When he announced Election 2015, Stephen Harper spoke of himself as the only one of the four main party leaders who possessed ‘moral clarity.’
Unfortunately his actions, and those of his government and party have muddied the ethical clear-headedness of which he claims to be sole possessor.
Nevertheless, Mr. Harper declared on May 21, 2013, “Canada now has one of the most accountable and transparent systems of governance in the entire world.”
Not.
Conservative operative Tony Sona was jailed for the robocalls scam, a level of corruption which even Nixon’s self-admitted ‘dirty-tricks’ expert, Donald Segretti, says he would never have contemplated.
Conservative Speaker of the House of Commons described a Conservative misinformation campaign against Montreal Liberal MP Irwin Cotler, as ‘reprehensible’.
Civil servants were ordered to refer to the ‘Harper Government’ rather than the ‘Canadian Government’ when making public statements.
During the 2011 election, a senior Harper strategist, Patrick Muttart, planted the lie in the Sun media, that Michael Ignatieff had been ‘an Iraq war planner’?
The Prime Minister’s Office “stumbled from blunder to evasion and falsehood” to cover up a 2015 Harper-in-Iraq promo video which exhibited “shamelessly manipulative partisanship” and endangered the Canadian troops whom he used as props in the photo op. (quotations courtesy of The National Post) and on and on…
His government has been found in contempt of parliament; Cabinet staffers granted immunity from giving testimony; falsification of reports and documents; deceit and duplicity in parliament on the Afghan detainees controversy and on purchase of F-35 fighter jets; access to information impeded; and at least 70 documented instances of attacks on the very accountability and transparency he claims as his own.
‘Moral clarity’ is, as Mr. Harper avows, a most desirable attribute.
It would be equally desirable to have seen some evidence of it in Mr. Harper and his Conservative government over the last nine years.
JC VallanceFernie, BC
