Another day, another example of government corruption and contempt for democracy and the citizenry.
At Queen’s Park, Kathleen Wynne continues to inflict misery on long-suffering Ontarians. The latest insult is scandal involving patronage and bribery in the Sudbury by-election, in which candidate Andrew Olivier was dropped in favour of federal NDP turncoat Glenn Thibeault. The Liberals won the by-election, but Olivier had recorded his conversations with Liberal staff members, including deputy chief of staff Patricia Sorbara, in which they appear to be offering him a job in return for stepping down from the candidacy.
On the defensive, but failing to show any embarrassment for the skullduggery and the untruth she was about to unloose, Wynne this week claimed Sorbara was acting for the party as a campaign director, not in her capacity as a government worker when she propositioned Olivier. Such semantics dissolve Wynne, complicit in the offers, and her government of any wrongdoing … she would have us believe.
She would also like the OPP to believe so, too, as the police investigate the goings-on in Sudbury. The Chief Electoral Officer is also skeptical, decreeing that the scheming was an “apparent contravention” of the Election Act.
Not, of course, that her government is a stranger to wrongdoings and police investigations, as witnessed by the billion-dollar gas plant rip-off and the cover-up that followed. And a long list of other corrupt acts.
In that capacity, she’s joined by Stephen Harper. He may not like meeting with Wynne, but he’s equally fond of corruption, wasting money and lying to cover up his government’s many misdeeds.
The latest hot-water bath involves Parliamentary mail-outs, an area long fraught with abuse and partisanship. This time, 10 Conservative MPs have been found to have sent out flyers that did not comply with Commons rules for such mailers. It’s the same kind of thing that saw the NDP on the hook for $1.17 million in partisan mailings, though the Tories tried to distance themselves from that issue, from which they had been making much political hay.
The latest displays of incompetence and malfeasance join an ever-growing list. In Ottawa, we’re likely to hear more about the long-running Senate scandal and Stephen Harper’s role in the cover-up. As with many of Harper’s slaps in the face of Canadians, we know when they’re being lied to, and any talk of accountability and fiscal responsibility is now as believable as a senator’s expense claims.
At the provincial level, critics have rightly pointed out the billions of dollars that have been wasted through friends-of-the-party consultants, pandering to public sector unions, outright incompetence and, last but not least, attempts at vote-buying via the gas-plant fiasco.
The mess that is eHealth and ORNGE already attacked the credibility of this government. The gas plants and subsequent attempts to hide the truth – the OPP search of the premier’s office centering on the deletion of emails setting the stage for the latest look into Liberal antics– should have been warning enough before the last election.
Wynne’s phony apologies and continued lying and support of grafting is an insult to Ontarians. As Harper should do with the growing evidence of corruption and ill-intent in the Conservative ranks, Wynne should call for an inquiry into the growing list of scandals (resignation being appropriate, but beyond the pale for two characters steeped in hubris and denial). In both cases, that would be the right thing to do, the accountable thing. But, again in both cases, neither Wynne nor Harper has any interest in the public knowing the truth.
