Corruption, Corruption, Corruption

Corruption is new leader's trump card Licia Corbella, Calgary Sun Mar. 21, 2004

[. . . . .] Stephen Harper and his Conservative Party need to tear a page out of real estate manuals and recognize that this upcoming federal election should include three prongs of attack against the Liberal government: corruption, corruption, corruption.

[. . . .] Every issue should be addressed by first bringing up the unprecedented corruption of the Liberal government and the mismanagement of billions of dollars of taxpayers' money.

So, for instance, when journalists ask Harper what his position on health care is, it should be: "Were it not for the corruption of the federal Liberals and their decades of mismanagement perhaps there would be enough money to provide Canada's provinces and territories with 50% of the money to run their health portfolios. We'll have to wait and see what the government books say and we're certain if we prioritize properly there will be money to fund health care."

If people try to get the Conservatives to talk about two-tier medicine -- which will never happen in Canada -- again, the answer is simple. "Were it not for the corruption and mismanagement of the federal Liberal government for the past 11 years that discussion would have never even happened."

What if they ask about bringing back the death penalty? Same thing. The answer should be, "this country has been run so corruptly for the past 11 years, we will be too busy getting the financial house in order, to deal with an issue that most Canadians are not, frankly, interested in seeing change in."

Ditto for questions about the military, research and development, infrastructure, fuel taxes being divided up fairly, help for the poor, help for the handicapped -- anything.

All of those issues should be pushed through the meat grinder of the sponsorship scandals, the flag scandal, the HRDC scandal, the rifle registry fiasco, Shawinigan, Hotel Grand Mere, the buying of defective submarines, the scrapping of the helicopter contract that cost the lives of some servicemen, thousands of high tech jobs and $500 million in penalties and the list really can go on and on.

Canadians know that all of these sinkholes for our money are really just the tip of the proverbial iceberg in terms of the amount of money squandered or outright stolen.

[. . . .] "Canada doesn't have a revenue problem, Canada has a corruption and misspending problem and it's called the Liberals."