CP: Mackay controversy flares anew

[Electric Monk]

I don't think McKay's implication was all that big a deal, lying about it brings up another matter, trust. If he lies about such a small matter, can we trust him to tell the truth to parliament when the stakes are much higher? I guess it's not like he has an important job or anything.

P.S. That last sentence was sarcasm.

[Ladyjen]

This is oh so predictable

_____________________________________________

Harper defends MacKay as Dog-gate remains open in Commons

at 18:43 on October 24, 2006, EST.

BRUCE CHEADLE

OTTAWA (CP) - Prime Minister Stephen Harper unswervingly defended his foreign minister as a man of dignity and competence Monday while ignoring opposition demands that Peter MacKay apologize for an alleged sexist slur.

MacKay, who is travelling on government business in Hungary, stands accused of alluding to Liberal MP Belinda Stronach, his former paramour, as a dog during heated heckling last week in the House of Commons.

"I think the minister of foreign affairs is conducting Canada's international relations with great effort, with dignity and with competence," Harper said during the daily question period. "Certainly we support him."

The prime minister dismissed the slur allegations, citing a ruling by the Speaker that the comments were not clearly audible and not included in Hansard, the official transcript of House proceedings.

____________________________________________

[Ricki Bobbi]

Ladyjen,

Great post.

It's oh, so predictable you'll be attacking Harper 24/7....

Why do people join message boards if they aren't going to say anything on their own behalf?

[scribblet]

The Liberals need to look in the mirror when they complain about sexism etc.

How many of their campaign people with any power are women - none as far as iIknow, and no visible minority. This from pictures and Globe and Mail article They are obviously not walking the talk. Wait, there was one woman, Martha Findlay, so may I suggest that those Liberals who are griping about women and respect should look in the mirror.

[Shakeyhands]

Ladyjen,

Great post.

It's oh, so predictable you'll be attacking Harper 24/7....

Why do people join message boards if they aren't going to say anything on their own behalf?

Why do you feel the need to belittle anyone that disagrees with you Ricki? Why do you contend that anyone who says anything negative about Harper will be "attacking" him non stop and thus try to negate their thoughts?

I have to say, I liked this board much more before you and your partisian trolling got here. If it were up to me, you wouldn't be here.

[Ricki Bobbi]

Why do you feel the need to belittle anyone that disagrees with you Ricki? Why do you contend that anyone who says anything negative about Harper will be "attacking" him non stop and thus try to negate their thoughts?

I have to say, I liked this board much more before you and your partisian trolling got here. If it were up to me, you wouldn't be here.

She didn't say *anything* about Harper. All she did was post a 'witty' comment with a cut and paste job of a hack piece attacking the Government. She could very well have been trying to mock tthe article.

I post many different things here. Some are considered responses to political news or views posted here. If somebody is just here to attack the Prime Minister or the Government without an open-mind to considering others viewpoints they shouldn't expect a free ride here.

I have to say, the bias in your posts is clear. If you want a board where everybody will share your views and your disdain for the Government I suggest you try Rabble.ca.

[Argus]

For the slow learners if it is not in the Hansard record then as faras parliament is concerned it does not exist. The speaker has already ruled. So he can not be held to a lie about something that does not exist on the official record. This is just soooo dumb.

Huh? Just because it wasn't recorded in Hansard means that he didn't lie?

A lie is a lie. What does that have to do with whether it's in the record or not?

Because all politicians lie. Our last Prime Minister was a notorious liar, and he followed a Prime Minister who set world records in lying; to parliament, to the media, to voters, to everyone. Lying is not considered a bad thing in Canadian politics. The Tory haters keep saying "it's on tape", which is a partial lie. The speaker and his clerks have already listened very closely to the tapes and they say you cannot make out any such statement. If he doesn't get caught then there's nothing wrong with it.

[Argus]

Neither of you think that a politician lying is a big deal? I guess I expect & hope for a little more honesty from politicians than you do.

Why would you?

All politicians lie. As a people, we have long accepted that. The first words out of Paul Martin's mouth when he was sworn in as Prime Minister were to thank all the members of the previous cabinet, who, he said, he had unbounded respect and admiration for. You know he was lying. You know he hated lots of them. But there's nothing wrong with spouting BS, even when everyone knows it's BS. It's accepted.

