More on the Income Trust Scandal

Angry in the Great White North has a great paragraph about what he calls the nightmare scenario is this post. It's near the end so I'll post it here:

The nightmare scenario? The Liberals squeak by with another minority on January 23, and then soon after the Mounties or the OSC announce their conclusion that illegal money from insider trading was used by the Liberals to finance their election fight. Canada would be faced with what amounts to an illegal government and a consitutional crisis. In that case, I certainly hope Governor-General Michaelle Jean surprises all of us, because my expectations of her are frankly very low.

The Income Trust Scandal

The blog world has done it's job, pushing a story that the MSM finally picked up on, the opposition parties (primarily the NDP) sent letters over, and the authorities are finally doing something about.

This story was heavily investigated by a number of bloggers, including Stephen Taylor and MK Braaten. Their excellent work has, in my opinion, led to the announcement of the RCMP investigation...

Interestingly, the RCMP normally doesn't comment about ongoing investigations. Why would they this time? Particular of a politically sensitive investigation in the middle of an election campaign? Why did Zaccardelli send a letter to NDP MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis on this sensitive issue unless he wanted to influence the campaign? Did the PMO actually direct him to do so, and if so what was the logic???

I also find it suspicious that the RCMP single out the Finance Minister, Ralph Goodale, as being innocent... The investigation is continuing. How are they so absolutely sure he didn't have a hand in it??? Perhaps to raise money for the Liberal Party? This singling out doesn't look like a statement the RCMP would make. It does however look a lot like what a press release from the Liberal war room would look like. Is it possible the Liberal campaign team has influence in Zaccardelli's office???

Giving Mr. Goodale the benefit of the doubt (innocent until proven guilty and all), he should still resign on the basis that he, as the Minister, is responsible for the actions of his department. And if one of his high ranking bureaucrats or politicos broke the law and leaked the information to the street, he should still resign. Ministers have resigned over much less.

The Liberal mantra of "something wrong may have occurred, but I personally was not responsible" is nothing more than the inverse of "I was following orders". "I am not responsible for my employees" is ridiculous. The government is no different than a private company in that it is vicariously liable for the actions of the employees. And Ministers of the Crown should likewise be vicariously liable for illegal acts within there department.

Anti-American Bias at the CBC

I oh so wish there were a text version of these comments on the CBC website...

This morning, Colleen Jones was doing the weather and in her usually banter before actually talking about the weather itself, she talked about the fact that today (20 December) is that last day of autumn. Then she laughs and says

"of course it feels like we've had winter for weeks. Perhaps we should ignore those Americans and get a calendar of our own"

This is a ridiculous piece of American-bashing that isn't based in any way on facts... The calendar - or rather the dates that signify the change of seasons is based upon the tilt of the earth's axis and the position of the earth around the sun. It has NOTHING to do with the United States whatsoever.

The only reason Ms. Jones could possibly have for such a ridiculous statement is to make Canadians dislike the Americans - and by extension dislike the Conservative Party...

Privatize the CBC. In the 1000 channel universe, it is no longer required.

On Gun Control and Banning Weapons

OK, I know I've waited to post on this subject, but here it is:

The Liberal Party policy announcement to ban handguns in an effort to reduce crime is three things:

• A flip flop on their statement from the 1997 election when they said the gun registry wouldn't lead to confiscation
• More evidence they don't trust law abiding Canadians
• Clear indication they don't recognize how crime works.

The plan to ban guns is predicated on the mistaken belief that allowing people to own a handgun legally has any bearing whatsoever on the incidence of violent crime. The gun registry, which cost us billions of dollars for no reason (I built a gun registry database in a weekend and I had to learn about databases...) has not reduced gun crime, as is evidenced by the spate of shootings in Toronto, Vancouver and other cities in 2005. Since handguns have been required to be registered since 1934, this is not surprising.

Second, the complete failure of the Liberals to learn from the experiences in other countries (notably the UK and USA) is amazing. I shall not dwell on the details of crime increases in the UK after they banned handguns, and falls in US states after passage of concealed weapon legislation.

I will instead dwell on the logical inconsistencies:

• If you ban guns, you must confiscate them. To confiscate, you must find. Finding registered, legally held weapons is easy. Finding the smuggled, stolen and illegal ones is very hard. The crime you are seeking to stop is committed primarily with the hard to find weapons.
  
• If you ban guns, you need to make the penalties for possessing an illegal weapon very strict. In fact, it is possible that in this scenario you could get more jail time for possessing a gun than for actually committing a crime. Of course, that would me implementing stiffer penalties. Since the Liberals don't like incarcerating people, there will likely be no serious penalties for illegal gun possession. No deterrent means no effect. And no decrease in crime.

No deterrent means no decrease in crime. Does that mean that Paul Martin is promising stiffer penalties for gun crimes and criminal offenses? Or is he just playing politics? I know what I think.

Liberals don't trust Canadians

As stated by Scott Reid and John Duffy on the CBC and CTV on Sunday 11 December, the Liberal Party doesn't like the Conservative child care plan because they fear that Canadians might choose to spend the money how they see fit.

The problem is that the Liberal Party doesn't trust you. Or me. They think that the only way to raise a child is in a government regulated and operated day care.

They don't trust parents. They fear parents caring for their own children because it means the parents can teach the children their own beliefs. In government regulated care the Liberal party can ensure children learn Liberal beliefs.

As Warren Kinsella posted today, if this doesn't give Canadian parents a reason to vote against the Liberals, I can't imagine what would.

On Child Care Philosophies

So, the Conservatives want to give parents the choice of how to raise their children. Which means that they want to give parents the options of having one parent stay home, or private day care in a small or large setting, or public day care where available via a provincial government. This plan taken the provincial governments right out of the equation because no government to government transfers occur and no squabbling about jurisdiction need happen.

The Liberals on the other hand want to give money directly to publicly operated (or at least regulated) day cares. Which means they don't want parents to have a choice. They want parents to put their children into institutional care. They do not want parents to have little Johnny taken care of by an aunt, grandmother, friend, or god-forbid mom or dad.

My big question for Paul Martin on this issue is:

How much money are you going to set aside for a future generation of children to be paid off when they launch a class action suit against the government for mistreatment in the institutional day cares? It happened in the residential schools - some kids got abuse but they all get paid off. Think that is impossible with millions of Canadian children being cared for by bureaucrats?

I don't.