Where do they differ? Brady was caught deflating footballs before a championship game to give himself a throwing advantage. He has been punished with a four-game suspension to start the upcoming NFL season. (He is appealing that punishment.) More to the point, there will be an asterisk beside his name in the record books. Like Mark McGwire and Alex Rodriguez, Brady’s star is now besmirched, perhaps permanently.
As for Stephen Harper, he has been caught numerous times breaking the rules. He has crushed individuals who opposed him and set the RCMP on his enemies. He has misled Parliament. From contempt of Parliament to cheating at elections, the Conservatives under Harper have managed to play fast and loose with the rules — so far, without consequences.
In fact, Canadians rewarded Harper with his only majority government in three electoral victories after he refused to provide documents to a parliamentary committee. And — oh yes — he didn’t want to tell Parliament how much some of his new programs would cost. Harper has reversed the rules of parliamentary democracy in Canada: The government is not the servant of the House, the House is now the servant of the government.
Even as you digest the fact that the NFL takes cheating in football more seriously than many Canadians appear to take cheating in politics, here’s the question you ought to be asking: Just how much can Harper get away with before he pays a price with voters? And to what extent will Canadians allow him to play by his own rules?
A politician can get away with a lot — until he starts rubbing the public’s face in his indifference to the rules mere mortals must obey. With Harper, we’re getting pretty close to that point.
Take the national television debates, which Green Party Leader Elizabeth May says are now in a “shambles.” Here is what May told me about the situation she now finds herself in:
“Having met all the criteria that have governed the central national event in federal elections over the last four decades — an elected seat in the House, running a national slate, being relevant in the life of the country between elections — the Green Party was invited to the televised national debates. Suddenly, Stephen Harper has decided he no longer likes these rules. I recall him in the Arctic on an ATV taking off while saying to the media, ‘I am the one who makes the rules.’ As invitations to boutique, less-accessible debates are received by other party leaders, I wonder if the Conservatives can get away with such obvious contempt for traditional national leaders’ debates.”
(Though invited to the Maclean’s debate, May has not been asked to take part in the Globe or Bloomberg debates.)
So here’s another question: Can Stephen Harper — by the simple act of stamping his foot, taking his bat and going home — derail the national leaders’ debates? Will this decision turn into another yawner, as was the contempt of Parliament finding against Harper, or a step too far for a man infamously averse to playing fair?
An even more dangerous course of action for a party already known for partisan cheating is the government’s new Canada 150 Community Infrastructure Program. A better name would have been the Canada 150 Elect Conservatives Program; the deadlines for tapping into the fund are ridiculously tight, and the Opposition is accusing the government of gerrymandering the program for blatant political gain. The man who might be Canada’s next prime minister, NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair, didn’t mince words. To him, the program is a “slush fund” underwritten by the public for the benefit of Conservative MPs.
Memories of AdScam come to mind. You remember how that turned out.
Then there was the PM’s recent trip to Iraq, where he may have endangered the lives of soldiers by putting up video showing soldiers’ faces — something journalists had been forbidden to do. The PMO couldn’t lie its way out of that. The video came down and — after an attempt to blame the whole mess on DND didn’t work — Harper’s people issued a tepid apology. No one asked how much this pre-election photo-bomb gone wrong actually cost; the answer is somewhere in the millions.
It’s bad enough that Harper subjects Canadians to his home-movie propaganda. (Think of Donald Trump making a documentary about himself every week.) Even worse, the public pays for the four-member team in the PMO that produces these riveting 24/Seven doctored-mentaries. And there’s a knock-on effect from the PM’s publicly financed ego-liberation/news management — now the Baby Harpers are doing it.
Employment Minister Pierre Poilievre used civil servants working overtime to video himself schmoozing with constituents. Pierre interacting with parents, Pierre handing out flyers, Pierre abusing the public purse for purely partisan purposes. (Maybe the CIA can use the video for torturing terror suspects; I can’t imagine anyone watching this stuff willingly.)
What’s next — Jason Kenney schmoozing on video with constituents who are actually DND employees? Bottom line, Harper and Poilievre owe Canadians a refund. These people make Senator Mike Duffy’s alleged improprieties look like chump change. Canadians voted in 2011 to elect a government — not to unlock the treasury for every CPC operative looking for YouTube stardom.
A sign that the PM’s ego may have become dangerously bloated was offered last week during his visit to Nova Scotia. Steve arrived with all the trappings of a U.S. president. His entourage looked like a military convoy — three cabinet ministers, a senator, a parliamentary secretary, a Cadillac limo, three black Suburbans and innumerable ghost vehicles containing a small army of bodyguards. All for a pre-campaign stop at … a Truro high school.
(As for the event itself, it was the re-announcement of a previous announcement, combined with a Tory pep rally. The fields around Truro are an inch deep with this stuff.)
Speaking of presidential politics, it now appears Canada has its very own First Lady. Former Conservative MP Bill Casey, now running for the Liberals, was surprised when the PM’s wife showed up in Cumberland Colchester riding to raise money and campaign. It was something that Olive Diefenbaker never did.
As Casey put it, when asked about the intervention by a lady who has been elected to absolutely nothing, “This is the first time I’ve seen the spouse of a prime minister actively touring, campaigning and fundraising for an upcoming election.”
Mrs. Harper’s four-stop campaign tour included visits with the local MP and the provincial boss of the Conservative party, MLA Jamie Baillie. This was not about finding homes for unwanted cats.
Jesus, Joseph and Mary, Steve, stop deflating footballs. If you’re going to campaign on the public dime, the very least you can do is call the damn election already.
Original Article
Source: ipolitics.ca/
Author: Michael Harris
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