Remember Chretien's casual lies? Remember how he said he kept in touch with the people by visiting local bars. Except none of the local bars had ever seen him. Remember how he said he spoke to the homeless? What a joke. Was he at all ashamed of those comments? Nope. Were the Canadian electorate upset? Nope. Mulroney was a liar. Clark was a liar. Trudeau was a very good liar. Or at least, he put more effort into his lies than Chretien, who apparently never really cared if people knew he was lying or not. But it wasn't like Trudeau was ashamed of lying. He knocked over the Clark government and ran an entire election campaign on how a 7cent tax on gas would destroy the economy. Then he put a larger tax in place shortly after taking office. He ran an entire election campaing against wage and price controls, then instituted them within months of winning office.

Find me one single member of the previous Liberal cabinet who did not lie routinely in the House.

[Argus]

Neither of you think that a politician lying is a big deal? I guess I expect & hope for a little more honesty from politicians than you do.

If a politician is honest with Canadian's he or she will lose the support of the country.

In parliament a bold-faced lie is not acceptable. You can find other examples if you like, but lying to Parliament is not common, and it's a serious matter.

Oh don't be ridiculous. Lying in parliament is routine. But it's like a court of law. It has very stringent rules of evidence. You need to be able to prove without any shadow of a doubt that a lie was a lie. Thus cabinet ministers routinely get up in the house and lie, but if you can't prove it, well, so what?

In addition to Chretien and Martin, how many Liberal cabinet ministers claimed, with hand on hearts, over the years, that there was no political interference in the endless saga of purchasing new helicopters? Or with the awarding of any other government contracts? Phhht.

[Argus]

That is not a very good excuse to lie. Especially lying about something that was caught on tape.

Funny thing about this tape: The Liberal speaker and his clerks listened carefully and they didn't hear anything.

[Argus]

Hedy Fry eventually apologized for the incident:

"Yesterday, I mistakenly linked the city of Prince George with a specific hate activity," she says. "I regret that and I apologize to the people of Prince George."

Was that even an admission of lying? Nope. "I mistakenly linked..." Oops, meant to name some other place. My "mistake".

A mistake is an accident. A lie is deliberate. She never admitted nor apologised for an outright lie.

[Ricki Bobbi]

In parliament a bold-faced lie is not acceptable. You can find other examples if you like, but lying to Parliament is not common, and it's a serious matter.

Oh don't be ridiculous. Lying in parliament is routine. But it's like a court of law. It has very stringent rules of evidence. You need to be able to prove without any shadow of a doubt that a lie was a lie. Thus cabinet ministers routinely get up in the house and lie, but if you can't prove it, well, so what?

good point. The Liberals weak attempts at a double-standard on this issue are probably why it is all but dead. The people who are trying to keep it alive are the ones I want to see run the Liberal campaign next spring...

[Ladyjen]

Ladyjen,

Great post.

It's oh, so predictable you'll be attacking Harper 24/7....

Why do people join message boards if they aren't going to say anything on their own behalf?

No wonder she dumped him! My prediction is that Harper will back McKay to the hilt. Or he will ignore it like he seems to do with everything else. There's no such thing anymore as asking anybody to resign for innapropriate remarks or even shady behaviour. Those gallant days are gone. The key word here is arrogance and governments are full of this attitude that the tax payers can just 'suck it up baby'.

I was harkening back to my prediction 3 pages back on this thread (Oct. 26th). The news report that I found on Oct 28th confirms my prediction and says it all.

[Ricki Bobbi]

I was harkening back to my prediction 3 pages back on this thread (Oct. 26th). The news report that I found on Oct 28th confirms my prediction and says it all.

Currently waiting for Question Period, but I think the issue has pretty much played out.

MacKay should've apologized, but it's too late now. Seems like Harper and crew are taking a page out of the Chretien playbook and it looks like it is working.

[gerryhatrick]

That is not a very good excuse to lie. Especially lying about something that was caught on tape.

Funny thing about this tape: The Liberal speaker and his clerks listened carefully and they didn't hear anything.

You have a link for that? All I ever heard was that the Speaker couldn't rule because it wasn't picked up on Hansard.

I heard the tape on the radio and I could hear it.

Now, since he wasn't willing to offer an apology and be done with it, it's being examined by an expert to make it even clearer. This will continue for some time and should serve as a valuable lesson to politicians to to open about their mistakes.

