Flaherty Dies, Canada’s Contemptible Finance Minister

Posted on by John Klein

Most people are quite cautious about what they say, but a few people have said to me, ‘Do you have cancer? … What’s going on? Are you going to die?’ That kind of thing,” he told the Globe. “And, obviously, I am not. I mean, I will die eventually, but not over a dermatological issue.” – Flaherty 2013

“The treatment involved taking a strong steroid called prednisone, which is often accompanied by serious side-effects.”
It’s always unfortunate when a human being has health problems. I too have had to take steroids for a serious allergy.

Flaherty said in his [resignation] statement that he is “on the road to a full recovery” and that his departure from politics is “not related in any way” to his health.

Unfortunately for Mr. Flaherty, he was as bad at predicting his future health as he was at managing and predicting Canada’s economy. “[March 2008 budget] will also protect the fiscal framework from a Private Member’s bill that risks plunging the federal government back into deficit.”

Canada’s former Finance Minister, Jim Flaherty, died suddenly today of a heart attack. He was the only Finance Minister of the Commonwealth countries, to have been in office while his government was found in Contempt of Parliament (for hiding financial information).

The second ruling found the Cabinet could possibly be in contempt of Parliament for not meeting Opposition members’ requests for details of proposed bills and their cost estimates, an issue which had “been dragging on since the fall of 2010.”[4][7]

Concerning the Speaker’s second ruling, on March 21, 2011, the committee tabled a report[9] that found the Government of Canada in contempt of Parliament.[7] As such, a motion of no confidence was introduced in the House.[10] On March 25, 2011, Members of Parliament voted on this motion, declaring a lack of confidence by a vote of 156 to 145 and forcing an election.[11][12] The contempt finding is unique in Canadian history. In a wider context, it is the first time that a government in the 54-member Commonwealth of Nations has been found in contempt of Parliament.[13][14]

For those who say I’m being too harsh, “a man has just died”, might I note that I didn’t know this man, and in most Canadians’ case, neither did they. He was a figurehead of a very deceitful and disastrous government for our country. He presided over actions that were ruled in contempt of the Canadian people’s representatives, why should we the Canadian people not hold him in similar regard? I do not feel sympathy for Flaherty, only his family. Why should I pretend otherwise? The chances of his family surfing along and finding my unkind words this year are negligible, and if I’ve managed to offend one of his friends, I’ll note that you should have picked better friends. (Fun Fact: Flaherty picked Rob Ford as a friend.)

“Canada would not be where it is today without Jim Flaherty,” said Ford. ”

Could there be a more damning epitaph?

Flaherty once noted ‘There is no bad job, the only bad job is not having a job.”.
Daisy Pusher is a job that most people end up trying out. Remember Mr. Flaherty, there are no bad jobs, and pushing daisies is better than not having a job. Thank-you for having the decency to resign rather than be kicked out of office.

https://twitter.com/saskboy/status/202528517727072257

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Meanwhile, here’s the life of another Harper appointee that didn’t work out too well:

7 responses to “Flaherty Dies, Canada’s Contemptible Finance Minister”

  1. Flaherty’s entirely predictable death (I noted to a co-worker last week that Flaherty’s resignation was signaling he was close to procuring a farm) reminded me of both Doug Finley, and Mike Duffy, not to mention Jack Layton.

    http://www.macleans.ca/general/mr-harper-are-you-on-your-meds/

    “Conservative Sen. Mike Duffy, who can perhaps kindly be described as the most amoral partisan hack to ever draw a breath, went on radio in Nova Scotia, a province of potential growth for the NDP, and in a hushed tone usually reserved for a palliative care unit told the radio audience that he personally saw Jack on the Hill and “up close it doesn’t look good, Jack doesn’t look good… he is a valiant man for carrying on.”

    It takes a certain kind of man to gleefully trade on a man’s battle with cancer, and Mike Duffy is that man. It is why Stephen Harper appointed him to the chamber of sober second thought.”

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  2. I’m not really into carving up the recently deceased on my own initiative. What I do find aggravating is when people use the occasion of someone’s death to rewrite their history, and I consider correcting the rewritten record fair game.

    I didn’t sing the praises of Conservative Senator Irving Gerstein for his accomplishments in life when he happened to pass away; he will always be one of the Conservative campaign managers who orchestrated the election fraud scheme to which the Conservative Party pled guilty, and which apparently helped earn him a Senate appointment by the election fraud scheme’s main beneficiary, Stephen Harper. That’s something he decided to do in life, and he’s responsible for it.

    Jim Flaherty’s history is, as we speak, being rewritten in some quarters as an economic Nostradamus in 2008 who saved Canada from economic doom, is singularly responsible for Canada’s strong financial regulatory framework, who charted a course back to budgetary balance, and who cracked down on the mortgage market to prevent a housing bubble. The actual record bears out that as late as December 2008, Jim Flaherty was standing on the floor of the House forecasting no recession and no deficit and tabling documents supporting his idiotic contention, and that his stimulus plan (then called the Economic Action Plan before Jim Flaherty’s Economic Action Plan slogan became a vehicle for government-funded Conservative propaganda campaigns) came about entirely because the opposition parties demanded it, or else Jim Flaherty was out of a job along with Stephen Harper and some 140-plus Conservative MPs. In fact, the Conservatives rather publicly savaged Stephane Dion for suggesting during the 2008 fall election that a recession and deficit was a foregone conclusion, and Jim Flaherty said nothing to counter the argument. Canada’s financial regulatory framework pre-dated Jim Flaherty’s becoming Finance Minister and is something he along with Stephen Harper railed against in opposition and the Liberals wisely ignored. Canada would have been back in budgetary balance years ago if Jim Flaherty hadn’t cut the GST against the advice of virtually every economist (Stephen Harper is not an economist). And Jim’s first move on mortgages was to allow 0%-down, 40-year mortgages; his “crackdown” on the mortgage market was simply a reversal of his previous policy decision.

    I’m not going to get started on how Jim Flaherty’s 400-page omnibus budget bills became vehicles for the government that he was a figurehead of to bury things like unconstitutional changes to Supreme Court appointments or the gutting of environmental laws, or how because he was the “Minister for the Greater Toronto Area” turf boss, no one was permitted to speak ill of his good friend, Rob Ford, after everything Rob Ford subjected Toronto to. Condolences should go out to his family, but no moreso than anyone else’s in this country of 30,000,000+ people when any of them loses a family member too soon.

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    • Whoops, make that Conservative Senator Doug Finley, of election fraud fame, rather. Irving Gerstein was involved too of course, and got a Senate appointment from Stephen Harper for it along with Doug Finley. But as we all know, Irving Gerstein is still healthy and with us, interfering with Senate audits on behalf of Conservatives like Mike Duffy…

      Reply

    • Who ever ‘you people’ are, ought to realize that acknowledging the death of someone we didn’t know personally, must always be done tearfully and in a manner different for how you spoke of the person when they were alive. You people must be two faced to fit in.

      Reply

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