“At worst…” is not by Stephen Harper, it’s by me, quoting Kevin. I asked readers to consider the quote in the context of Adscam. Less careful readers took it as one of the very hypocritical quotes that are easy to find when pre-PM Harper used to go on about government accountability and his plans to fix the system.

==

Here’s another important Kev quote, also made relevant again by recent news:

In investigating a crime, one looks at who had means and motive. The Conservative Party of Canada has a massive database of voter information going back several elections. Their people regularly brag about it. They have shown, at the highest levels of the party, their willingness to break election law in the past. They had the means and the motive. It is simply a matter of finding the fingerprints on the knife sticking out of the back of democracy at this point.

.@stephen_taylor The judge can only consider evidence presented in court for the six ridings, not Guelph where @MichaelSona worked. #RoboCon—
John Klein (@JohnKleinRegina) May 24, 2013

Taylor went on to ignore the fact that Guelph was not among the six ridings challenged by citizen applicants with the assistance of the Council of Canadians in Federal Court.

Judge Mosley himself praised the eight applicants for their virtue, while chastising the Conservative MPs. “It has seemed to me that the applicants sought to achieve and hold the high ground of promoting the integrity of the electoral process while the respondent MPs engaged in trench warfare in an effort to prevent this case from coming to a hearing on the merits.”

More shocking, Taylor floats an alternate theory that “Chinese hackers” could have been involved in the 2011 election fraud!

@RunnertheFirst it could have been Chinese hackers. Point is, there's no clear evidence that points to anyone.—
Stephen Taylor (@stephen_taylor) May 24, 2013

His theory is more shocking than the Conservative Party participating in widespread election fraud. He’s suggested that a foreign government (or foreign citizens) have conspired with (or against) the Conservative Party of Canada, to conceal the identity of specific Conservatives involved in telling citizens incorrect addresses of polling stations, in order to prevent Canadians from voting. Surely the politicians in charge of the Government of Canada would launch a full scale investigation to rule out this insane, severe, and remote possibility?

@FredDeLorey @pmoharper Are you pleased court found systematic fraud? If you cared about democracy, you'd demand an inquiry to get answers.—
Elizabeth May MP (@ElizabethMay) May 24, 2013

Mound of Sound has some sound conclusions you can make, instead of reading more of Stephen Taylor’s babbling.

[Justice Mosely wrote,] “I am satisfied that it has been established that misleading calls about the locations of polling stations were made to electors in ridings across the country, including the subject ridings, and that the purpose of those calls was to suppress the votes of electors who had indicated their voting preference in response to earlier voter identification calls,” and that “the most likely source of the information used to make the misleading calls was the CIMS database maintained and controlled by the CPC [Conservative Party of Canada], accessed for that purpose by a person or persons currently unknown to this Court.”

To recap, #CPC database used to commit electoral fraud, but records wiped by high level admin, so individual guilt can't be proven. #cdnpoli—
Ethan Cox (@EthanCoxMtl) May 24, 2013

CIMS used for electoral fraud. Then someone w admin access erased the records. #CPC may have gotten away w it, but aren't innocent. #cdnpoli—
Ethan Cox (@EthanCoxMtl) May 24, 2013

Six contested election results stand but Federal Court finds evidence of robocalls fraud in 2011 election. Story soon.—
Glen McGregor (@glen_mcgregor) May 23, 2013

FUCK!

Updates likely…

UPDATE I:
The court by ruling there was a “concerted campaign” to defraud voters, has decided the Members of Parliament for those cheated out of a fair election. Votes have been denied to some Canadians twice now, first when they were tricked by malicious fraudsters backing the Conservative Party of Canada, and now again by the Federal Court for its refusal to uphold the intention of the law which is to make election fraud pointless because the benefactors of crime will not win.

Federal Court Judge Richard Mosley ruled that the calls “struck at the integrity of the electoral process by attempting to dissuade voters from casting ballots for their preferred candidates. This form of ‘voter suppression,’ was, until the 41st General Election, largely unknown in this country.”

The evidence points to “a concerted campaign by persons who had access to a database of voter information maintained by a political party,” Mosley writes[...]

The cheaters won in 2011. They are still winning. This is an outrage! The Federal Court is corrupted somehow! This continues the outrage of the Supreme Court decision regarding Etobicoke Centre.

“I am satisfied, however, that the most likely source of the information used to make the misleading calls was the CIMS database maintained and controlled by the CPC, accessed for that purpose by a person or persons currently unknown to this court.”

