The business audience Prime Minister Stephen Harper was talking to in New York wasn’t the only thing that was lacking. He has failed to act on his harsh words during the Ukraine crisis and he has lied about Canada’s involvement in Iraq. It is clear Harper has not only lost credibility at home, but more disturbingly, abroad.

Privacy experts believe government spying via social media may be in violation of the Privacy Act. As you scroll through your Facebook’s news-feed to find people you knew in High School are now having children, comments on the latest in Entertainment and the slew of personal statuses shared to a group of people considered to be friends, note that Big Brother virtually lurks over your shoulders and agents at CSEC are paid to see what you see.

Despite a report two years ago outlining wasteful bureaucracy in the Department of Defense, and despite a cut to the department as part of the Conservatives’ effort to reign in their deficit, the number of civilian staff members rose 30% in six years. For a government that preaches fiscal prudence, there is no place they want to seal off more than the Defense department.

Emails show Canadian diplomats and military officials were instructed to downplay the scathing report from the Auditor General which outlined the Government’s waste in the F-35 project when speaking with foreign officials. At one point, they were told to blame it on “bureaucratic” issues.

In light of the ongoing scandal in the United States which revealed the Obama Administration was spying on millions of Americans, a new report finds the Conservative government has been doing the same thing in Canada since 2011. Call it a page out of George Orwell’s 1984, or a legitimate attempt to secure Canadians, the decision was kept in the dark and may have infringed on your privacy and rights. Monitoring your every phone call and key stroke, the Conservatives have been watching. Big Brother is now in full gear and there’s going to be some explaining to do.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper wasted $50,000 on the look of his personal government plane with the design revealed on February 24 being applied to the jet. NDP leader Thomas Mulcair accused Harper of blurring the lines between government and party money as the plane clearly didn’t need a paint job and is themed after the Conservatives’ three main colours.

The Conservatives are sending public servants emails linking them to the Canada’s Economic Action Plan website and a survey which asks who they will vote for in the next election. The Union of National Defense Employees demands answer and Canadians deserve an explanation as more than $100 million in taxpayer money has been spent on propaganda while unemployment is still an issue.

A CBC News Investigation has found Canada will be paying up to ten times more than other countries to design ice-breaker ships for Arctic patrol. The design for the Canadian ship, set to be similar to the Norwegian model will cost $288 million to design while Norway paid less than $100 million to design and build their ships in 2002.

Auditor General Michael Ferguson released his annual spring report which found lack of information to be the theme of the Conservatives’ program spending. Included in this analysis is $3.1 billion in funding for anti-terrorism which can’t be accounted for and off the radar. In times of economic uncertainty and austerity, can the Conservatives really afford to lose $3.1 billion without having it accounted for?

For Prime Minister Stephen Harper, there is no better way to practice fiscal restraint than to spend $50,000 on repainting the old jet. This raises three questions: Do we really need to repaint it now? When did blue become one of Canada’s official colors? What happened to fiscal restraint?