By Arthur Weinreb
Monday, July 30, 2007
The question has nothing to do with political beliefs or where Canadians stand on the left/right continuum. This is just as well as Liberals have no core values or beliefs to make that a relevant consideration. Well that's not exactly true; many Liberals believe in two things. They believe in God and believe that God is a Liberal. The party stands for everything and nothing except of course for the proposition that they and only they have a divine right to govern both the country and its provinces and territories. Events over the past few weeks have shown that the sponsorship scandal is not some aberration; a one off due to the illegal acts of a few select Liberal members and supporters. The Liberal Party of Canada and their Ontario cousins truly are now firmly entrenched as the parties of sleaze and corruption.
What has recently transpired within the federal party shows that the organization has learned absolutely nothing from Adscam and the Gomery Report. Suzan Pawlak, a former London area riding association treasurer was arrested and charged with stealing over $13,000 from her association. The thefts, if indeed the allegations are true, should not really reflect badly on the Liberal Party of Canada-Ontario. After all these types of breaches of trust can and do happen anywhere.
But what happened after the alleged thefts were discovered was classic sponsorship scandal. David Pretlove, the interim director of the Ontario branch of the federal party wrote to the riding association and offered to reimburse them for the money that they were out; on condition of course that no further action would be taken against Pawlak. These funds now come primarily from the taxpayer. Pretlove seemed prepared to cover up these alleged crimes at the expense of Canadians who now are required to shell out money for all political parties, based upon the number of votes that they received during the prior election. Pretlove refuses to resign over this Adscam attempted cover up although he is due to leave his job next month. And Stphane Dion, as the party's leader doesn't appear too interested in the affair. He has his head in the clouds where it always is, presumably measuring the ever increasing temperature. This is nothing more than greed and arrogance, hiding alleged legal acts of those who at least theoretically should be allowed to act above the law. And as for Suzan Pawlak, no doubt she wishes she would have stayed home and baked cookies.
Then, on a much larger scale we have the recent goings on with the Ontario Liberal Party a.k.a. at least until October, the Ontario government. The latest report of Ontario's Auditor General found that over $32 million taxpayer dollars was doled to various ethnic groups, many times with little or no paperwork. The most egregious example was that of the Ontario Cricket Association who had asked for $150,000 and were given a cool million. The association didn't know what to do with all that money so they put at least half of it in investment certificates. This is our tax dollars at work. The Minister responsible, Michael Colle ended up resigning over the affair which is now appropriately dubbed Colle-gate. Colle whined that he was busy and they just had to get rid of all this money before the government's fiscal year ended. Boo hoo hoo.
Dalton McGuinty apologized and blathered something about how this was not up to the high standards that he has set for his government. But all this was a lie too; the McGuinty government has no standards. Dalton McGuinty is an unmitigated liar who will say and do anything if he believes it will help Dalton McGuinty. If some young black guy or "ghetto dude" as the Liberals like to refer to "those people" was put in charge of distributing money and ended up improperly giving it to his friends for future consideration, the cops would have quickly been called in. But Liberals don't cause trouble for Liberals. They are the party that branded the NDP and the PCs as racists and bigots for even questioning their handouts to ethnic groups. Liberals think that they are entitled to do whatever they want. As David Dingwall so eloquently put it, these are the guys that are entitled to their entitlements.
It is really difficult to understand how any law abiding Canadian could ever support the Liberal Party. Unfortunately, they aren't going anywhere soon.
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