[gerryhatrick]

Opinion piece today says it very well:

A dog's breakfast

MacKay's treatment of Stronach reveals a dark side

Sun Oct 29 2006

THERE'S a bigger issue behind Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay's alleged reference to Liberal MP Belinda Stronach as a dog, than misogyny -- though that is surely bad enough coming from a former leader of the Progressive Conservative Party.

There's the issue of whether our foreign affairs minister has the "right stuff" -- in this case, maturity and a recognition of the fragility of women's human rights world wide -- to represent us internationally.

snip

That, in fact, has strong implications for Canada in our relations with other countries: Would U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, or any other female world leader, want to do business with a babyish bully?

And what do his alleged actions mean in terms of Canada's past leadership role on women's human rights issues at foreign affairs conferences around the world? This wasn't the first time MacKay indicated what he thought of women: "Stick to your knitting," he once told former NDP leader Alexa McDonough.

And where is the maturity one should expect from a man supposedly creating our important foreign policy? Consider his actions since the breakup: Martin's book reports Stronach was forced to move from her seat in the Commons because of MacKay's constant intimidating stares and that he refuses to respond to her most polite greetings.

This behaviour could be considered laughable -- except for this: Actions that reinforce the dangerous notion that it is OK to intimidate a woman after a breakup are serious indeed.

And now this, MacKay, a former Crown attorney, hiding behind the fortuitous fact his comments aren't in the official Commons record -- which does not mean he didn't say them (and reporters say they can hear the comments on other tapes).

Stronach is right to demand an apology to the Commons for the remarks because those attitudes have a way of finding their way into government policy and because, as she so well put it: "This is our place of work. This is the nation's board room."

And on that, corporate female employees facing daily sexism can surely identify.

Finally, consider this: If his remarks were racist rather than sexist, as one woman attending a security conference noted this week, he'd be gone.

And so he should be.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/subscribe...p-4337940c.html

[Canadian Blue]

I doubt anybody else is looking at this and saying "oh my god, better not do business with those evil Canadians". Seriously, I think the American's would laugh at this compared to what Mark Foley did.

If you honestly think that politician's are honest then you have to look at past actions. How many promises did McGuinty break, how many times did the Liberals lie about the sponsorship scandal.

How is this going to effect womens rights for christ sake. I mean lets see their are children soldiers all around the world, women being raped and killed in Darfur, and human rights abuses happening right around the world. Nobody else in the world is taking notice, and a four word sentence that is open for interpetation is the biggest issue right now to the cause human rights. It's not even blatantly sexist, people rap about bitches and hoes, yet they don't even get this much criticism from the Liberals.

[cybercoma]

Neither of you think that a politician lying is a big deal? I guess I expect & hope for a little more honesty from politicians than you do.

Of course a politician lying is a big deal, but do the country a favour and catch him in a lie that actually has a bearing on anything. The petty insult towards his ex-lover was a non-issue and all he did was lie about a non-issue. He was probably hoping the Liberals would have sense enough to drop it and get back to business.

I'm more disgusted at the fact the Liberals have derailed parliament over soap-opera type drama. It's disgusting that they would bother wasting time with this crap while there's business to be done (such as discussing the fact NK is blowing up nukes underground).

[Argus]

Opinion piece today says it very well:

A dog's breakfast

MacKay's treatment of Stronach reveals a dark side

Shrill, silly, and overly dramatic.

The idea that other nations will have trouble dealing with McKay because he inferred his former girlfriend was a dog has got to be one of the most laughably stupid suggestions to come out of this farcical affair yet. The silly girl even suggests Condolezza Rice will refuse to deal with him weeks after she and he apparently got along so well some were suggesting romance between them!

But then, what can you expect from a socialist, those dour, sour people without humour?

[Argus]

Funny thing about this tape: The Liberal speaker and his clerks listened carefully and they didn't hear anything.

You have a link for that? All I ever heard was that the Speaker couldn't rule because it wasn't picked up on Hansard.

The Liberals asked House Speaker Milliken to request an apology from MacKay, but after reviewing the official transcript and audio tape, Milliken said he couldn't find a record of the remark and could take no further action.

Harper Stands by Mckay

I heard the tape on the radio and I could hear it.

Well I guess you have better ears than the speaker then.

Now, since he wasn't willing to offer an apology and be done with it, it's being examined by an expert to make it even clearer. This will continue for some time and should serve as a valuable lesson to politicians to to open about their mistakes.

