A broken promise

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Harper made a big deal about announcing 3 new Navy supply ships back in 2006. The announcement was made by then Defense Minister Gordon O'Connor who said:

"These ships are an essential component of our maritime forces," said Chief of Defence Staff Rick Hillier, who attended Monday's announcement along with Public Works Minister Michael Fortier."

On August 21st of this year the plan was cancelled along with 12 badly needed patrol ships for the coast guard.

"Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn announced last year that $324 million had been set aside for the purchase and maintenance of six new vessels for the coast guard fleet. The plans included the purchase of 12 new mid-shore patrol vessels."

I find this interesting in the sense that Harper is big on all the various dept's/services that make up the military, wanting to beef them up & promising funding & then suddenly taking it away. And this announcement, like so many other backtracks, is released quietly on a Fri. evening, as usual, in hopes that the media will make little play of it & have the weekend for it to disappear off the radar.

In this day & age I do believe that the patrol vessels are badly needed for our protection It's been 7 years since 9/11 & from what I have heard it takes the Al Qaeda about 7 years to plan some kind of larger attack. And don't think we are immune. With our "mission" in Afghanistan we are part of the Western culture that this group, & others, abhor. We are a part of the NATO coalition that kills civilians, not just Taliban, & we are hated for it - & rightly so. We are sheep following the U.S. on all things "war". If Harper had his way when the U.S. invaded Iraq we'd be in Iraq as well as that is what he wanted while in opposition. Let's make him the opposition again in case we end up in Pakistan, or even Iran, fighting alongside U.S. troops there. There have already been U.S. forces making invasions into Pakistan chasing after Taliban, & others, & the U.S. is about to take over the entire NATO operation in Afghanistan & I feel sure that Harper will be very happy to extend operations beyond Kandahar no matter what he says about withdrawing in 2011. I don't believe him. Nor should you. All of his broken promises are proof of that & there are many of them.

Scandalpedia!

The Liberal Party has launched a new website: Scandalpedia!

It's an encyclopedia of Conservative scandals & more will be added daily, I'm sure. Go take a peek!

Election Time!

Image courtesy of Zorpheous



This is the last, & final,
act of Harper's before asking the GG to dissolve Parliament. And this last act is one of breaking his own law that he had legislated so that a PM could not "use" dissolution when things looked favourable for their Party in a possible election.

Harper has broken so many promises since he was elected that it would take a book to list them & describe them all. I will be mentioning some of them in upcoming posts.

Happy Election everyone!!! May it NOT go Harper's way.

More Cadman Details!

According to Dona Cadman, widow of Chuck Cadman, in documents filed with the court, she said her husband was offered 10 incentives by Conservative operatives 2 days before the confidence vote in the House on May 17th, 2005. A vote in which Mr. Cadman voted with the Liberal govt. at the time & stopped the fall of said govt.

"Chuck Cadman was not only offered a million-dollar life insurance policy in exchange for helping bring down the Liberal government in 2005, but also a spot as the Conservative deputy justice critic, the late MP's widow has said, according to documents filed in court."

You can read more about it in the Globe & Mail.

The timing of this release is excellent as it will remind the voter of the heated denials initially made by Harper, James Moore, & other Con MP's on this & jog the memories, of everyone, on the many other scandals in the Con govt. that have not yet been resolved. People are back from summer hiatus & are now paying attention. It's time for the other parties to run with this, as well as the other secret dealings of this govt., now, & once an election is called. Remind, remind, remind - relentlessly!

The Petulant PM

Petulant: adj.
Unreasonably irritable or ill-tempered; peevish.
Contemptuous in speech or behaviour.

So our dear leader wants an election. His talking point? Parliament is dysfunctional. Are you sure about that Steve? After meeting with all 3 leaders of the opposition to "discuss" the so-called problem nothing has changed. Of course it hasn't. Harper made his up his mind about this long before the meetings.

When Dion came out & talked with the press after the meeting he stated that Harper wanted the opposition to accept every piece of legislation without exception. In other words, forget democracy, forget even having an opposition. We have an opposition to counter, when necessary, any unfair legislation, etc. As usual Steve wants to rule like a dictator. No room for discussion on anything.

After Dion out came Kory Teneycke, the PM's spokesman, & said: "It's obvious the opposition want an election." Say what? All the leaders went into these meetings looking to resolve differences. Harper would have none of it. Steve started all this talk of election, persisted with it, & it's the opposition that wants it? Feed me more lies Harper. You're very good at it.

As far as the "dysfunctional" Parliament goes here's the truth from an article in the The Star today:

"Parliament can boast a legislative track record: there have been 65 bills passed by the House of Commons since the Conservatives were elected on Jan. 23, 2006.
Since last October, the government has even survived about 40 votes it declared matters of confidence in an effort to tempt the opposition to bring it down."

When Harper made the pronouncement that Parliament is "dysfunctional" he did it when they aren't sitting, when they are all on summer break, & after calling 4 by-elections just prior to making this announcement, 3 of them slated to take place on Sept. 8th. More wasted tax-payer monies now as it's doubtful they will happen. And they are only 5 days away & all that time, energy, & money is wasted. Or maybe not so much as those ridings will already be uppermost in the voters minds. A head start so to speak.

So our Petulant PM will be calling an election. So be it. Let's get rid of these goons, who've been trampling all over OUR democracy, once & for all.