LGR Advocates, You Have Some 'Splainin' To Do

Long gun registry not the life-saver they claim it is

With Canada's far-left scrambling to save the long gun registry by any means necessary, it seems the facts just aren't lining up to support their arguments.

When the Globe and Mail put crime data recently released by Stats Canada into a chart, the conclusions became unavoidable. Those who claim the long gun registry saves lives -- as former Liberal MP Mark Holland used to delight in doing -- have some serious explaining to do.

The chart reveals that the last time more long guns than hand guns were used in homicides was waaaaaay back in 1990. (The L'Ecole Polytechnique massacre happened the previous year.) The bill authorizing the long gun registry was passed in Parliament in 1995, and the registry itself was established in 1996.

There's good reason for this. As the numbers have it, murders involving long guns have been steadily declining in Canada since 1984 -- twelve years before the LGR ever existed. There were occasional spikes in homicides involving long guns, but the general trend has been a decline since 1984.

During the same period of time, murders involving handguns -- which the law has required to be registered since World War Two -- have remained stable.

This is very clearly a difficult question the champions of the LGR desperately need to answer. They have relentlessly attributed the reduction in homicides involving long guns to the registry. Yet not only does the decline pre-date the registry, the handgun registry has no noticeable effect.

It's clear that registration has not had the magical properties LGR advocates have attributed to it. They have some serious questions to answer, some serious explaining to do -- although previous experience with these individuals suggests they will simply decline.

The Real Reason the NDP Opposes Senate Reform

They don't need Senators to chill in Mexico -- their candidates already do

For years, it was the ultimate in outrage. Senator Andrew Thompson, Liberal Senator from Ontario, was spending his time in La Paz, Mexico, instead of in Ottawa.

Moreover, Thompson was collecting his salary for the privilege. It was one of the episodes that for so many years disenchanted Canadians with the upper chamber.

For his own part, NDP candidate Jim Koppens isn't collecting a salary to relax in the Dominican Republic.

So, while the 2011 federal election continues, Koppens has yet to spend a single day campaigning, despite the fact that the campaign began more than a week before he left for his vacation.

In all fairness, reports indicate that Koppens has no cancellation insurance for his vacation. As a meatcutter, it's unlikely that he could casually accept the total loss of his vacation.

That being said, being an MP comes with having to make sacrifices. If Koppens isn't willing to sacrifice his vacation, or at least sacrifice his candidacy to an individual prepared to campaign, it's more than fair to wonder if Koppens is ready to be an MP at all.

For his own part, Liberal incumbent Mark Holland -- against whom Koppens is running -- seems just fine with his absence. Imagine that.

“I am a local boy and I know he is a good guy,” Holland remarked. “He will have to answer for all his actions.”

Naturally, Holland is far from outraged by Koppens' absence. If his vacation harms the NDP's prospects in Ajax-Pickering, it will likely be Holland who is the benefactor. It's unlikely many of Koppens' supporters will back Conservative candidate Chris Alexander.

In fact, the Liberals would probably like it if a great deal more NDP candidates would run off to the Carribean to catch some rays.

Liberal Party of Canada: Disingenuous on Crime

Liberal Party won't revisit crime bills they railed against

As the Conservative government's tough-on-crime agenda weaved its way through Parliament, Canadians were repeatedly barraged by the Liberal Party's objections, particularly through the very loud voice of Mark Holland.

Over and over again, the Liberals denounced the program as "dumb on crime".

So should they somehow manage to win the 2011 federal election, one may expect that the Liberal Party would change the country's course on the issue.

Think again.

"I don't see anything right now that we need to go back and undo," Liberal Public Safety critic Mark Holland announced.

Holland claimed that the only change the Liberal Party would make would be to accure additional funds to crime prevention programs. In fact, he insisted that's the first thing the Liberals would do.

Yet with all the myriad complaints that the Liberals raised about moves such as abolishing the 2-for-1 time served credit -- at one point even suggesting it was unconstitutional -- it's remarkable that they would plan to allow all of those changes to stand.

On one hand, it's almost a sign that the Liberal Party just might get it: the idea that crime is a real issue that Canadians are deeply concerned about, as opposed to an ideological wedge with which to gain votes from the hug-a-thug soft-on-crime crowd.

But on the other hand, it's a sign that Liberals aren't prepared to make difficult changes themselves, but are willing to whine loudly while other governments make those very changes.

