The Progressive Conservative party of Canada has, as of late, been buried up to their necks in scandals and cynical reactions from onlookers witnessing the eventual train-wreck. And you know what? I love it. If this is what it takes to encourage voting citizens to stop voting Harper in as Prime Minister, then skies the limit!
One such scandal that is seeing the Tories tugging at their collars is the ongoing ETS Scandal. Back in '06, the Public Works and Government Services Canada, requested for a contract with TPG Technology Consulting Ltd., who had been working with the department since '96. Tumultuous back and forth ruling of ineligibility, eligibility, and straight-up beating around the bush with regards to standard procedures for this kind of measure, this pretty much went up in smoke and people moved on. However, on Halloween '07, this same contract was awarded to CGI, a large, Montreal-based IT company. How they were able to achieve this feat in spite of inconsistent scoring measures, with concerns raised by TPG Consulting, lawsuits were filed.
In order to avoid boring you with more of the details, which you can find yourself by searching this scandal, I'll get into why the Tories have anything to do with it. You see, there are three particular present, or former Conservative members, who were connected to the scandal. One former Senator Michael Fortier, who personally helped CGI's $858 million takeover of AMS Inc. Denis Pilon, a Crown Prosecutor for the government, charged TPG with bid-rigging. Finally, Justice David Near, had issued a “controversial ruling...” regarding the ETS case. More names are sure to arise out of this ongoing scandal, as is the trial.
What about the F35 Fighter Jet scandal, where the government wanted to allocate tens of billions of dollars towards replacement jets for the outdated, outgunned CF18s in the air force? Or the somewhat disconcerting CFIA scandal, which is an ongoing neutering of food inspection services to the public at large? Tsk tsk.
Their relative mishandling of the anger over the implementation of the omnibus bill C-45 drew enough ire from Aboriginal people around the country, and even around the world to spearhead the Idle No More movement. The Navigable Waters Protection Act was amended so as to lift federal government protection of thousands of lakes and streams, with proponents arguing that it transfers protection to a more local level. However, it is debatable just how much truth lies in either direction, which is for or against.
Our government continues to waste millions of dollars on propaganda to promote the Canada Action Plan, on which I wrote previously for Superbious. It promises grand changes for the economy and environmental protection measures, but aside from British Columbia recently foregoing (for now) the Enbridge pipeline project which would ship oil out of the industrial-town of Kitimat, just what is helping lend credibility to the act? So far, nothing much.
Former Senator Brazeau, a critic of the Idle No More movement, was found to have been abusing his privileges as a senator to dodge taxes, and take advantage of Quebec aboriginal tax incentives (which requires one to be a permanent resident of the province, which he wasn't). It's also been alleged that he's a physically abusive douche-bag, but those are simply allegations that you can take of what you wish. Then there's the former chief of staff (for Harper, of course) Nigel Wright coming under fire from the RCMP for an expenses scandal. That latter issue is ongoing, with a lot of heat in the process.
The Liberal party isn't exactly clean, either, with a recent tax fraud case springing up within their ranks (former senator Raymond Lavigne just lost his appeal yesterday on his nagging convictions). And hey, it's not all bad for the Tories. Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt pushed, and managed to set aside $241 million towards helping aboriginal Canadians get jobs just the same as other Canadians. Also, something like 95,000 new jobs were created in May throughout the country.
Oh well, at least it's not a bottomless pit!
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