ReeferMadness

I don't know who this left is and where u find these accusations. But I'm not on anyone's team. And so I'd appreciate you not associating these accusations with my posts. Thanks.

yet.

Do the Conservatives feed you their talking points or do you have to dig them out of their website yourself? Every time Harper or a Conservative shill are interviewed on this topic, they say things like "We have always been clear". But here is the one thing that is really clear: Harper's staff (and not just Wright) were engaged in a conspiracy (and that is the right word) with Conservative senators to cover up Duffy's fraud. And Harper became outraged AFTER the fraud and the associated cover-up became public. Now, we don't know for sure exactly what the PM knew and when. But the PM is a well known micro-manager so if he didn't know, it's because he didn't care to know. So, as far as I'm concerned he is not only accountable, he is culpable. You keep pointing to the fraud by Liberal senators as if there is some sort of equivalency. But here's what's missing: Trudeau appointed zero of the senators There is zero evidence that there was an attempt on the part of Trudeau or Liberal MP's to organize a cover-up Trudeau, like him or not, did the right thing and cut off the Liberal senators from the Liberal caucus. Sorry, buddy. Your lord and savior Harper's halo has slipped.

Are you saying that you know for a fact that parties engage in this type of behavior?

Welcome to the face of the CPC!

Seems like someone should subpoena Ray Novak and ask him what he knew and when he knew it. And then Stephen Harper. And then they can decide if Mr Wright should be up on perjury charges.

FPTP will NEVER be fine.

Ohhhh. So it's not Harper's fault that he appointed people with no ethics to the senate. It's not the fault of his staff who orchestrated a plot to undermine and manipulate a senate audit. It's not Wright's fault that he paid off a sitting senator to hide the political stink of it all. The fault lies with the journalists who reported it. Because they lack the appropriate reverence for our lord Harper and the bible of conservative ideology. Now I get it.

The very way you asked the question defines the problem. Our system is designed to produce a dictatorship of power. And the parties have further manipulated things so that power is concentrated in the hands of a few, mostly unelected people. It virtually guarantees that, no matter who wins, most of the people will be unhappy with the result. That's not democracy. I don't know what it is. We are a diverse country and deserve a government that is reflective of that diversity. My eyes glaze over and roll into the back of my head every time some simpleton explains to me how important it is that we have a system where a single party controls everything. We need "stability" We need "consistency". Well poop on that. I want representation and I haven't felt like I've been represented ever. Back to your original question, we need a system where evidence comes back into vogue. Even as the current knuckle dragging arseholes are increasing prison sentences, south of the border, they are realizing it doesn't produce good results and they are going the other way. Even as the current knuckle dragging aresholes are going tougher on drugs, south of the border, they are realizing that prohibition doesn't work and legalizing and/or decriminalizing marijuana. Even as renewable energy becomes cost competitive with fossil fuels and the worldwide political winds start to blow against the fossil fuel industry, our PM, the venerable "economic genius" that he is, doubles down on commodities. All the scientific evidence shows that safe injection sites save people's lives. But scientific facts bounce off this crowd like ping balls off a concrete wall. I could go on and on. It isn't just that this group is a group of conservatives with retrograde policies, it's that they are a bunch of retrograde, mean spirited, populist, dumbed-down conservatives who appeal to the least intelligent, least thoughtful and least compassionate elements of society. They don't represent the majority of Canadian views; but they do represent the worst elements of Canadian views. The rednecks, the racists, the homophobes, the social darwinists who would be only too happy to see poor people starving on the streets. These are the people who would feel at home in Harper's Conservatives. And they rode in on a horse called Accountability and they've failed miserably at that, too. Then you add in a bunch of people like you who would ignore the worst elements of the Conservatives because you lack the imagination to see better. And then add in the segment that doesn't pay attention and poof. You have a "majority government".

That doesn't even make sense. I suppose this is your way of giving up.