Simply put, the Liberal party seems to get that Canada's anti-crime regime needed to be toughened significantly. They just weren't willing to do their own dirt.

Dumb on crime? Tough on crime? Soft on crime?

Mark Holland and the Liberals have just managed to coin one of their very own: disingenous on crime.

The Utter Cluelessness of Jack Layton & the NDP

Conservatives can't work with NDP on long-gun registry

When it appeared that Candice Hoeppner's private members bill would find enough support from the NDP to pass, NDP leader Jack Layton went to work to find enough votes to keep the registry alive.

He didn't whip the vote, as many advocates of the long-gun regsitry insisted he should, but he seems to have found the votes.

Yet, as it turns out, Layton's fantasies don't end with the alleged necessity of maintaining the registry. Layton continues to fantasize that the Conservative Party would be able to work with him to "fix" the registry.

"I said to the Prime Minister today as well as in a conversation last week, ‘Why don't we work together here? You haven't got the numbers now to simply eliminate it,'" Layton said. "'So let's work to try to fix it and address some of those legitimate issues that are being raised by people who are law-abiding gun owners and hunters and farmers.'"

What Layton clearly doesn't understand is that, as pertains to gun control and the long-gun registry, there's nothing to talk about. There is simply no way that the Conservative Party -- who acknowledge reality as it relates to the long-gun registry -- could work wirh the NDP on the matter, who do not.

It's as simple as that.

Particularly, the Conservatives cannot be expected to work with people who won't debate the matter in good faith.

Layton and the other supporters of the long-gun registry have long realized that there are no facts that support maintaining the registry: not a single, solitary, one.

They can't afford to publicly admit that the long-gun registry has never prevented a single crime, and has never saved a single life. Not one.

Instead, proponents of the long-gun registry have relied on fear mongering, emotional blackmail, and smear tactics in order to make their case.


Consider the following exchanges from the very same meeting of the Public Safety Committee in which Dr Gary Mauser utterly demolished defenses of the long-gun registry.

The first is between Dr Mauser and Marlene Jennings:

"Jennings - ...Have you received funding from the NRA for any of your studies or research work?

Dr Mauser - Yes, I have. When I first began researching--

Jennings - Thank you.

Dr Mauser - I got $400.

Jennings - Have you contributed to the Conservative Party of Canada, or its predecessor the Canadian Alliance, or its predecessor the Reform Party of Canada?

Dr Mauser - I have contributed to the Conservative Party, the Reform Party, the NDP, and the Liberals."

Jennings attempts a rather blatant guilt-by-association argument. She knows her base well, and must imagine that a donation to the Reform Party, and the receipt of a donation from the NRA would be rather damning for Dr Mauser.

Unfortunately for Jennings, what she uncovered was a donation scarcely sufficient to keep the lights on for a major research project, and a former Reform Party donor who had also given to her own party.

In the midst of a debate that is supposed to be contested based on facts, this is far from a significant bombshell.

But Jennings' buffoonery nothing compared to that of Bloc Quebecois MP Maria Mourani:

"Mourani - Mr Mauser, I would like short answers please. Is this in fact you in this photograph, with a handgun?

Dr Mauser - That's me and that's my handgun.

Mourani - What kind of gun is it?

Dr Mauser - It is a Smith & Wesson revolver.

Mourani - Is it registered?

Dr Mauser - Well, of course.

Mourani - How many weapons do you own?

Dr Mauser - I'm not sure. It varies.

Mourani - You do not remember how many guns you own? How many long guns do you own?

Dr Mauser - I don't remember. It varies.

Mourani - All right, you own firearms, but you do not remember how many you have?

Dr Mauser - I'm getting old.

Mourani - You are not, however, too old to carry such a gun.

Dr Mauser - That would be a few more years from now.

Mourani - Where was this photograph taken?

Dr Mauser - About 20 years ago.

Mourani - But where?

Dr Mauser - You can see that I'm a lot younger there.

Mourani - Yes, but where? Was it at home? It looks like it was at home, not at a firing range or at a shooting school. Am I right? It is at your house.

Dr Mauser - That's my house.

Mourani - Excellent. And what were you shooting at? What were you having fun shooting at? Who were you putting on this show for?

The Chair - Mrs Mourani, you have to relate this to the long-gun registry.

