Lies the Harper Haters Tell, Part 5

In previous episodes of the Nexus fact check into the Shit Harper Did website, we uncovered dishonest claims about science funding, the G20 summit, and torture in Afghanistan. We've also explored some poorly-supported appeals to religious bigotry.

But in order to conduct the most recent ShitHarperDid fact check, we have to first set the table. To do that, we pay a visit to our old friend Audrey of Enormous Thriving Plants.

Joining a few other far-left bloggers in creeping the facebook page of Conservative Candidate Wally Daudrich, Audrey notes that he identifies Red Dawn as one of his favourite movies, the Tea Party as one of his interests, and Fox News as his favourite media outlet.

Yet there's greater hilarity afoot than simply the creeping of Daudrich's Facebook page. It has to do with a ShitHarperDid claim about water on aboriginal reserves:

Frankly, even one aboriginal community in Canada without safe drinking water is one too many. But the purpose of this claim is clearly to suggest that Harper has done nothing to fix this problem. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, the government of Canada spent $735.6 million between 2008-10 dealing with this very problem. The results speak for themselves. While there were 49 First Nations communities under water advisories in March 2010 -- still 49 too many -- this number is down from 193 in 2006.

That's a 75% reduction in Aboriginal communities with high-risk drinking water systems since 2006. Which kind of makes one wonder about what the Liberal Party was doing during their 13 years in power.

Or what Niki Ashton, the NDP MP for Churchill has been doing. From Daudrich's Facebook page:

While the Harper government was budgeting funds to tackle the water problems in Garden Hill, Manitoba and elsewhere, NDP MPs like Niki Ahston were voting against the funding bills.

Facts like this don't even seem to phase the people behind the ShitHarperDid website. They promote the Liberal Party -- who allowed water safety in First Nations communities to deteriorate -- and the NDP -- whose MPs have voted against funding projects to fix the problem -- as better options than the Conservatives, who have made tremendous progress in fixing the problem.

It's just another lie the Harper haters tell.