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?

34.3 percent and falling; Stephen Harper's greater fool theory

"You can fool some of the people, some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time" -Attributed to Abraham Lincoln.

Between Adam's Ears stands by its prediction that the Conservative Party will not garner more than 34.3% of the popular vote in the next election. Angus Reid Strategies reports that the Conservatives are polling 36% to the Liberals 28%.

However, the details of that poll reveal that Stephen Harper is distrusted by many. That the environment is seen as the top issue by Canadians, transcending short-term issues reveals the fundamental weakness of the Conservative party, both as politicians and leaders. As the Tory's ads say "Stephen Harper is a straight-up guy who knows what he thinks" but try and get him to tell you in detail what he thinks and his party publishes a vague press release. So although many people feel he has a vision for this country (and I'm certain he has), those people may also feel that vision has more in common with Dante's 'Inferno' than what most Canadians really want for their families, their country and the world around us.

It is important to remember that last Conservative government doubled both the national debt and deficit while in office. Despite talking the talk of fiscal conservatism, the current Conservative government has increased the national debt and flirted with a deficit during the last two fiscal quarters.

Although the efforts by our troops to secure Afghanistan are honourable and deserve our respect, the policy that keeps them there has more to do with 'making nice' with the current George Bush administration than anything to gain from the 'dirty little wars of empire' of which the original mission to Afghanistan has degenerated into.

I expect tomorrow, or shortly after, Stephen Harper is going to call an election, a year earlier than his own fixed election-date law calls for. He hopes that people will forget the election fraud investigations that hover over his party, the privatisation of food inspection that preceded the Listeriosis outbreak (claiming nine lives so far),and the Bernier scandals. After the Chuck Cadman tape scandal, his lame policy failure attacking gay marrige(bigotry at the least) and his turning a blind eye to turncoat MP's(such as Foreign Affairs Minister David Emerson who switched from the Liberals) after saying that such behavior should be banned reveals one thing;

Stephen Harper thinks at least 36% of Canadians are too stupid to notice when he's lying. And in Conservative party strategy, that is all the people they have to fool.

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.

The Old 'In and Out': How the end justifies the means

Stephan Dion observed accurately if somewhat tritely that
"you don't cheat for nothing.You cheat to have an effect".

Obviously, the flouting of the Election law could be justified if one believes that the greater good is served by the Conservative party forming the government. How charmingly marxist.

The cynic in me can't but believe that some where the calculation was made that the Canadian public wouldn't take an interest in what could be perceived as an accounting error. A general policy of stonewalling the media and the legal tactic of filing civil suits when facing opposition has obsfucated various issues, including the afghan detainee file, the medical isotopes file and the Cadman affair, among others.

The belief in the Tory party, that the benefits of a Conservative government out ways any costs of achieving electoral victory, reveals a fundamental deficit of integrity; That is to say the Conservative party does not think, act and speak in concert, with clarity and frankness.

Denial runs through it: The Tories and the Cadman affair

That the Conservative party is going to deny bribing former MP Chuck Cadman is obvious. On The House radio program on CBC one this morning conservative MP James Moore put forward the denial of the two men supposed to pitch the inducement to Mr.Cadman as evidence that they hadn't offered a bribe. I suppose that is sufficient evidence that nothing criminal happened- The Conservatives seem to think so.

Rather more telling is that Stephen Harper is qouted on a piece of tape refering to the offer to Mr.Cadman, shortly after his death. The Conservatives claim that Harper didn't make the comment, that the comment is taken out of context and that the tape was electronically forged. This stumbling, contradictory, angry attempt sounds like the pompous defense style of the Mulroney -era Tories.

The denials are so clumsy, the Conservatives should be ashamed to use such a suspect defense. Damn their lies, and damn them for thinking their lies were sufficient.
We need an election now. And I still stand by my prediction that they'll pull about 34% of the vote, because the Grits are still too arrogant and the Tories still have a base who would deny anything the Tories do wrong. Perhaps the Tories should go for an election now, lose, and come back after the recession that looms.