Mourani - I apologize, Mr Chairman. Mr Chairman, I will explain why.

Dr Mauser - You will notice, first of all, that I'm not firing. Secondly, the finger is not in the trigger guard. Thirdly, the photographer asked me to pose like this and I resisted, but obviously I should have resisted harder.

Mourani - You did put up a struggle, my dear sir. But, you are the expert advisor as far as firearms are concerned. I must admit to you that I am scared."

In all fairness, Maria Mourani does seem like the sensitive type: sensitive enough to be frightened by a 20-year-old photograph. That, seeing as how she introduced it into committee, one could presume she herself dug up for that purpose.

And evidently sensitive enough to stoop to ad hominem attacks on an expert at whose assessment of the facts she seems to despair.

Which reminds one what this is allegedly supposed to be about: it's supposed to be about the facts. Mark Holland insists that the Conservatives simply don't care about them.

Yet when a doctor of criminology shows up to the Public Safety Committee and lays out facts that are extremely inconvenient for proponents of the long-gun registry, the facts seem to be the last thing Holland, Jennings, Mourani et al are concerned with:

Their language becomes not that of a factual debate, but that of vindictive personal attack, vicious character assasination, and shameless melodrama.

There is a reason for this: the facts simply do not favour their cause. It doesn't prevent gun crime. It doesn't save lives. It's a cosmetic gun control measure that demonstrably doesn't protect Canadians.

Truthfully speaking, the long gun registry has become the cause celibre of far-left demagogues who can't bring themselves to get tough on crime, so instead opt to get tough on the law-abiding.

Jack Layton has, unsurprisingly, decided to throw in with that lot. The Conservatives couldn't work with him on this issue, even if they wanted to.

Oh, the Sounds of Ending Debate

Former RCMP Superintendent denounces long-gun registry

Poor Mark Holland.

The Ajax-Pickering MP insists that the debate on the long-gun registry is over when the debate over the long-gun registry is, in fact, hotter than it's ever been.

The most recent individual to enter the debate is former RCMP Supertintendent Keith Thompson, who has declared the long-gun registry to be useless.

Thompson is well-poised to know full well the comparative merits of the long-gun registry. He formerly commanded the RCMP's emergency response team in southern Alberta.

"I think it is a waste, and most importantly, if we think about the safety of our citizens, it gives them a false sense of its importance," Thompson wrote in a letter to Members of Parliament.

"In my various roles, I attended too many scenes of hostage-taking, murder/suicides, barricaded persons, etc, and know of no lives that could have been saved with such a fully functioning registry," he continued.

Thompson not only pointed out that the long-gun registry hasn't saved any lives -- contrary to a recent report by the RCMP that was, oddly enough, glowing about the RCMP's own administration of the long-gun registry -- but also that it doesn't help police officers, either.

To rely on the long-gun registry -- or the gun registry period -- to provide information about weapons present would be a rookie mistake, and potentially a deadly one.

"Assume that there would be guns regardless of what the registry implied," Thompson asserted. "The bottom line is 'is the long-gun registry a benefit to the street officer? I think it's unequivocally no.'"

"Who is it a benefit to?," he asks. "Does it make the citizens of Canada safer? I don't think so."

"So why maintain it?"

There's a reason why people like Holland want to maintain the long-gun registry: as ideological boilerplate. Nothing more, and nothing else.

However desperately Mark Holland may want the debate to end, it's far from over. Holland and his cohorts can produce the same talking points and pass them off as conclusive studies to their heart's content.

It won't change what nearly every front-line police officer in the country already knows: the long-gun registry doesn't save lives, it cannot save lives, and so should be abolished.

Mark Holland, the RCMP, and "Penultimate Reports"

Long-gun registry advocates have yet to produce one

Ajax-Pickering MP -- and Ottawa's resident village idiot -- Mark Holland recently pretended to be rather vindicated with the RCMP produced a report claiming that the long-gun registry was efficient and cost-effective.

Portage-Lisgar MP Candice Hoeppner is far less than convinced.

"My position remains steadfast as does our party's position," she said. "We believe the long-gun registry needs to end. As legislators, that's our job, to look at policy, to decide what's in the best interests of Canadians and make those decisions. So, nothing has changed."

Hoeppner went on to explain that stronger pre-licensing screening protocols are needed in order to actually keep guns out of the hands of people likely to use them to do harm.

