Stephen Harper Watch

He asked parliament for 80 million dollars for border security, and spent 50 million on useless infrastructure in Musoka, where a Cabinet minister resides.

Harper knew he would be safe as the report would only come out after the election. He will downplay the issue, but by not leaving a paper trail about the investments, you know Harper is hiding something.

The final report on the G8 legacy infrastructure fund concludes that the government “did not clearly or transparently” identify how the money was going to be spent when it sought parliamentary approval for the funding.

Moreover, the report criticizes the utter lack of documentation to explain how and why 32 infrastructure projects in the Parry Sound-Muskoka region in Ontario were selected to receive the government largesse.

The result was that members of Parliament were kept in the dark about the Harper government’s dispersal of tens of millions of taxpayers’ funds, the audit concluded.

Read More :

Conservatives Misled Parliament

G8 Spending  Under Scrutiny

Harper has constitutional responsibility to fill any vacant seats in the Senate, but his choices are very questionable. The 3 senators are fresh off the campaign trail, where all three were defeated.

Those 3 Conservative candidates LOST in the election so they don’t have seats in the lower house, and Stephen Harper appoints them to the Senate ? Is this democracy, where when you lose to other candidates, you still have more power than them ?

His credibility on Senate reform has sunk rock bottom. He basically made Parliament less representative of the will of the people, and shows us all that he holds our opinions in low regard.

Is this what PM’s do when they win an election, stuff the Senate with their best friends, and forget about the promise for Senate Reform ?

Is this what happens when a Conservative loses an election, you lose but you still get in the Senate ?

It’s hypocritical on Harper’s part and it’s not what Conservative supporters voted for, when they gave Harper his majority.

Harper should reform the Senate or start the process of scrapping it.

Using it as a daycare centre for aging Tories is a disgrace.

Read More :

Senate Appointees

Plans For The Senate

Opposition parties may soon lose millions thanks to Stephen Harper.

Stephen Harper will phase out the per-vote subsidies on which federal parties have relied since the end of the Jean Chrétien era. The Conservatives, who have built a tremendously successful fundraising machine, will be just fine; the other parties will be in deep trouble.

Federal Conservatives have raised more money since 2004 than their three federal political rivals combined.

Political parties need money to compete – not just during election campaigns, but between them. And if they were just relying on the money they raise from individuals, without the $2 they get per vote, the opposition parties wouldn’t be competing at all.

In the final quarter of 2010, the Conservatives raised $5.23-million from individual donors – well more than the Liberals ($2.19-million), New Democrats ($1.66-million) and Bloc Québécois ($348,000) combined.

Here’s what parties would have netted each year on the subsidy (based on the election vote totals):

CPC: 10.2 million
NDP: 7.9 million
LPC: 4.9 million
Bloc: 1.6 million
Green: 1.0 million

I don’t see why we’re going to do away with this,” Chretien said in Quebec City.

“And who will this benefit? It will benefit those who have the most money. Suppose the poor wanted to have a political party, they wouldn’t have the means to do it.”

Chretien’s government introduced the subsidies in the wake of corruption scandals, with an aim to reducing graft and donor influence.

He said slashing the allowance could give Canada a system that resembles the one in the United States, where parties must raise billions to fund a campaign.

I think being politically different than the United States is good since it gives more options to choose from in North America. At worse, the per vote subsidy is not bad – not good. Heck it just cost 27 million. If Harper and his intelligent team can cut the budget by 11 billion, I’m sure they can find more democratic ways to cut election spending.

Read More :

Parties Will Suffer

Can The Subsidy Backfire ?