It really is insult added to injury: not only did National Defence Minister Peter MacKay use a search and rescue helicopter as a personal taxi to escape from the onerous experience of having to take a two-hour trip from a salmon fishing camp (one and a half hours of it by boat, the kind of experience many tourists actually salivate over), but when caught out, he decided to dress the whole thing up as taking part in an already-planned training mission.
He’d probably still be taking that stand if not caught out by information contained in National Defence emails.
On the one hand, there’s the use of the helicopter (one interesting facet of the emails is that everyone involved understood that, if an emergency occurred, the minister would be left wherever he was, and the helicopter would head for the emergency).
On the other, there’s the bald-faced decision to mislead people about the travel.
But that’s not the only lie the federal Conservatives have been caught in lately.
Pollsters working for the federal Tories — apparently at the direction of their clients — have been contacting constituents in Liberal MP Irwin Cotler’s riding, asking for support in an upcoming byelection because of Cotler’s resignation.
Problem is, the whole premise is a lie: Cotler has not resigned, and there is no pending byelection.
Tories have characterized the campaign as just part of the political process — sometimes, actions say more about you than they say about your target.
Conservative House Leader Peter Van Loan has gone so far as to defend the actions, saying, “To say that one cannot speculate on his future … that that form of freedom of speech should forever be suppressed, is to me an overreach that is far too great.”
It’s an interesting argument: freedom of speech, in Van Loan’s lexicon, apparently extends to the freedom to deliberately lie. One wonders whether Van Loan would feel the same if his leader were falsely identified as a kitten-strangler or some other such freedom of speech falsehood.
Where does it leave the rest of us, watching such particularly pathetic examples of falsehood statesmanship? Well, it’s a long time until the next election, and you can be guaranteed that the federal Tories are depending on us having our usual short memories.
Six months down the road, they’re probably thinking, the lies will seem as much like ancient history as cuneiform writing does.
It’s simple to remember, though: a senior Tory has explained that politically, freedom of speech is the freedom to lie to the electorate — and no one in the party has seen the need to correct that interpretation.
There is a popular saying about the credulous: “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.”
Either we choose to ignore it, or we choose to remember it.
We’ll probably forget.
If we do, shame on us.
Origin
Source: the Telegram
He’d probably still be taking that stand if not caught out by information contained in National Defence emails.
On the one hand, there’s the use of the helicopter (one interesting facet of the emails is that everyone involved understood that, if an emergency occurred, the minister would be left wherever he was, and the helicopter would head for the emergency).
On the other, there’s the bald-faced decision to mislead people about the travel.
But that’s not the only lie the federal Conservatives have been caught in lately.
Pollsters working for the federal Tories — apparently at the direction of their clients — have been contacting constituents in Liberal MP Irwin Cotler’s riding, asking for support in an upcoming byelection because of Cotler’s resignation.
Problem is, the whole premise is a lie: Cotler has not resigned, and there is no pending byelection.
Tories have characterized the campaign as just part of the political process — sometimes, actions say more about you than they say about your target.
Conservative House Leader Peter Van Loan has gone so far as to defend the actions, saying, “To say that one cannot speculate on his future … that that form of freedom of speech should forever be suppressed, is to me an overreach that is far too great.”
It’s an interesting argument: freedom of speech, in Van Loan’s lexicon, apparently extends to the freedom to deliberately lie. One wonders whether Van Loan would feel the same if his leader were falsely identified as a kitten-strangler or some other such freedom of speech falsehood.
Where does it leave the rest of us, watching such particularly pathetic examples of falsehood statesmanship? Well, it’s a long time until the next election, and you can be guaranteed that the federal Tories are depending on us having our usual short memories.
Six months down the road, they’re probably thinking, the lies will seem as much like ancient history as cuneiform writing does.
It’s simple to remember, though: a senior Tory has explained that politically, freedom of speech is the freedom to lie to the electorate — and no one in the party has seen the need to correct that interpretation.
There is a popular saying about the credulous: “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.”
Either we choose to ignore it, or we choose to remember it.
We’ll probably forget.
If we do, shame on us.
Origin
Source: the Telegram
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