Conservative fails finally coming home to roost?

 The National Post is reporting an 11 point drop in the government's popularity, according to EKOS polling. Perhaps people are noticing the incompetence of "Canada's New Government".


Just to remind you of the many sleazy and clumsy actions of Stephen Harper's government,  I have most of them covered in previous posts- look under 'Conservative party' in my tags.
here is a list posted in the Comments section of The Globe and Mail:

Chuck Cadman
Chalk River
Income Trust
Attempted to censor media coverage of our war dead coming home
Lying to Canadians about the Afghan War
Breaking his own election laws
Violation of human rights
Lying to Canadian during said election about the economy
Prorogation (twice)
Using Haiti as his personal photo-op (and his wife)
Contempt of Parliament
Billion dollar plus slush fund called the G20
1.7 million for the PMO
Killing the Census
F-35s when we are in HUGE debt
And for all you loving CONS out there...cutting the GST to 5% for appearances sake.
the attempt to hide the body of our first female casualty coming home from Afghanistan….Harper “stands behind our troops”? Only when there is a photo op.
-"Derringer" commenting on Stockwell Day's argument for spending 5Billion on new prisons for "unreported Crimes" posted in the Globe and Mail online

Drinking the Tory Cool-aid

Cadman, Listeria poisoning, medical isotopes, Maxim Bernier, In-and-Out, fixed election date...

The Conservative government has taken us to the edge of a federal deficit and engaged in a campaign financing scandal that may have poured millions of tax payers dollars into Conservative party coffers, while violating the elections act by overspending. Stephen Harper's government were coached in how to disrupt the committee process which is critical for a functioning government; now He violates his own fixed election date law.

What is in the Tory Kool-aid that lets it's own supporters think this is an honest, fiscally conservative, law-and-order party?

Stephen Harpers' Italian Job: The self-wacking boss

Stephen Harper wacked himself today, by declaring after a 2 hour meeting the Italian government would free-up troops to fight in Afghanistan, only to have the Italian PM refute this immediately afterwards.

It seems the Canadian PM's European vacation hasn't given him the breathing room he must have hoped for as the Bernier Affair continues to stink-up the House of Commons. That continues to offer revelations of cover-ups, suspicious contracts and feeble but photogenic Ministers of the Crown loudly declaiming any criticism, then shutting up while the Deputy PM defends his government by declaring this is all a matter of personal privacy and national security, so it can not be mentioned in the house.

Canadian affairs, both foreign and domestic, seem to be careening about with little real control. Only the Tory spin doctors seem to be functioning normally. The amateurs don't understand they are a minority, not a oligarchy, and could do with some humility. A two-seat rump worked wonders after the excesses of the Mulroney years.

More Scandals

Another scandal was the Elections Canada raid on Conservative offices that resulted from reported "in-and- outs" in campaign financing. The Tories claim it is a vendetta, although the boss of Elections Canada is a Tory appointee. This follows another case where they asked Elections Canada to ignore the rules of the Canada elections act. Needless to say, the official in question pointed out he could be charged with a felony for doing that. He said he could comply as soon as Parliament voted to change the elections act. The Tories took umbrage but could do nothing.

Amateur Hour continues: Bernier's security breach

Maxim Bernier resigns after one stumble after another. In this case, he left confidential documents at his supposedly former girlfriend's house last month. The documents where high level documents pertaining to NATO plans, leadership and policy.

This man has been defended long after he was obviously incompetent. This speaks to the competence of the Government.

This government should be brought down, as the only example it sets is how Hill & Knowlten would run things.

The Tory's great claim was on national security- a claim that has proven as empty and self-serving as any of their policies. Surely amateur hour must be brought to an end.

A list of conservative scandals, faux pas' and policy debacles

UPDATED!
It seems the free spending Tories can't coerce the Canadian Armed Forces;

Defence plan to cost $50-billion over 20 years

Lieutenant-General Walter Natynczyk, Vice-Chief of the Defence Staff, said the military would spend between $45-billion and $50-billion on planes, combat vehicles, ships and fighters under the Canada First Defence Strategy, the Conservative government's plan for the military that was originally released Monday without comprehensive details.
This is more than double the cost announced by PM Stephen Harper and Defense Minister Peter MacKay

Bernier Updated!

Foreign Affairs Minister Maxim Bernier dates woman with a taste for Bikers. If this fact wasn't noticed by the Hell's Angels, I and most security professionals would be very surprised. This kind of access is second only to actually putting a government official on the payroll. Was she checked for security? What was Bernier thinking? The Tories say it's nobody's business. However, people working in the canadian ports have their spouses checked.
It turns out Mde. Couillard's ties to the bikers were deeper than the government knew. Bernier's former relationship became political fodder once again Friday after Montreal's La Presse newspaper reported that Julie Couillard lived with a man with ties to the Hells Angels three years ago.

Maxim Bernier says repeatedly that the governor of Helman province should be replaced. Aside from being a an amateurish faux pas of meddling in a country's internal politics, in Afghanistan this talk could lead to civil war, as the Governors are usually warlords with only cynical loyalty to the central government. A suggestion that one would be deposed could easily lead to violence against both the central government and Canadian forces deployed in Afghanistan.

Pierre Poilievre defended the use of "in and out" funding to allow the Conservatives to break spending rules. Subsequently, several candidates reported they had been told to say nothing and everything would be "ok". The Tory response was to blame Elections Canada for launching a vendetta, this despite the fact the head and deputy of Elections Canada were appointed by Stephen Harper.

Tom Lukiwski stands up in the house of commons to apologise for egregious slurs against gays recorded on video tape some years ago. This perpetuates the feeling that the Conservatives are the party of intolerance.

Chalk river nuclear plant is shut down for ongoing safety violations. Ministers Tony Clement and Gary Lunn claim that the head of Nuclear safety in canada was being over-zealous. Another case of the Conservatives asking a civil servant to break the rules set down by Parliament. This was to cover their own incompetence at supervising the supply of nuclear isotopes and the safety of nuclear reactors.

An audio recording suggests the conservatives had offered money to Independent(and former Conservative) MP Chuck Cadman not to run. Since Mr.Cadman died shortly afterwards, there is no proof, just Prime Minister Harper saying offers had been made. What those offers were is not clear, although Cadman's wife, who is currently a Conservative candidate, said and subsequently denied that money had been offered.Now why would she change her story?

The Tory policy of opposing gay marriage fell apart(thankfully) when it became apparent that gay marriage is a matter of Provincial jurisdiction. Ostensibly the Tories should've known that this policy was hopeless, but they also knew it would pander to their base. It seemed that they benefited from a measure of intolerance.

As soon as the Conservatives took power, they accepted Liberal turn-coat David Emerson who crossed the floor to become the Trade minister. This after Stephen Harper declared that MP's shouldn't be allowed to join another party, but to run under the banner of their new party first. Apparently this doesn't apply to people who would join the Tories.

I'll update this post when I have time to chronicle the mess in the committees, where law and policy are made, if all the parties try to be civil(the Tories have reduced partisanship to the equivalent of school yard bullying and name-calling). I'll recount another brouhaha where the Tories asked Elections Canada to break the rules rather change them. This view, that the Government can arbitrarily change or ignore laws voted on by parliament, is remarkably adolescent. Despite several years in the house of commons the Tory caucus still seems to think that Canadians vote in a dictatorship and that the two thirds of citizens that didn't vote for the tories deserve no representation.

Updated!
I'm not the only one who thinks this tally of scandals is long for a government in power for just over two years.