Conservatives to use taxpayer money to attack Trudeau
If the Conservatives couldn’t have stooped to a new low, according to a leaked document, they are now planning to use our money and Parliamentary mail privileges to distribute their petty and pathetic attacks against Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau. As a taxpayer, it is appalling to learn the money that is shelled out is going to go to petty politics the Conservative Party can pay for themselves. This alone should be met with an electoral loss in 2015, Harper is in way over his head.
In a document received by the Liberal Party, the Conservative Party plans to kick off the campaign June 1 and use between $175 to $29,050 in taxpayer money to say Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau is “in way over his head.”
The Liberals have responded, Democratic Reform critic Stephane Dion said “It’s so disrespectful of taxpayers’ money.”
Dion went on to attack Harper’s latest attack, contrasting Trudeau’s ads which released today with the ads we are about to see from the Conservatives.
“We are spending party money to deliver a positive message to Canadians,” Dion said, “when they are using your taxpayer money to send another negative, nasty message. And it shows a lot the difference between the two approaches for Canadians.”
The Conservatives defended their plan to use taxpayer money to fund their campaign stating.
“It’s entirely appropriate for Canadians to be informed about those contrasting aspects of leadership they have available,” Government House Leader Peter Van said, adding the flyers don’t break any rules.
Liberal House Leader Dominic Leblanc blasted the Tories for “wasting taxpayers’ dollars” on “an unflattering, silly attack ad.” He continued by saying that “If there’s no rule that says you shouldn’t use taxpayers’ resources to distribute partisan attack ads, then we need to change the rules.”
It is one thing to run scared and attack Trudeau with Conservative funds, it’s another to use taxpayers’ hard earned cash. The level of desperation in the Conservative party wreaks as Labrador spells trouble for former MP Peter Penasue who resigned because he broke the law, but somehow thinks he deserves a second chance in a byelection set to take place May 13. Recent polls show Liberal Yvonne Jones has a 40 point lead at least over Penasue. While Stephen Harper claims Penasue has done the most work for the region, one must question a man who backs someone who broke the law while claiming to be tough on crime.
The level of desperation comes as Canadians grow tired of Harper’s arrogance, ignorance and misguided policies – not to mention the jobs plan that is nothing but an overblown ad campaign. You can’t run from lies forever, and the lies certainly exploded when the IMF said Canada was the weakest of 20 countries outside of Europe economically. This coming from a party who told Canadians they were the best to guide us through rough seas and from the same party that won in 2006 on a campaign of transparency and legitimacy.
Where is the transparency in blocking the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s access to budgetary information? Where is the legitimacy in using taxpayer money in their own partisan ads? They might as well be shoving that $175 to $29,050 in expenditures into their pockets because spending it on partisan ads amounts to the exact gesture. Corrupt in its nature and shamelessly desperate for a government that supposedly has a track record, or as they are spelling out: a lack of one.
The Conservatives love to attack the Liberals and NDP on fiction. Let’s take a look at taxes. Harper has spent millions on ads to tell us the Government of Canada is doing everything it can to keep taxes low and Conservatives will argue that the GST was cut by 2% but the reality is that the Conservatives raised taxes. They raised EI premiums and hence taxed jobs. They raised tariffs on virtually everything – ironically expected to be in effect in 2015 when they likely expect to lose the election.
In the meantime the Conservatives accomplished nothing apart from cyber-bullying tactics they now claim to be fighting. How are personal attacks on Stephane Dion, Michael Ignatieff, Thomas Mulcair and now Justin Trudeau any different than the tactics schoolyard bullies use to try to quell their victims?
There is only a handful of topics that can come to mind in this article and each of the links included take us back to those times to remind us of what the Conservatives really stand for. It is a shame that a party can grow so out of touch with its country that rather than focus on the principles it was elected on, it focuses on the unbelievably pathetic tactics it has to turn the spotlight on their opposition. Many Canadians support the downsizing of government, want accountability, want real criminals to face justice and prudent fiscal ideals, but it turns out the Conservatives had their own plans, creating new bureaucracies, centralizing all control to the PMO and allegedly breaking election laws left right and center.
There is no reason you shouldn’t be outraged the Conservatives plan to use taxpayer funds to launch personal and partisan attacks and it doesn’t matter who you support – even if you are a Conservative. The fact that money meant to go to parliamentary updates and public services is about to go to a 10-percenter flyer campaign is outright pathetic and unethical. It goes against every ounce of transparency and good governance the Conservatives once preached It appears the Conservatives have lost the moral authority to govern and now their aim is to turn Canada into a vicious playground. The only proper way to respond to this kind of abuse of taxpayers’ money is to send the Conservatives packing in the next election.
What do you think of Harper’s plan to use taxpayer money to launch a partisan attack on Liberal leader Justin Trudeau? Should the Conservative government be punished for such an abuse?