Mosely blamed CIMS, but said there was not enough evidence to finger RMG, RackNine, or even the CIMS owning CPC! The impotent Elections Canada investigation drags on behind closed doors for years, so we may never know what stones they left unturned. The guilty are getting away from the Federal Court. The DPP has charged only 1 person, not mentioned in this Federal Court ruling so far as I can tell.

Was the rapid change in the media’s (and public’s) perception of the Duffy residency scam suddenly stoked by the demise of Doug Finley in mid May? It seems like a remarkable coincidence that a central conspirator in the Conservative rise to power with the In & Out election fraud dies, then Nigel Wright who the DPP didn’t implicate in the scandal, even though the media did loosely, falls from apparent power in the PMO.

He’s yet to be accused of anything, but Stephen Harper’s new (Mar. 8, ’11) chief of staff is being dragged into a persistent controversy over whether the Conservatives deliberately exceeded spending limits in the 2006 election campaign.

Nigel Wright, who took over as the Prime Minister’s top aide in January, is listed in 2008 court documents that form part of the in-and-out scandal dogging the Tories.

An affidavit sworn by one of Elections Canada investigators identifies Mr. Wright as secretary for the Conservative Fund Canada during the period in question.
[...]
A senior official with the Harper government said Mr. Ignatieff was “reckless” in calling for Mr. Wright’s departure even though the Liberal couldn’t connect the aide to the advertising spending controversy.

Ignatieff would have saved the Conservatives some trouble, because Wright left in disgrace this week, after improperly gifting Duffy $90,000 to avoid scrutiny of an audit that was also being whitewashed by partisans in the Senate*.

How is Pamela Wallin, former CBC journalist, slipping under the media scorn radar right now? Is Duffy getting extra heat and attention because he’s taken a secret cheque with PMO agreement, to pay back stolen expenses, or because he is fat?

Is Wallin getting off the hook for also paying back money to avoid possessing public funds she was not eligible to claim, claiming obscene travel expenses, while living away from the jurisdiction she supposedly represents, because Toronto media is sympathetic to a previous host of The National? Or are they saving her to roast for later when Duffy is on his way to jail? Extend the pain for the Conservatives, and Harper, or let her get away?

–
Hat Tip: A blog commenter sent me after the original source for Harper’s comment during Gomrey.

–

What are the chances the Prime Minister, who denies knowing of Wright’s $90,000 cheque, authorized it? Previous CoS for previous Prime Ministers say he’d have known. Intuition tells us he knew. It’s only people who’ve suspended their critical thinking who’ll buy the PM’s lie.

Stages of a #CPC scandal: (1) It's a smear (2) Not worthy of reply (3) It's a rogue (4) Everyone does it (5) Plead guilty & fined #cdnpoli—
Stephen Lautens (@stephenlautens) March 02, 2012

–
*

Among the portions that were redacted was a quote from Mr. Duffy’s lawyer, Janice Payne, taken from a letter sent to the committee on March 26, one day after Mr. Duffy repaid more than $90,000 in questionable expenses. The letter appears to suggest Mr. Duffy argued his refusal to co-operate with auditors was motivated by a desire to save taxpayer dollars.

“The considerable time required for Senator Duffy to compile the extensive information and documentation required of him by Deloitte as well as his participation in the review of that material, to say nothing of the public expense involved in the same, is no longer needed,” she wrote.

Another redacted section states: “Senator Duffy’s travel patterns were consistently Ottawa-PEI-Ottawa, demonstrating that Ottawa was his primary or default location.”

The existence of the draft report had previously been reported by CTV, but copies of it began to circulate more broadly only on Wednesday.

–
February 1, 2006
“Incoming prime minister Stephen Harper says his government’s first act upon assuming power will be to table a federal accountability bill and promises that it will be in line with recommendations of the Gomery report. “

December 21, 2006
“Prime Minister Stephen Harper has dismissed a number of key recommendations made by the head of the federal sponsorship inquiry that would have reduced some of the power of the Prime Minister’s Office and protected civil servants from political interference.

When Justice John Gomery’s report was released 10 months ago, Harper only said he thought the proposals had merit.

But in a public letter released Wednesday to 65 senior officials who had opposed Gomery’s call for better insulation of civil servants from politicians, Harper expressed for the first time his reservations about several proposals made in Gomery’s scathing report.

“Our approach has been to assess the merits of Mr. Justice Gomery’s recommendations on a case-by-case basis and there are a number of areas where my government finds itself unable to agree with Mr. Justice Gomery,” Harper wrote in his seven-page letter.”

==

“Justice Gomery did an admirable job, but I don’t think we’re going to drop the matter when 40 to 50 million are still missing.” – Stephen Harper 2006. Oh, wait until you meet yourself 7 years later when you’ll not investigate $3100 million that is still missing.