In the bizarre world of Mark Holland, a preference for actual, real gun control rather than cosmetic legislation is "ideological".

"The Conservatives have wanted to scrap this for ideology," Holand declared. "Facts will not move them."

"They don't care about facts," he continued. "You could present the penultimate report, and they would ignore it."

The problem for Holland is that neither he nor any of the other proponents of the long-gun registry have produced anything even remotely resembling a "penultimate report". The recent report released by the RCMP doesn't even come close.

The RCMP has different motivations for wanting to declare the long-gun registry to be successful. After all, the gun registry is currently administered by the RCMP itself.

Currently, the RCMP is a troubled institution. Questions regarding the conduct of its officers abound. The institution continues to face questions about irregularities in its pension fund.

The RCMP is an institution desperately in need of some good news. An internal audit of a program they themselves administer is the perfect opportunity to produce precisely that.

Holland must certainly understand the folly of citing this report as if it were the final word on the long-gun registry. (The detail that it was the Conservative party who placed the registry under RCMP administration after the bureaucrats the Liberal Party hired to administer the program ran it deep into the depths of wastefulness is really just the icing on the cake.)

Even Holland's favourite talking point -- the support for the program by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police -- has absorbed a black eye recently, as it was revealed that the organization accepted a donation of $115,000 from the CGI group of companies.

The CGI group produces the software for the gun registry.

That makes for a massive conflict of interest, and raises questions of whether or not any conditions were placed on the donation.

Moreover, if there ever were a penultimate report on the long-gun registry, it absolutely would not support maintaining it.

“It is difficult to understand why the chiefs of police support the long-gun registry,” Simon Fraser University Criminologist Dr Gary Mauser once remarked. “[It] has so many errors that relying upon it puts the lives of rank-and-file police members at risk. This is a classic database problem: garbage in, gospel out. The police should know better."

"Millions of entries are incorrect or missing," he continued. “Most striking, less than half of all long guns in Canada are in the registry."

"The long-gun registry does worse – it misdirects the police," he said. "People who have registered their firearms are less likely to be violent than Canadians who don’t even own firearms. They should be. Gun owners have been screened by the police since 1979."

"We are told that 15 percent of the guns used in homicides are long guns," he briefly conceded. "What is not said is that virtually none were registered. How does the gun registry help? When I spoke at the Ontario Police College, one of the instructors told me privately that trusting the registry was a way to get good police officers killed."

Those are some very sobering facts -- they should be doubly so for proponents of the long-gun registry.

Where did Dr Mauser make these remarks?

Before the Public Safety Committee, of which Mark Holland is not only a member, but Vice-Chair.

Was he simply absent the day that Dr Mauser gave these remarks? Or did he disregard them because they weren't ideologically soothing enough for his tastes?

It seems that the answer is almost certainly the latter. Holland doesn't care about the facts, and he doesn't seem afraid to lie about them.

This is not a terribly new act for Holland, or for any other proponents of the long-gun registry. When they aren't attempting to justify the long-gun registry by waging a campaign of ideological emotional blackmail (centred around the L'Ecole Polytechnique shootings), they're deceiving Canadians by using pictures of assault rifles in media stories promoting their agenda.

(Under Canadian law, assault rifles aren't long guns, they're restricted or prohibited weapons -- different category, one that will remain unaffected by Hoeppner's bill.)

Reality is not kind to Mark Holland, nor to the long-gun registry. When real life finally releases its "penultimate report" on the long-gun registry, it will almost certainly favour its abolition.

Don't You Love it When a Plan Comes Together?

Especially when that plan is Mark Holland's ineptitude

As debate surrounding Canada's long-gun registry continues to heat up, the governing Conservative Party has pointed out a little detail about Michael Ignatieff's proposal to make possession of an unregistered long-gun a ticketable -- as opposd to criminal -- offence:

It's actually unconstitutional.

"What he [Ignatieff] has proposed stomps on jurisdictional powers under the constitution -- it's absolutely unconstitutional," explained Conservative MP Shelly Glover. "The provinces would have to buy in and we already know there are three attorneys general who have spoken out very clearly they're not buying in.”

For his own part, however, Public Safety Critic Mark Holland isn't convinced -- and doesn't seem terribly concerned about the Constitution.

"It is true that it would require co-operation on the part of the provinces," Holland retorted. "We would have to work collaboratively with the provinces, but there isn't a necessity for a constitutional change."

