable for many Canadians that a Canadian leader could be so corrupt, so willing to destroy so many things we value while on his personal quest.
Will the pool of loyal worshipers willing to fall on the sword for him ever run dry?
Post a Comment