The hotel, a few weeks ago, in April.

Adding a little heartache to this story, it’s Lafleche’s 100th anniversary as a town, and Canada Day weekend is the celebration. Now there are fewer places for visitors to stay and visit in town, and there’s just another burned out lot.

Main St.

On January 10, 1984, I was present when the Lafleche Bumper To Bumper caught fire and burned down; The story I recently read in my Grandma’s journal entry for that day.

The non-existent Office of Public Prosecutions was busy not at work, not charging Wright with bribing Duffy with $90000 so as to get out of trouble that an audit bearing down on him was about to unleash in greater waves.

A Conservative government would institute an independent office of public prosecutions responsible for investigating criminal activity on Parliament Hill, party Leader Stephen Harper said Wednesday. [Nov. 30, 2005]

“I invite you to look forward to … a bold future where people are held responsible for their actions,” Harper said on the second day of campaigning for the Jan. 23 federal election.

Under current rules, Harper said, politicians have had too much say in how those involved are dealt with and how much money should be repaid.

“Conservatives believe as a basic principle that politicians should not be accountable to other politicians, that government should not be accountable to itself,” he said.

“A new Conservative government will ensure that decisions about criminal prosecution are independent of politicians and independent of politics.”

Government should not be accountable to itself? Hell, he’s done a bang-up job implementing that promise, because not only is this government not accountable to itself, it also escapes scrutiny of the RCMP, Elections Canada, the Head of State, and the professional snoozing media who still dismissively sounds like this:

@CBCTheNational Your question is satire, right?—
Paul Orlowski (@npdrifter) May 22, 2013

Um, I’m not sure “comments” can settle a gross ethical and legal violation of Senate rules, unless they were, “I accept responsibility, and I resign in the hope that the Crown prosecutor goes easy on me.”

.@jonkay it bothers me that #Duffy doesn't bother you that much. Senator taking $90000 hush money from PMO insiders? #cdnpoli #crime—
Saskboy K. (@saskboy) May 22, 2013

@pdmcleod I guess the RCMP don't have Twitter Or TV or print media. $90000 what? Duffy Wright who? Oh wait: @rcmpgrcpolice—
Saskboy K. (@saskboy) May 22, 2013

–
Hat tip to Nathan who liked this part best from 2005:

‘I invite you to look forward to … a bold future where people are held responsible for their actions.’ – Stephen Harper [2005]

"Anyone who wants to use public office for their own benefit should make other plans or, better yet, leave this room" – Harper. #cdnpoli #hw—
  (@rabbleca) May 21, 2013

@ValckeNDP Well, he said that anyone in this for personal gain should leave the room… #cdnpoli—
Stephen Lautens (@stephenlautens) May 21, 2013

Will the Conservatives survive the month intact? Sixth Estate assumes so, but I’m hoping this straw might finally break a little “Nasty Party” back. The Liberals eventually came down after people assumed they were so corrupt due to Adscam that anything would be better. Well, the Conservatives were anything back then, but now they are the party with the corrupt Senators stealing money from taxpayers because they fudge where they are living on government documents to get cushy, powerful jobs, and hundreds of thousands in expensed perks.

Andrew Coyne is hopping mad. He hasn’t exactly been conditioning the public over the years to accept the truth about the Harper regime, but he’s not always beaten the drum for them either.

Since the scandal surfaced, pundits have been full of advice to the prime minister on how he should “handle” it — as if it were something that had happened to him, and not by him, or at any rate of him. Much of what they recommend would be welcome, if adopted: the prime minister should make a clean breast of it, call an independent inquiry, be more open and transparent, in all transform his government’s approach to politics.

But if there were any likelihood of that, we would not be here. People who have made the kinds of compromises, moral and otherwise, that this government has made over the years; who have learned to justify to themselves the kinds of behaviour that are this government’s signature; whose first instinct in this, as in previous episodes, is not to clap their hands to their faces crying “my God, what have we become?” but to think of every possible way to spin and dissemble their way out of it; who have grown so spectacularly deluded as to publicly suggest, in the words of Calgary Centre MP Joan Crockatt, that the current wave of resignations shows how high their ethical standards are — such people are not capable of altering course in the way suggested. That is not who they are.

So no, Wright’s resignation is not the beginning of the government’s moral reclamation. It is simply the next act in the tragedy.

[Lousy National Post is bothering people who try to copy and paste from their website now. If they start making it difficult to share their contribution to the news, the Internet will route around their damage.]

Ivison I’ve been less impressed with over time. He’s now saying some of what needs to be said too.

