Last Wednesday, former MP and Liberal Party hack extraordinaire, David Dingwall, resigned from his $277,000 a year job as head of the Royal Canadian Mint. although Dingwall had been mired in controversy surrounding improper lobbying, his resignation came after Conservative Party MP Brian Pallister obtained information pertaining to the head of the Mint’s expenses.
The access to Information request showed that David Dingwall and his cronies racked up $91,437 in travel expenses alone during 2004. Dingwall’s total expenses for that year, all charged to the Canadian taxpayer, came in at slightly less than three quarters of a million dollars ($747,000). This amount included over $5,000 for fees and memberships as well as fees for Dingwall to park his luxury automobile at the Mint despite the fact he lived close enough to walk and received a $12,000 a year car allowance.
So what!
We have to keep in mind that Dingwall is a Liberal and that this is Canada. We already know from the sponsorship scandal that this government that has been in power since 1993 is the most corrupt in the country’s history. Through fraud, forgery, deception, money laundering and outright theft, Canadian taxpayers have been fleeced of hundreds of millions of dollars of their hard earned tax dollars, all justified in the name of keeping the country together. Dingwall’s expenses are nothing more than icing on the Liberal cake. The sponsorship scandal was not enough to prevent the Natural Governing Party from winning the 2004 general election or from consistently leading in the polls. Many Canadians still vote Liberal despite knowing how corrupt this government is. To see many of these same people feign outrage at Dingwall’s feeding at the trough is laughable. Those in the mushy middle who vote Liberals are wimps. as long as they can go to a doctor for free whenever they are not feeling well, they don’t care what the government does.
Canada, as we all know, is defined by its tolerance and diversity. The tolerance that the Liberals and their supporters are so fixated upon, has gone well past tolerance for people of different ethnic backgrounds. We are so tolerant that we tolerate everything including corruption and massive spending as long as it is done by the guardians of our precious health care system. David Dingwall is a true Grit--he’s entitled to his golf club memberships and his fancy meals at Chez Henri Burger and anyone who is upset over this should just get over it.
Getting mad at Dingwall for the amount that he charged to the Canadian taxpayers is like blaming a cat because the cat clawed the furniture. It’s what they do. No amount of wishing and hoping is going to change the fact that cats claw furniture and Liberals spend everybody’s money except their own. The only way to solve these types of problems is to get rid of the cat--and the Liberals. Unfortunately, there is a much better chance that a cat lover will have their precious little Fluffy put down than the Liberals will be voted out of power.
What was somewhat unusual and disturbing about David Dingwall’s spending was not the amount of his feed off the public trough but the fact that he could find no expense too small to stick the taxpayer with. Dingwall forced the taxpayers to pay for cups of coffee, doughnuts, a package of chewing gum, a bottle of water and a newspaper. This guy brings a whole new meaning to the word "cheap". Of course in the tradition of the Liberals, it wasn’t his fault. The CFO of the Royal Mint made him do it. No doubt the CFO would have reported him to the RCMP if he hadn’t brought in his chewing gum receipts.
Besides being tolerant Canadians are also compassionate and no one in the country right now needs compassion more than David Dingwall does. Eventually his golden handshake will run out and he will be forced to buy his own coffee and doughnuts just like real people do. No one in a rich country such as Canada should be forced to fall so low.
Canadians have shown that in the wake of such disasters as last December’s tsunamis and Hurricane Katrina, they can be generous. We should set up a fund to ensure that Dingwall will never be forced to have to purchase his own chewing gum. We could call it "Doughnuts for Dingwall". The problems in the rest of the world can wait; we have to take care of our own first. and Dingwall’s situation is more serious. a black family in New Orleans can get along without a place to live a lot easier than David Dingwall can survive without his subsidized doughnuts.
Tolerance and compassion--that’s what this country is all about.