A good day to pick up the phone and call your MP, I’d say.
You can find their numbers here.
Saskatchewan residents might funnel their calls to our lone Liberal MP, and finance minister “Honest Ralph” Goodale who, as of yesterday, still hadn’t responded to local media requests for an interview. Perhaps he’s taking his cue from “Scurring Through The Corridors” Chretien and “Fleeing In Dark Windowed Cars” Martin.
Ralph’s phone number: (613) 996-4743 fax : (613) 996-9790
Don’t bother with email. The words “sponsorship” and “you stinking band of crooks” won’t make it through the spam filters.
Neale News is on top of the items now flooding out of the mainstream press. (The London Fog blog scored a write-up in the local press).
In the National Post, Don Martin is picking up the “Canada’s Watergate” meme.
The Liberal spin of this as a scandal confined to a small band of unsupervised rascals who auctioned off contracts to the highest bidder and used the proceeds to line their own pockets is a tough sell. How, then, to explain the rogue party official who was able, after receiving a $50,000 cash bribe, to muscle the justice ministry into killing a planned advertising tender for the much maligned firearms registry, leaving the business in Brault’s hands? That’s deep penetration stuff, not just the small circle running the sponsorship program.
Some of our lefty blogger friends are pooh-poohing the comparison[1] to the Nixon scandal – as though the systemized theft of millions from the federal treasury by top government officials is just so much small potatoes when stacked againt the cover-up of a hotel room break-in.
Though, in a sense they’re right. Had this taken place in the US, the Prime MInister would already be gone. There would have been no “Gomery Inquiry”. The original Public Accounts Committee hearings would have resulted in Jean Chretien and Paul Martin both making their exit on a Sea King from the lawn of Parliament Hill.
Footnote:
[1] It’s also possible that the writer was just trying to stir the pot as a way of boosting readership.
In a perfect world, Paul Martin would step down immediately. Then, Canadians lie through their teeth to the Liberal pollsters, telling them we will support the Liberal Party again if they run under a rabid, anti-American air-head of a leader. Cut to … Carolyn Parrish waving to throngs of lefty admirers in Toronto at the ACC.
Consequently, we finally rid ourselves permanently of this scourge called the Liberal Party of Canada. We take down the Liberal Party logo from flagpoles across the nation, and raise the Red Ensign again.
Oh how I love explaining all of this to my children.
National Post. Please verify writer of article.
Your detractor says:
Ok, here goes. The item most heavily taxed was _paper_. The Stamp Act? Why the Stamp Act Congress was called and 9 of 13 Colonies attended? Long ago, way back when before the blogosphere, before television, even before radio the only way people got information was from this odd thing called newspapers! News was actually printed on pieces of paper. Amazing. And it had to printed on stamped paper. ( items 46-51.)
The Son’s of Liberty committed acts of violence, papers were shut down in retaliation. The Stamp act was repealed. The Townshend act then replaced it…still including a tax on paper. Furthermore it, like the Stamp Act, had to be paid in gold. Many of the original agitators like Franklin, were also publishers.
That thing in America’s Bill of Rights, the 1st Amendment about free speech? “Congress shall make no law… or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…”. There was a reason that men who were involved with the Revolution from the beginning, as many of the framers were, thought it pretty dang important that speech be free. This is why there isn’t a sales tax on most newspapers today.
Thinkers like Thomas Gordon, and his treatise on Free Speech and Religious Freedom, were part and parcel of the Framers intellectual background. Taxation without representation was a large part of the American Revolution. But it wasn’t the sole reason. And the extension of the taxes on paper via the Townshend Acts was also seen as an attempt to muzzle Free Speech as well as Tax without Representation.
Apparently there were people who smoked and drank whilst pregnant in Canada as well. 😉
QM
PS. Gordon on Free speech can be read here.
Don MARTIN, not Newman
yes, don martin. you see kate, we ARE paying attention.
I fixed it, already, ok! Man, are you people getting demanding.