"You'd need to have the charge laid under a different [provincial] act," Holland concluded.

And, as Glover has already pointed out, therein lies the rub.

In order to effectively abolish the gun registry within their own provinces, all any one province -- Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba -- would have to do is not pass a provincial law.

This would force a Liberal party federal government to either step in more forcefully and trample provincial jurisdiction -- as they have often done in the past, so it isn't out of the question -- or accept the de facto abolition of the long-gun registry in those provinces.

Tgnatieff's proposal would thus make the registration of long-guns a matter of provincial jurisdiction. It's on that note that the Tories would be well-advised to consider adopting it -- and not for the reasons Mark Holland would prefer.

Holland, after all, seems to think that this proposal would preserve the long-gun registry across the entire country. This proposal should be considered because it simply won't.

Holland goes on to accuse the Conservatives of wanting to "confuse" Canadians. Yet it's clear that it's Holland himself who is confused.

"I think they're losing the battle and they're getting desperate to create facts," Holland mused, in a bout of his typical demagoguery. "They're trying to use the boogeyman of the Constitution in a last-ditch effort to torque the debate."

Yet it's individuals like Holland who have done anything possible to create facts to support the long-gun registry, which they cannot show to have prevented a single crime, and they cannot show to have saved so much as a single, solitary life -- and it can be shown to have failed to do either on numerous occasions.

Michael Ignatieff's and Mark Holland's plans seem to be coming together nicely. Unfortuantely bor both, the plan seems to be complete and utter ineptitude.

Thank You, Jack Pickersgill

Stockwell Day makes a fool of Mark Holland

Students of Canadian political history may well remember a Liberal by the name of Jack Pickersgill.

Saddled with delusions of potency, Pickersgill had such a penchant for self-humiliation that John Diefenbaker was reportedly able to use his name as a punch line for nearly any joke he wanted.

Marky Holland, the Liberal MP for Ajax-Pickering, has clearly become the heir to the throne of self-humiliating Liberal buffoonery. From complaining about an income trust fraud investigation that rendered a conviction to parading around documents "lost" by the Conservative Party which were in fact clearly marked for delivery by House of Commons staff, Holland always has his six-shooter at the ready -- and it's always aimed at his own foot.

Even on matters that others would consider to be slam-dunk triumphs, Holland has a unique gift for ineptitude. As a case in point, one should consider the recent "controversy" surrounding Treasury Board Presdient Stockwell Day explaining the government's decision to spend billions of taxpayer dollars building new prisons.

The tale began at a Stockwell Day news conference, when a reporter asked Day how the Stephen Harper government's commitment to eliminating the deficit could be trusted as the government spends billions of dollars building prisons even as Canada's official crime rate shrinks.

"People simply aren't reporting the same way they used to," Day explained. "I'm saying one statistic of many that concerns us is the amount of crimes that go unreported. Those numbers are alarming and it shows that we can't take a liberal view to crime which is, some would suggest, that it is barely happening at all."

"There are too many situations of criminal activity that are alarming to our citizens, and we intend to deal with that," he added.

With Day questioning Canada's crime statistics, Marky Holland must have thought he'd hit paydirt.

He has suggested that the Stephen Harper government "doesn't have any respect for facts."

"You don't make up statistics to try to scare people and use crime as a wedge issue," Holland added.

Unfortunately for Holland, these statistics are far from made up, and it seems to be Holland himself who has no respect for facts.

As John Ivison points out, the surveys Day refers to are very much real. In fact, through the Crime Victimization survey -- a self-report survey in which Canadians report crimes they have been a victim of -- the period of 1991-2004 was marked by a decline in the reporting of crime to police.

In 1991, 42% of crimes were actually reported to police. In 1999, that figure was 37%. In 2004, that figure was 34%.

In other words, Canada's shrinking crime rates aren't the result of any kind of successful preventative program by the government. They've been the result of fewer and fewer Canadians reporting crime to police.

In the wake of such a revelation, one may want to ask the question: who is really playing the game of wedge politics, and who is being responsive to the needs oc Canadians? Is it Stockwell Day and the Conservative Party? Or is it Mark Holland and the Liberal Party?

Another story provides the answer. The Conservative government has more recently moved to add offences related to illegal organized gambling, prostitution and drug trafficking to Canada's list of "serious offences".

