Why Do the Reform-a Cons Lie Cheat and Steal? Because They Can!

It is a basic tenet of consumerism/corporatism that the market will charge for it's products and services what ever it can safely get away with. Traditionally, this means that producers/businesses will charge whatever consumers will pay for their widgets. It has nothing to do with the actual value of their products or services in real terms. It is all about the value that consumers place upon them. What ever the population is willing to accept.  It is supposed to keep the markets fair and act as a means of keeping the producers from gouging the public.  

The price of a given product rarely
has anything to do with it's actual
value.

But have you ever wondered why we are paying $1.30 for a litre of gasoline (more in many places across Canada), $12 for a pack of cigarettes, $3.00 for a bag of chips or 20 (+) % interest on a credit card when the prime lending rate is 7 or 8%? And remember when we didn't have to pay "Interac" fees for banking at ATMs other than our own? It's because the people who make these things or provide these services CAN charge us these abominable rates. We are addicted to gasoline and cigarettes so our collective "need" is vastly exploited by the producers. We WANT our chips so we will pay almost anything the producers will charge and we desperately NEED our credit cards, at any cost. A citizen without a credit card is no citizen at all. And banks charge us Interac fees now because we have become accustom to the convenience here in our new-improved hyper-convenient society. In essence, we are charged exorbitant fees and prices because the markets CAN charge us exorbitant fees and prices. There is no law against it in a "Free Market" economy and any so-called watch-dogs have little or no clout to enforce reasonable pricing. This is a capitalist society. It's how it works.

The Invisible Hand
of Capitalism.

But what does all this have to do with the Reform/Conservative Party (otherwise known as the Conservative Party of Canada, or as I refer to them, the Reform-a-Cons)? I mean, they are a political party, right? What does corporatism have to do with politics? Well for starters, traditional Conservative parties have been identified with Business interests. Their philosophy, whether you buy it or not, is that whatever is good for business is good for the country and hence good for society. This is not necessarily and erroneous belief as long as one also believes in the "Invisible Hand" of capitalism which is supposed to be in essence, the law of supply and demand and that the wealth from prosperous businesses will trickle down to the consumer class, thus creating perpetual balance in the capitalist society. A lovely notion if it were true. The problem is, if there ever WAS an Invisible Hand, it no longer exists. But I digress...

It stands to reason then that in traditional Conservative circles, these politicians have often been well connected in business. If not, they have been extremely sympathetic to the needs of the business class. But let us not forget, our current Majority Conservative government is anything BUT a traditional Conservative group. This so-called party has evolved from the extremest, evangelically driven Reform Party. They possess the Conservative name only because of the treachery of Peter MacKay who, as the last leader of the old Progressive Conservative Party, sold his soul to Stephen Harper in return for power and influence. So imagine then, the traditional business friendly Conservative principles, mutated and distorted by extremism and religious dogma. This then, is the Reform-a-Con Party of Canada and they view themselves as being on a divine mission.

And if you buy that line of crap that the
Reform-A-Cons had nothing to do
with fraudulent Robo-calls, then have I got
a deal for YOU on Florida swamp land. CHEAP!

So this current Conservative party has decided to use the marketing strategies and unwritten principles of the corporate world in order to achieve their mission. Harper has decided to run the country as though it was a business and he views Canadians as being no more than consumers, purchasers of his snake-oil, to be bamboozled and exploited.    As a result we end up with Robo-calls, secrecy, contempt of/for Parliament and disregard for the well being of the general public and their democratic rights. Not to mention the blatant disregard for the environment, women's rights and science, all of which are seen, as being bad for the Reform-a-Con Business.  So we now end up with the most corrupt government in our history. 

But why would a political party, who's future is based solely on the approval of the masses lie, cheat and steal their way into power? And how on earth can they get away with it? Well aside from the fact that they believe it is their divine mission, they use these tactics for the same reason businesses and services rob from us. They do it because they CAN and there is no one to stop them. The Reform-a-Cons have learned their business strategies well and have become adept at  exploiting every conceivable loop-hole in the law. Canadian law, at least as far as politics and elections are concerned, was established for Canada as it was 100 years ago with minor modifications being made along the way. It was not designed for, nor could it ever have envisioned, the information age nor the coming of the Reform-a-Cons. As such, it is outdated and ripe for exploitation by a zealous generation of "political entrepreneurs". 