Mr. Harper did restate the need to “uphold a culture of accountability” and his strongest card is that no-one could ever conceive of him cheating the system for his own gain. “Whoever wishes to use public office for their own benefit should change their plan or leave this room,” he told caucus.

But those are hollow words coming from a leader who is in danger of looking like the driver of the getaway car.

BONUS snark:

So, who's the first Conservative hack to describe PMSH as showing "bold leadership"? In 3 … 2 … 1 …—
CC (@canadiancynic) May 21, 2013

Huh? RT @Crockatteer Our govt has the highest ethical standards demonstrated by 3 resignations: 2 from Senate caucus & the PM chief of staff—
Althia Raj (@althiaraj) May 20, 2013

Someone should ask Joan Crockatt about breaching ethics and the resignations of Ministers Flaherty & Paradis. Oh, that's right. #cdnpoli—
Not Steve Harper (@pmoharper) May 20, 2013

Now's the time when I make all my potential rivals in the party stand-up and defend my mess. #suckas #cdnpoli—
Not Steve Harper (@pmoharper) May 21, 2013

RT @l_stone: CPC MP Bob Dechert says PM "hit the right tone" in his remarks #cdnpoli—
Stephen Maher (@stphnmaher) May 21, 2013

Ennnnd scene!

ANGUS ADDED:

When you were a child, you probably dreamed of enslaving poor Asian people so they would die tragically in building fires and collapses while doing your bidding? No? If not, then you’ve screwed up. Now that you are a human adult, your former human child is probably ashamed of the person you’ve become.

It may seem out of your power to do anything constructive now without letting someone down, but maybe you should start making yourself proud of your own actions, and the rest of us will start looking out for ourselves instead. We don’t need your adult human kind of help right now.

Sincerely,
John Klein
Canada

Now he’s ordering unpaid checks, and is a political imbalance.

Do you think he knew about Wright’s cheque to Duffy, the Senator “buddy” and “fundraiser” he appointed?

On the surface, you can make a comparison between our political system and yours [America]. We have an executive, we have two legislative houses, and we have a Supreme Court.

However, our executive is the Queen, who doesn’t live here. Her representative is the Governor General, who is an appointed buddy of the Prime Minister.

Of our two legislative houses, the Senate, our upper house, is appointed, also by the Prime Minister, where he puts buddies, fundraisers and the like. So the Senate also is not very important in our political system.

And we have a Supreme Court, like yours, which, since we put a charter of rights in our constitution in 1982, is becoming increasingly arbitrary and important. It is also appointed by the Prime Minister. Unlike your Supreme Court, we have no ratification process.

So if you sort of remove three of the four elements, what you see is a system of checks and balances which quickly becomes a system that’s described as unpaid checks and political imbalances.

What we have is the House of Commons. The House of Commons, the bastion of the Prime Minister’s power, the body that selects the Prime Minister, is an elected body. I really emphasize this to you as an American group: It’s not like your House of Representatives. Don’t make that comparison.

What the House of Commons is really like is the United States electoral college. Imagine if the electoral college which selects your president once every four years were to continue sitting in Washington for the next four years. And imagine its having the same vote on every issue. That is how our political system operates.

In our election last Monday, the Liberal party won a majority of seats. The four opposition parties divided up the rest, with some very, very rough parity.

But the important thing to know is that this is how it will be until the Prime Minister calls the next election. The same majority vote on every issue. So if you ask me, “What’s the vote going to be on gun control?” or on the budget, we know already.

If any member of these political parties votes differently from his party on a particular issue, well, that will be national headline news. It’s really hard to believe. If any one member votes differently, it will be national headline news. I voted differently at least once from my party, and it was national headline news.

Harper also famously said the following, perhaps partly in jest. Probably he was serious, and hamming it up for the friendly crowd he was trying to flatter.

Canada is a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it. Canadians make no connection between the fact that they are a Northern European welfare state and the fact that we have very low economic growth, a standard of living substantially lower than yours [America], a massive brain drain of young professionals to your country, and double the unemployment rate of the United States.

ADDED:

RT @RobertFife: Reporters booted from Tory caucus as they asked Stephen Harper to answer questions about Senate spending scandal. #cdnpoli—
CTV National News (@CTVNationalNews) May 21, 2013

MT @dgardner "This is your moment, CPC backbenchers: Are you Parliamentarians or the PM’s grunts?" — Rhetorical questions work? #cdnpoli—
Saskboy K. (@saskboy) May 21, 2013

Clearly @pmharper is all for accountability. Caucus pitch addressed nothing, media booted for asking questions then #PMSH ran away. #cdnpoli—
Kyle S. (@random_noise) May 21, 2013