Surprise, surprise, Holland is against it.

"You have a government that's entire solution -- its whole tool kit -- is all focused just on locking people up. All the things that we know work, we know save money, save lives ... they ignore," Holland complained. "This government, any time it gets into trouble, any time there's a situation where the water starts getting very hot for them politically, starts dumping on the table a rash of crime bills and more often than not, they're not thought through."

The problem for Holland is that some of the Liberal Party policies -- such as the long-gun registry -- can not only not be shown to have saved a single life, but can be shown to have failed to save lives.

The Liberal Party record on crime is unabashedly a failure. One hardly expects Holland to admit it.

Fortunately, the admission of the modern Liberal Party's answer to Jack Pickersgill isn't necessary in order for this fact to be true.

Until Mark Holland musters the honesty and dignity to admit to this, few would blame Stockwell Day if he were to simply take to using Holland as the punchline for virtually any joke of his choosing.

Holland's certainly accomplishing that well enough on his own.

Tories Get Ignatieff's Man

Chris Alexander spurns Liberals to join Conservatives

Michael Ignatieff wanted him. Michael Ignatieff didn't get him.

In what comes as close to a blockbuster announcement in Canadian politics as any, Chris Alexander, Canada's former Ambassador to Afghanistan, has rejected an offer to run for the Liberal party in favour of joining the Conservative party and contesting the Tory nomination in Ajax-Pickering.

Should he successfully secure that riding's nomination he will face off against Liberal MP Mark Holland -- an individual who, for a time, seemed to aspire to claim the long-dormant mantle of Jack Pickersgill.

When Holland fought the 2008 federal election against Conservative candidate Rick Johnson in that riding, he won with 44.3% of the votes in that riding. Johnson claimed 37.8%.

In other words, that riding is within striking distance for the Conservative party -- particularly for a dynamic young man who, at age 34, was named Canada's Ambassador to Afghanistan (by a Liberal government nonetheless, which must be adding some sting to Alexander's rebuff) where he reputedly decided Canadian policy while touring in an open Jeep.

If that sounds disimilar from Stephen Harper bunkering down in the Afghan hills with Canadian special forces during his visit to Afghanistan, it shouldn't.

Considering that policy on Afghanistan seemed to be the sticking point between Alexander and Ignatieff -- Ignatieff is said to have concluded his meeting with Alexander by declaring that the Liberal party would end Canada's combat mission in 2011 -- one may think that Alexander's decision is a little odd, considering that the Conservatives are also committed to ending Canada's combat mission in that year.

But Kelly McParland may have the missing link, so to speak. He notes a recent policy speech given by Ignatieff.

"Our Canada will play a role in Afghanistan after 2011," Ignatieff told the Canadian Club. "A different role focusing on a humanitarian commitment to help rebuild the country and strengthen hard-won gains."

McParland notes that perhaps Ignatieff's seeming insistence that Canadian humanitarian workers would remain in Afghanistan without Canadian military protection worried Alexander -- as well it should.

Then again, Peter MacKay has also made some comments that suggest Canada may remain active in Afghanistan after 2011. Like Michael Ignatieff, he isn't tipping his hand any more than he seems to think he needs to.

Which leads one to wonder if Alexander knows something about the Conservative party's plans for Afghanistan than the Canadian public does.

Either way, Alexander's decision is great news for the Conservative party. Foreign policy is sorely lacking in the Conservative party, and with Dr Eric Hoskins settling into a new role in Ontario's Queen's Park, the foreign policy-star candidate field in the next election has just made some room for him.

Then again, as Sue-Ann Levy's experience shows, being a star candidate isn't necessarily enough in urban Ontario.

In the meantime, Michael Ignatieff will have to contend with an influential new rival in regards to foreign policy and, in particular, Afghanistan.


Other bloggers writing about this topic:

The Liberal Scarf - "Tory Secret Agenda on Afghanistan?"

Yaya Canada - "Whiz Kid Warrior"

From the archives:

November 26, 2008 - "Stop the Double Talk on Afghanistan"

September 17, 2008 - "Tory Eyes Blind to the World Outside?"

They Still Don't Get It

Liberals complain about cost of income trust investigation

When the Liberal party lost the 2005/06 federal election, many partisans blamed the Income Trust scandal and the RCMP investigation of it for their defeat.