So who is to stop this corrupt bunch from making a mockery of our democracy? Elections Canada? The RCMP? It took five years for Elections Canada to finally gain a conviction over the Reform-a-Cons for the "In and Out" scandal of 2006. And what was the penalty? a $52,000 fine. A slap on the wrist. The Government of Harper spent ten times that amount just in court costs alone. And because the Reform-a-Cons had all the money (our tax dollars) they were able to drag the case out for years. And what ever happened to all those breaches of ethics by one Minister or another? A few Mea Culpas and that was it. And what ever happened to that Contempt of Parliament ruling? The Reform-a-Cons used it to spin, manipulate and connive their way into majority government. No accountability what so ever. And what about the travesty of the G20, the Gazebos? NOTHING? And what about the Supreme Court ruling that The Government of Harper had actively denied Omar Khadr his Charter rights. NOTHING!

When they had a minority government, the Reform-a-Cons successfully kept the sadly splintered opposition chasing their own tails. Now that they have a majority government, there is essentially, no one to hold the Government of Harper to account. The watchdogs that weren't already toothless, have become so under the Harper regime. And we are three years away from the next election so even the voters who care and are inclined to do so, are powerless to topple this corrupt, banana-republic regime. 

So the Government of Harper, as I said earlier, the most corrupt government in our history, lies, cheats and steals from Canadian taxpayers on an almost daily basis, because they CAN and no one and nothing can stop them. It's just good business. 

We Have Ourselves to Blame for Our Corrupt Government

As the title implies, we only have ourselves to blame for our current ultra-corrupt majority government. They have stolen our government and our democracy right out from under our very noses. The Robo-call scandal is only the latest in a long line of scams, misdeeds, frauds and outright illegal and anti-democratic behaviour. Consider the following:

Stevie, the Evangelical Reformist

-The Reform Party of Canada was formed by the Evangelical Preston Manning in 1987 (yes THE Preston Manning of the Manning Centre who just recently had the reporter who broke the Robo-call story turfed out of his soiree). Another Evangelical, "Steve" Harper joined this bizarre collection of extremists in 1988 and became it's Chief Policy Officer. But these Western-Centric radicals  could gain no credibility east of Manitoba and the Reform Party was rife with unprofessional, partisan and unethical behaviour. They were too far out into right field, even for Blue Tories and were dismissed out of hand by the majority of the country.

- The Reform Party re-branded it self as the Alliance party and was led temporarily by a Jet-Skiing Evangelical, Stockwell Day,  who believes the earth is only 5,000 years old and that men walked with dinosaurs. But they were still a half-assed bunch of extremists that no one took seriously.

"Et Tu Peter"?

- In 2003, Peter MacKay became the last leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada based on the promise he would NEVER negotiate an amalgamation deal with The Reform/ Alliance bunch. A promise he promptly broke once elected leader. Whether he conspired with "Steve" Harper before hand we might never know. But we do know that MacKay went  from being the leader of a toothless non-party at the time, to a position of power and influence in the Harper Government, complete with models hanging off his arm and a brief "tryst" with the lovely  automobile heiress, Belinda Stronach.  And we watched this all happen.

-The treachery that allowed the merger of the Reform/Alliance party and the near-dead Progressive Conservative Party gave Harper and his Reform cronies control of the "Conservative" moniker which  they quickly adopted, dropping the "Progressive" label in the process, which suited their Ultra-right wing Neo-Conservative purposes. This gave the Reform Party the instant credibility they had long sought even though they were nothing more than carnivorous,  ideological wolves in Conservative apparel. And we watched and the main-stream media blithely and erroneously referred to this new party as "Tories" thus giving them even more undeserved credence.

- We watched as this new party, riding on the momentum of the Liberal's own in-house scandal (aided greatly by the RCMP who chose to make public, damning accusations about the Liberals  at the height of the 2006 campaign) managed to grasp a minority government for the first time.

- We watched as the "Reform/Conservatives" Prorogued Parliament not once, but twice. First to avoid the will of the people (which would have seen a majority coalition  govern us, at least temporarily) and again to avoid having to account for the Afghan detainee scandal (which they have never accounted for, despite the prospect of MacKay and Harper being seen as potential war criminals)

15 year old Omar Khadr, wounded by American soldiers

- We watched as Harper spent over three million dollars of tax payers money on legal fees to deny Omar Khadr his constitutional and international rights as a child soldier and keep him penned up in Guantanamo Bay .The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the Harper Government was denying the boy his Charter Rights but stopped short of ordering them to repatriate him. Khadr was 15 when he was shot by American soldiers. He is now 23 years old and continues to be held on what can best be described as circumstantial evidence while the Harper Government continues to thumb it's nose at the Supreme Court.

