Nothing makes people pay more attention to politics than a nice juicy scandal. We don’t happen to have one at the moment so the Liberals pounced on the fact that the Conservatives have misused their party logo and created one.
The scandal came to light after a picture taken of Tory MP Gerald Keddy presenting a large novelty cheque to a woman in his riding in order to upgrade a hockey rink. No doubt this will eventually be referred to as the “cheque seen round the country”. At the upper left hand corner of the large cheque was the logo of the Conservative Party of Canada. The funds for the rink did not of course come from the Conservative Party; they were provided by the government of Canada.
Information has come to light that this was not a unique occurrence. Large ceremonial cheques have sometime featured the signature of Prime Minister Harper or the MP that was handing out the funds. Real government cheques are signed by a public servant, Canada’s Receiver General. That’s the same office holder that income and other tax payments are made payable to.
Since the scandal broke, Prime Minister Harper has advised his MPs that the party’s logo should not appear on these novelty cheques. There is little doubt that the use of partisan political advertising in something that is a purely governmental function is wrong and Harper, as leader of the party, should have his knuckles rapped. Perhaps a fitting punishment would be to send him to bed without dessert at the next G20 or G137 or whatever they are calling it now, meeting. In normal times, this horrific practise would be at most, a one day wonder. It is hardly a major scandal but the way the Liberals are going on and on and on about it you would think that it is another Adscam.
The fact that the Liberals are making such a big deal about it shows how desperate the once Natural Governing Party really is. Michael Ignatieff, hailed as the second coming of Pierre Elliot Trudeau when he first arrived on the Canadian political scene is now turning out to be Stéphane Dion light. After huffing and puffing, Iggy drew a line in the sand and announced that the Liberals could no longer support the governing Tories. The government would fall and he, Ignatieff, would become the next prime minister of Canada. Iggy couldn’t figure out what most everyone else knew; that Jack Layton and the NDP had the most to lose by going to the polls and they would do anything they had to do to stave off an election. At this point, Ignatieff became so hopeless as a leader that even the friendly left wing media turned on him, giving up the pet name “Iggy” for the more realistic “Iffy”.
The Liberals tried to blame Harper and the Conservatives for running up the deficit and the poor economy even though Canada has fared better than most developed countries during the economic downturn. Now the country seems to be recovering and criticizing the deficit in between calls to spend more really isn’t the way to go. And Canadians know that the economic situation was not caused by Stephen Harper; and as far as deficits go, the Liberals would have spent more. Now Ignatieff is hawking green jobs, perhaps forgetting it was concentrating on the environment that brought Dion’s stint as leader to a quick and unceremonious end. So with nowhere to go, the Liberals are creating the scandal of the millennium for the improper use of the Conservative Party logo on government novelty cheques and advertising. Canadians have more real problems to worry about than this minor faux pas by the Tories.
The Liberals at least like to pretend that they would be better fiscal managers than the current government. They don’t control the purse strings but look what they have done in relation to the current scandal:
- the Liberals have filed dozens of complaints with the ethics commissioner,
- they have asked Elections Canada to begin an investigation,
- they have asked the Public Service Commission to investigate,
- and, the Liberals have requested that the auditor general investigate.
They did everything but call the RCMP which at least saved Steve from being tased. The mind just boggles at how much all of these investigations will cost the taxpayers of Canada if all these bodies actually do investigate. All of this is just an attempt by the Liberals to investigate a practice that even Stephen Harper admits was wrong.
It’s a scandal to even refer to what has happened as a scandal.
