Stephen Corleone makes offers that can not be refused
Tisdale - Sunday, October 27, 2013
by:Timothy W. Shire
Let’s face it this fiasco in Ottawa is something everyone has an opinion on and I feel that it is my turn. The reason I feel that way is because it disturbs me that the media, the politicians and most of the public have got it wrong.
Rex Murphy, the CBC “At Issue” panel and almost everyone else thinks that the details in this story are important. What did Duffy or Ms. Wallin do, when did the Prime Minister know about the $90,000 personal cheque? These all seem like reasonable questions but they are just static, this one of those not being able to see the forest for the trees stories and it is time to look past the distractions and look at the real fundamental issue that is really all this is about.
The first thing we have to establish is that gaining and keeping power is a very costly thing. It takes a lot of money to win the leadership of a political party and then it take huge sums to win an election. Therefore we better wise up and realise that our political system is really about money. It is not about great ideas, nationalism and doing the right thing. Power and money are one and the same and for that reason politicians not only know this fact but depend on it for their support and understand implicitly what is their “base.”
Since confederation the Senate has been the most important tool elected politicians have had to manage their power base and the Canadian public have had the privilege of paying for this process. Senators are not granted a seat in that august chamber because of their good work but because of their loyalty to the political leaders who have appointed them to their life long reward. Of the three Senators now on the firing line Patrick Brazeau was rewarded for waving the Harper banner in the aboriginal community. Mike Duffy saw his chance as a CTV television show host to knock off the Liberal leader during and election and the Conservative Prime Minister rewarded him with a seat in the senate but there was a price, Duffy was expected to work his ass off fund raising for the party, which he did successfully and he considered the perks of the senate his pay for his work. Pamela Wallin is a bit different she had distinguished herself as a Canadian patriot and after her journalistic career served Canada as a sort of Canadian advertising agent in New York. She then saw the opportunity to work for the Conservative Prime Minister in return for a seat in the senate. Since assuming that job she has worked tirelessly working almost full time as a conservative political cheerleader, obviously, like Duffy she seen the perks of the Senate as her just reward.
Now it is just plain silly for we the public to condemn these three for doing their job, they did what they were hired to do. It is even sillier for the Prime Minister and his fellow Conservative colleagues to condemn their own hard working employees when it is discovered that they have been somewhat over rewarded, or perhaps, just discovered what all Senators do which is, do nothing and get paid for it.
Look through the roster of the Senate and you will discover that it is populated by former defeated candidates, party bag men, political organisers and individuals who have been rewarded for their work on behalf of an elected Prime Minister. That’s how they get the job.
There is always enough guilt around for almost every issue but this one is remarkable. You well remember that if you live in a glass house don’t throw stones. The Senate is a glass house but the head of the Conservative Party, its leader is one individual who as Elizabeth May pointed out is an “elected dictator.” The Prime Minister is in charge and he definitely is in charge of his own office. If someone in his office commits and offence they do so at his bidding, even if for some amazing reason he didn’t know about it, he is still the one in charge and it is his responsibility for what is committed in his name.
Now let us consider what is being committed in his name.
Election fraud is one of his main claims to fame, robocalls telling voters who might vote against a Conservative candidate are told that the polling station has been moved, false spending claims by candidates and the infamous “in and out” scheme, these are the achievements of the present Prime Minister, things he and he alone is responsible for. He set the tone, he says he won’t tolerate behaviour of which he does not approve and look at the results.
The second most disturbing feature of the conduct of the Prime Minister is his really bad judgement when it comes to appointing people. Not just Senators but cabinet ministers, political advisors, top guy supervising Canada’s spy agency (currently in jail awaiting extradition to Canada for fraud), and now the stupid selection of a member of the Supreme Court.
It is not appropriate to wait for two more years when there is an election to do something about the bad behaviour for the man who holds the office of Prime Minister of Canada. He is far more of an embarrassment to Canadians then the Senate or any of its members and his deliberate mistreatment and underfunding of Canada’s first nations people is on the order of a crime against humanity. We all know that if the Prime Minister had his way he would have Louis Riel’s corpse dug up just so he could hang him again.
Now that last statement was a bit harsh, the Prime Minister is simply working the system. A system that is fundamentally corrupt and we are wasting our energy even discussing the Senate thing when the reality is the Prime Minister himself is the problem.