- We watched as the Reform/Conservative back room boys, using American-style smear tactics, systematically destroyed the political career of one of the few remaining good men in Ottawa, Stephan Dion.

-We watched as Stephen Harper and his then director of communications, Kory Teneycke  secretly met with the heads of the ultra right-wing Fox News in the states. We subsequently .watched as the Prime Ministers Office pressured the CRTC to grant a bid led by Teneycke to licence  Sun TV News. We watched as Teneycke resigned over tampering with an Avvaz petition to stop the licensing of Sun TV news (alias Fox News North). We watched as Teneycke was quietly rehired. We watched Sun TV news become a reality.

- We watched as Kory Teneycke told delegates at a Manning Centre Conference (remember Preston the Evangelical?) that he would love to have the names of Left-leaning College professors and teachers so he could "make them famous" (meaning he would love to start a smear campaign against them and otherwise, silence them)

- We watched as the Reform/Conservatives, who campaigned with promises of more transparency in Government became the most closed and secretive Government in our history.

- We watched as Stephen Harper promised Senate Reform, then proceeded to stack the Senate with partisan cronies, mostly defeated Conservative candidates, so that no matter which bills were passed by Parliament, they would either be passed or defeated at the whim of the hyper-partisan Reform/Conservative Senate . Harper has appointed more partisan Senators than any other Prime Minister in our history.

- We watched as Dmitri Soudas, another Harper Director of Communication, put pressure on the Montreal Port Authority to hire as it's new Board President, a man sympathetic to the Reform/Conservative cause.

- We watched as the Government of Harper  systematically fired, silenced and otherwise ruined the careers of any pubic service whistle blower who spoke out against  the Reform/Conservative agenda.

- We watched as The Government of Harper sought to invest BILLIONS of dollars in a new fighter Aircraft, who's need is questionable, with out first tendering a contract or asking for proposals, all at the behest of our neighbors to the south.

- We watched as Stephen Harper ruled his party with an iron "my way or the highway" fist. We watched him silence his own party members. We watched as he forbade candidates from participating in  open campaign debates, we watched as he kicked people out of his campaign rallies on the basis of the content of their Facebook  accounts (who did these internet searches was never revealed) and we then watched as he stacked these rallies with rabid partisans who shouted down legitimate questions from the media. We watched as Harper limited questioning of any kind from the media at his campaign rallies.

- We are still watching Harper's attempts at dismantlement the CBC as he views them as being "Anti-Government". And we are still watching to see what he intends to do with the "war-chest" he is amassing in order to combat the main stream media, ALL of whom he feels, are too left leaning.

-  We watched as the Harper Government (as the Government of Canada is now officially called) was found guilty of Contempt of Parliament. No other government in the history of parliamentary democracy has ever been guilty of such an infraction. Neither Harper nor any of his Reform/Conservative cronies have ever been held accountable for this.

-We watched, silently dumbfounded, when it was revealed that the Reform/Conservatives had produced a 200 page manual on how to stone-wall Parliamentary committees in which the opposition held a majority of members, thus suppressing and otherwise, impeding the democratic process once again.

- We watched as the Government of Harper was found guilty of election fraud around the "in and out" scandal that occurred in the 2006 election. We watched as the party was given a slap on the wrist, a $52,000 fine. And we watched as the Harper-led Reform/Conservatives spun this guilty finding into a "victory"!

- We continue to watch as the Government of Harper refuses to answer or admit to any of it's indiscretions. Instead, it denies, deflects, minimizes or instead, sets out to attack and defame it's opponents rather than proving them wrong or taking responsibility for it's actions. The standard operating procedure is for them to tell the same lie so often that the electorate will come to accept it as truth eg:" Coalition governments are un-democratic".

And the above list of Reform/Conservative indiscretions is far from complete. We have watched for six long years as the Government of Harper has systematically engaged in unethical, undemocratic behaviour and blown us way off course using rhetoric and fear tactics. They have lied, cheated and  stolen from the Canadian people. They have ruined careers and lives and eroded the rights of Canadian citizens. And we have given this all, passing notice and shaken our heads at the deteriorating state of our democracy and done nothing but given them cart-blanch to rule as they see fit.  We have accepted it as the "new normal" and moved on with our lives- until now that the Robo-call scandal has come to light. We are finally waking up. We are finally beginning to take action. We are finally realizing that our very democracy is in grave peril. And we have no one but ourselves to blame as we watched passively, this dreadful progression and rise to absolute power of an idealistic, power-hungry mad-man. We should have seen this coming. Any political party that is born of treachery and deceit is destined to govern in the same manner.