Accountability and transparency were the hallmarks of Stephen Harper’s win in 2006 but despite robotic scripts that claim accountability is the utmost priority, recent report cards and trends show that accountability and transparency have been thrown out the window.

The senate is supposed to be a chamber of sober thought. Once the partisan House of Commons has finished getting legislation passed, the Senate is to revise it and amend it where necessary. In recent years, however, the senate has become as much a political obstacle as the House and not without its fair share of grievances  Canadians can fire a corrupt parliamentarian but getting rid of a corrupt senator is a much harder task.

Stephen Harper and his Conservatives have fought hard for their coveted F-35 contract, even in spite of inflating costs and warnings from the US congress. Now, without surprise, the Conservatives have been forced to retreat on the purchase of planes that wouldn’t even have been equipped to fly! It must be a very painful day to be the Conservative strategist because the party has invested a lot of political capital and a lot of taxpayers’ time into this deal. We all know that time is money and Canada’s air-force doesn’t have forever to wait for new planes and we all know that we can get state of the art planes for a better price than the Conservative offer for the F-35 defects.

Newly appointed Conservative Senators are finding their perks rather appealing – so appealing that they are cheating taxpayers to cash in. First Patrick Brazeau abused the system, and now Mike Duffy. We can all agree they should repay their takings and we all agree their expenses will never outweigh their salaries. We can, then, agree the housing allowance perk should be scrapped and the savings be refunded.

The Conservatives are stellar at economic management – enough so that they managed to bring Canada to its highest level of debt in history. Canada’s debt hit $600 billion yesterday and shows yet again how competent the Conservatives are at managing Canada’s economy – as if their chronic and secretive spending habits and their new round of deficits weren’t bad enough.

Developing Canada’s oil sands brings great promise to the Canadian economy and allows for an opportunity to emerge as a major player in the energy market. The oil that sits unrefined in Alberta opens doors to vast new trade opportunities, which each bring long term benefits. Most importantly, Canada’s oil presents an opportunity to lower fuel prices nationwide and offset some of the tax burden from middle class families to fund the services Canadians cherish. Overall, if exploited wisely by Canada’s private industries and used for the right objectives, Alberta’s oil sands present an opportunity to bring great benefits to this country… Why would you want to give that away?

The Conservatives may have enacted austerity and they may be calling themselves good economic managers, but as we speak, they are not only spending recklessly, they are trying to hide their spending from the public and from elected MPs in the House of Commons.

Two weeks after American food inspectors stopped the import of Canadian beef products infected with E. Coli,  the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has finally started rolling out recalls for meats and has finally pulled the plug on its source: XL Foods based in Alberta. After 2 weeks, Canadians are weary and uncertain of the meats in their freezers. Most of our stores are still uncertain as to whether they carried the contaminated meats.