I think it's a valuable lesson about what hypocritical weasels the Liberals and NDP are, and how little they care about anything but power.

[Canuck E Stan]

Funny thing about this tape: The Liberal speaker and his clerks listened carefully and they didn't hear anything.

You have a link for that? All I ever heard was that the Speaker couldn't rule because it wasn't picked up on Hansard.

The Liberals asked House Speaker Milliken to request an apology from MacKay, but after reviewing the official transcript and audio tape, Milliken said he couldn't find a record of the remark and could take no further action.

Harper Stands by Mckay

I heard the tape on the radio and I could hear it.

Well I guess you have better ears than the speaker then.

I read somewhere that a dog is capable of hearing from quite a distance, but from Winnipeg? I don't think so.

[gc1765]

Lying is not considered a bad thing in Canadian politics.

Maybe not to you.

The Tory haters keep saying "it's on tape", which is a partial lie. The speaker and his clerks have already listened very closely to the tapes and they say you cannot make out any such statement.

I already provided a link to the comment caugh on videotape. If the link still works, I suggest you watch it. You may need to listen to it a few times, but you can definately hear the comment. At least I can.

If he doesn't get caught then there's nothing wrong with it.

If you dont get caught there's nothing wrong with it?

Neither of you think that a politician lying is a big deal? I guess I expect & hope for a little more honesty from politicians than you do.

Why would you?

All politicians lie. As a people, we have long accepted that. The first words out of Paul Martin's mouth when he was sworn in as Prime Minister were to thank all the members of the previous cabinet, who, he said, he had unbounded respect and admiration for. You know he was lying. You know he hated lots of them. But there's nothing wrong with spouting BS, even when everyone knows it's BS. It's accepted.

Remember Chretien's casual lies? Remember how he said he kept in touch with the people by visiting local bars. Except none of the local bars had ever seen him. Remember how he said he spoke to the homeless? What a joke. Was he at all ashamed of those comments? Nope. Were the Canadian electorate upset? Nope. Mulroney was a liar. Clark was a liar. Trudeau was a very good liar. Or at least, he put more effort into his lies than Chretien, who apparently never really cared if people knew he was lying or not. But it wasn't like Trudeau was ashamed of lying. He knocked over the Clark government and ran an entire election campaign on how a 7cent tax on gas would destroy the economy. Then he put a larger tax in place shortly after taking office. He ran an entire election campaing against wage and price controls, then instituted them within months of winning office.

Find me one single member of the previous Liberal cabinet who did not lie routinely in the House.

Ah yes, because the liberals did it, it's ok for the conservatives to do it?

What's next, will it be ok for the conservatives to steal money because the liberals set a precedence?

Funny thing about this tape: The Liberal speaker and his clerks listened carefully and they didn't hear anything.

Why don't you listen and give your opinion.

Was that even an admission of lying? Nope. "I mistakenly linked..." Oops, meant to name some other place. My "mistake".

A mistake is an accident. A lie is deliberate. She never admitted nor apologised for an outright lie.

My point was, that it's possible that fry made an innocent mistake. If you believe that hedy is smart enough to not get confused, then you give her too much credit Just kidding.

I'm more disgusted at the fact the Liberals have derailed parliament over soap-opera type drama. It's disgusting that they would bother wasting time with this crap while there's business to be done...

You mean like re-opening the same-sex marriage debate

[gerryhatrick]

Well I guess you have better ears than the speaker then.

Not just me, pretty much anyone else who heard the tape. I guess this line from this one story presents a question, but it's pretty much moot.

The point is nobody really doubts that he said and did what he's accused of saying and doing, and yet he has denied it.

[Ricki Bobbi]

You mean like re-opening the same-sex marriage debate

Ahhh, the Conservatives did campaign on that.

I take it you think think that Quebec shouldn't be able to have another referendum on separation. Or is a vote only final on certain issues?

[gc1765]

Ahhh, the Conservatives did campaign on that.

I take it you think think that Quebec shouldn't be able to have another referendum on separation. Or is a vote only final on certain issues?

Sorry, my name is not Gilles Duceppe. If an issue is worth re-opening, then I see no problem with re-opening the issue. But if we are talking about wasting time, which is what another poster was complaining about, I'd say opening up the debate on same-sex marriage is bigger waste of time. But then again, I just don't understand why anyone cares enough about who someone else marries to make it an important issue...