You think this is the only nut in the Conservative Party? No, I don't. But that's the Conservative Party for you. It would definitely be better. But make no mistake. Despite all of the political trickery his PMO could conjure, Harper hasn't changed this country near as much as he wanted. I know it's difficult for those of you who measure a government solely by the tax rate to understand but I care about democracy. I take the long view and believe that engaging people might be difficult in the short term but will produce a better country in the long term. Harper has done his best to act like a dictator. He doesn't give a crap about anyone else's views. He has no respect for science and would run this country into the dirt on the basis of his narrow, ideological views. He doesn't even like this country. Go back and look at some of the things he's said about it while he was in the NCC. I think we would have been better off with Bozo the Clown at the helm. Governments have a limited impact on economies and Harper's reputation as a good economic manager is wholly undeserved. He took a country that was in great shape, running budget and trade surpluses and left more of a banana republic economy, dependent on a single, volatile commodity. You want to see a naive person? Just look in the mirror.

You can be cute all you like. Vicious, smearing attack ads are very much American style. It's not surprising that Harper, who likes to emulate your Republicans, brought them here. You're right. It's a problem.

Yeah. Maybe in part it's because we have smaller parties. But in particular, the extreme right wing is not as prevalent. And that's where most of the nutbars are from.

As with most things wrong with Canadian politics, the Harper Conservatives took attack ads to a whole new level. They did the same with the centralization of power in the PMO office. And wedge politics. And they stretched the rules on election law to the point where they repeatedly found themselves in criminal court. It's always the same thing with you guys. I see "they did nothing wrong" followed by "the Liberals did it too". No wonder your heroes were such a complete failure when it came to improving accountability. If you can't take accountability, why should they?

Yeah. Truth ads. That's it. He's so smart and so intelligent and so selfless that nobody can ever come up with anything bad about him. No wonder you guys have such a religious devotion to this guy. He's kinda like Jesus Christ. I guess it saves money going to the liquor store when you can turn water into wine.

They have a seemingly endless selection of nutbars to choose from.

Conservatives contradict themselves on Duffy affair. I am always ready to do exactly what is asked. Clear evidence that under the Conservatives, the supposedly independent senate is squarely under the thumb of the PMO.

the link requires a login, and it seems to be a pay site. here's an alternative. http://www.thestar.com/news/mike-duffy/2015/08/18/nigel-wright-denies-he-meddled-in-audit-of-duffys-expenses.html

No, he hasn't answered them. He's been asked about the existing staff, including Ray Novak, who clearly were aware of the plot to undermine the senate audit. He keeps on parroting the the talking points about Duffy and Wright. More to the point is this. Harper is a notorious micro-manager. Why didn't he know that his COS was cutting a 90 grand cheque to Duffy? There are two possibilities. Either he did know and he's lying. Or Wright was keeping in from him in order to give his boss plausible deniability. And if Wright was keeping it from him, that implies Wright (and Novak certainly) knew that what they were doing was wrong and probably illegal. Someone besides Duffy should be up on charges. Maybe even Harper himself.

Maybe it would help if Harper would just answer the questions. Instead of avoiding them.

Huh. I didn't know the laws against bribery were imaginary. You should tell the Justice Department. Seems like information that might interest them.

Yes. Wright and the PMO tried to subvert the senate audit because they care about the country.

Yeah. It's well known that the CPC is very discerning about who they let into their rallies. Now we can see the mentality of Harper's core supporters.

Really??? I don't believe you are actually dense enough to make the arguments you are making. A guy who's so loaded he thinks nothing of digging 90 grand out of his pocket to cover up his party's interference with an audit is not going to sue for severance. Whether he resigned or was fired is not for us peon citizens to know. The fact is that your hero Mr Harper said he was dismissed, trying to make it sound like he took action. If Harper simply accepted his resignation and wanted to be honest about it, he would have said that. Instead Harper claimed that he took action and dismissed Wright. So someone is not being honest and I suspect, as usual, it's everyone. Probably, the original agreement was that Wright would resign and then some genius in the PMO decided it would make Harper look more decisive if he could make people believe that he fired Wright.

Yup strange. As I understand it, they don't think they can prove intent in the case of Wright. Although, the emails seem fairly compelling to me.