The flunky to Immigration Minister Jason Kenney who fell on his sword last Thursday for letting taxpayers cover the cost of the Conservative Party’s latest fund-raising efforts was only “following orders.” Since he was following them incorrectly, it’s only fitting that it was his, and not his minister’s, head that rolled.
Got that? It’s the official Conservative Party line coming out of Ottawa on this latest imbroglio stemming from the Harper Government’s utter contempt for the rules.
Thus it ever is in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Ottawa, where rule breaking by his Conservatives is always OK, at least for the big shots, and the rest of us can go to Hades.
In desperation, perhaps, a few aides may get tossed under the bus — but mom, dad and the rest of us can all sleep confidently tonight and every night in the knowledge that this particular gofer will soon be hired back in another capacity.
Really, does anyone actually believe the problem here is that one overzealous aide, Kasra Nejatian, followed his orders with an unfortunate lack of precision? Come on, people! Trusted employees don’t get fired for misinterpreting their orders unless they’re Toronto bus drivers with cell phones in their pockets!
But in a minister’s office in Ottawa? Not likely!
Does anyone seriously believe that the goings on in the offices of Canada’s chief political censor didn’t have Kenney’s pudgy fingerprints all over them, one way or another? As the Toronto Star suggested in an editorial, “Kenney either sanctioned the use of his office for partisan purposes or he didn’t know what his director of multicultural affairs was doing. If the minister did sanction the fundraising letter, that’s a firing offence. If he didn’t, he has an obligation to tell Canadians how it was written and sent out without his knowledge.”
You know and they know and we all know that the Harper Government only got caught through a fluke. They’ll be back at it again before the clock’s gone full circle.
So don’t hold your breath waiting for as explanation from Kenney, as demanded by the Star. The Harperistas will wait for the furor to die down, then they’ll tell the few of us still complaining to get over it, or to go to blazes.
And we will, because taken on its own it’s a small matter. It’s also a small piece in a much broader jigsaw puzzle that, when assembled, adds up to typical neo-conservative contempt for the rules, at least when they’re applied to insiders.
For the rest of us, of course, it’s the hammer — and possibly the slammer.
This is the same government, after all, that masterminded the appropriately named “in and out” scam to circumvent Elections Canada’s election financing laws by laundering campaign funds through local riding accounts, then passed the resulting charges off as a mere “administrative” matter. Ethical candidates who refused to co-operate in the scam went over the side for real.
Abetted by a negligent media, Canadians have already pretty much forgotten about that one, even though it only surfaced recently.
This is the same crowd that has replaced the honorable and accurate term “Government of Canada” with “the Harper government” in non-political government communications, which, come to think of it, is a sin of exactly the same variety as putting your pitch for a few hundred thousand campaign dollars on the people’s letterhead.
This is the same bunch that is now reported to be about to spend $4-million of taxpayers’ money on free election advertising camouflaged as public service ads to promote its budget.
Indeed, this is the same gang that shuts down Parliament every time it looks like it might get feisty and behave as intended. (Yeah, yeah, I know… It was only democracy. Time to get over it…) And it’s the government that desperately wants a majority so it can change election spending laws to allow multinational corporations to buy elections with money laundered through their Canadian subsidiaries whenever they feel like it.
This stuff is just business as usual for a government that wants to tightly control the way the rest of us behave, but views the rules with utter contempt when it comes to itself. It’s part of a persistent pattern, and it isn’t going to change.
If you’re thinking of voting Conservative, the best advice would be: get used to it.
This post also appears on David Climenhaga’s blog, Alberta Diary.
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