To a certain extent, this is true. And while they continue to insist that the RCMP investigation was inappropriate and (allegedly) politically-motivated, they also conveniently overlook the fact that the Sponsorship Scandal had made the idea that the Liberal party would tip its friends off to a potentially advantageous taxation decision seem incredibly believable. Even likely.

So as documents obtained via the Access to Information act reveal that the RCMP spent $445,000 on the investigation it's only natural that the Liberal party would take this as an opportunity to complain again.

"Not only was the investigation inappropriate and misguided, but now we know it cost a huge bundle of money too," said Liberal MP Mark Holland. "Over $400,000 is a massive expense -- and there are a lot of questions that have to be answered."

Yet Holland overlooks the fact that an investigation into the RCMP's investigation revealed no evidence of wrongdoing on the RCMP's behalf, and that while the RCMP did not find evidence of criminal wrongdoing on the part of then-Finance Minister Ralph Goodale, it did lay charges against an official working under Goodale's supervision.

As those who remember the matter should recall, a spike in trading in Income Trusts had called attention to the potential for corruption surrounding the affair. Finance department official Serge Nadeau was charged for insider trading after purchasing stock in Income Trusts before the announcement was formally made.

Holland seems to think that the RCMP should wait to investigate suspicious activity that could affect an election until after that election is concluded.

But the RCMP has a duty to investigate suspicious activities regardless of their proximity to a federal election. To delay investigations into known suspicious behaviour until after an election provides those responsible with extra time to conceal evidence, giving them a greater opportunity to go free.

Considering that the RCMP turned up enough evidence to justify charging Nadeau it's hard to accept writing the investigation off as "inappropriate" or "misguided".

It would be inappropriate and misguided to decline to investigate such suspicious occrences. And, as NDP MP Judy Wascylycia-Leis notes, Ralph Goodale himself had plenty of opportunities to investigate the affair on his own.

"I was doing my job as an MP to get to the bottom of something many people were concerned about," said Wascylycia-Leis. "In my view, this whole chapter in our history could have been avoided -- including these costs to the RCMP investigation -- if the minister at the time, Ralph Goodale, had said these concerns were legitimate, we will investigate and get back to you ... I think he could have avoided the financial cost and the political cost."

All of this comes as the Oliphant Inquiry continues into dealings between Brian Mulroney and Karlheinz Schreiber -- a matter which continues to slide further and further into farce as revelations continue to surface that Schreiber hasn't been truthful about his dealings with Mulroney.

This inquiry was demanded by the Liberal party, and all that has been revealed thus far is how deceptive Schreiber has been in his bid to avoid extradition to Germany.

Perhaps complaining about a perfectly legitimate investigation that cost them politically out of their own negligence and lack of credibility is just the Liberal party's way of deflecting public attention away from this embarrassing debacle in which all that's really being revealed is that party's eagerness to politically capitalize on Karlheinz Schreiber's lies.

Even all this time after the Liberal party's political ouster, this party still doesn't get it. They aren't entitled to take corruption lightly and continue to govern.

Liberal Party Plan B: Get Stockwell

Liberals trying to scapegoat Stockwell Day for their sins

To those who have been following the fallout from the Maher Arar case, today’s resignation of RCMP commissioner Guiliano Zaccardelli came as no surprise, and for good reason.

Zaccardelli, of course, was serving as RCMP commissioner in 2002, when the RCMP passed false information to American officials, who subsequently deported the Syrian-born Arar to his original home country, where he was subsequently tortured.

According to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who accepted Zaccardelli’s resignation, the outgoing commissioner sited that “it would be in the best interest of the RCMP to have new leadership as this great organization faces challenges in the future.”
For those following the case, the story is very different. It was revealed on 5 December that Zaccardelli had previously perjured himself in the course of the inquiry, earning himself what Liberal MP Mark Holland rightfully thinks was a certain dismissal.

“It’s a start,” Holland said of Zaccardelli’s resignation. Now, one would expect that Holland’s next ideal targets for the inquiry would be the officers involved, none of whom have yet been disciplined, and some of whom were even promoted.

Now Holland, the Liberal party and the New Democratic party have all set their sights firmly on Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, suggesting that Day may have been complicit in Zaccardelli’s about-face, despite the lack any evidence to suggest so.

“I can tell very clearly that at no time, from my office or officials, was there any interference whatsoever in the operation of the commissioner's duties or any testimony he was giving,” Day insisted.

Now, one would expect that in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, Day would be considered innocent until proven guilty. Not with the Liberal party. The Liberals, of course, are citing ministerial responsibility. Indeed, Stockwell Day is apparently expected to be responsible for something in which Zaccardelli was involved in 2002 – when the Liberal party was in power.

For those who may have missed the irony of this, the Liberals are trying to hold Day responsible for something that took place under a Liberal government.

This is the same party under which Ralph Goodale refused to live up to ministerial responsibility and resign when it was revealed that an Income Trust investor was improperly tipped off, via a wink-wink-nudge-nudge email, to an impending decision about Income Trusts.

Yep, Ministerial responsibility: the Liberals are all about it… at least when another government’s ministers are being scapegoated for things that happen under their watch.

Corruption: Is What's Good For the Goose Also Good For the Gander?

Liberals may have hit the jackpot

Prime Minister Stephen Harper may have something other than not getting along with the media to keep him busy these days.

On June 6th, the Liberals called on the RCMP to investigate a lawsuit filed against Conservative MP Rob Anders filed by James Istvanffy, a former executive assistant who alleges he was fired for questioning Anders' decisions regarding the expenditure of his campaign funding.

Istvanffy, who was paid $51,500 annually, claims that Anders borrowed thousands of dollars from him, in order to cover expenses that the House of Commons would't spring for. He also claims that Anders resorted to fraudulently billing the government in order to repay some of his debts. Istvanffy claims that Anders used expense accounts to do this, under the guise of salary increases, fake travel expenses, and book shelves. He also claims that a number of people were put to work on the federal Conservative campaign while being paid with taxpayer dollars.

Naturally, Anders denies these allegations, and has promised a strong statement of such will be released by the end of the week.

As always in Canada, Anders is innocent until proven guilty. It isn't entirely implausible that Istvanffy may be filing the lawsuit and making these accusations strictly as an act of retribution. One could wonder why Istvanffy is suing for unpaid debts while claiming that he was repaid with pilfered taxpayer dollars. Then again, one would also expect that Istvanffy wouldn't be so bold as to make these accusations unless he could prove them.

He will have to prove them -- possibly even in the course of an RCMP or Parliamentary investigation.

"Obviously these allegations are very serious and if they are true, this is something that's more than just a breach of good faith - this is outright fraud and criminal if true,'' said Liberal MP Mark Holland, who represents Ajax-Pickering.

He's absolutely right. After all the ruckus raised by the Conservatives over the sponsorship scandal (and rightfully so), the last thing the Conservatives can afford to have is an in-house scandal of this sort. Should these allegations be found to be true, they could even potentially de-rail the crucial accountability act that the Conservatives have promised.

The Anders story breaks as the Liberal party has uncovered a scandal of its own. Liberal Senator Raymond Lavigne has been accused of using a member of his office staff to cut down trees near his cottage -- while on the taxpayers' clock.

However, in what seems like an uncharacteristic move, Liberal interim leader Bill Graham has done what former leader Paul Martin wouldn't do, and has kicked Lavigne out of caucus until the investigation is settled -- one way or the other. Martin, as some may recall, refused to discipline Scott Brison, who as Vice-Chairman of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance sent an e-mail to a friend leaking what he believed would be a favourable policy regarding the taxation of income trusts.

"It is inappropriate for Senator Lavigne to sit with the Liberal caucus until any investigations have been completed," Graham said in a statement.

Wow. In an uncharacteristic move, the federal Liberals have set a good example on how to deal with potential corruption (the allegations against Lavigne are not yet proven, either). Certainly, all eyes will turn to Stephen Harper: will he follow suit and (at least temporarily) oust Anders from caucus until this matter is settled?

Hopefully, he will. At least asking Anders to voluntarily sit out from the Conservative caucus until the matter is settled certainly isn't any sort of accusation. Nor would Anders agreeing to do so be an admission of guilt. It would be an act of a government that (as promised) takes corruption -- even the mere accusations of corruption -- seriously.

It isn't often that the Liberal party sets an example that other parties should follow, but this is one of these times. Unfortunately for the Liberals, Bill Graham isn't running for their party leadership.

How, it is up to Stephen Harper to follow Graham's example and show Canadians that his party takes corruption within its ranks every bit as seriously as it has proven it takes corruption within other parties.