Our Conservative government recently had an MP walk out on them due to amendments to a bill on MP and Public Employee transparency. The MP walked out because the Conservatives would not allow a bill that increased the transparency of the government by legally obliging the publication of all public servants' expenses if they made more than 185 000$ a year. The amendment raised this number to about 350 000, if I am not mistaken. That is an amount equivalent to the pay of a deputy minister, meaning that only a very very small number of employees would have expenses shown. Thus, transparency would barely even be affected by this bill.http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/inside-politics-blog/2013/06/in-his-own-words-brent-rathgeber-on-why-he-quit-the-conservative-caucus.html) and now, the Conservatives have just barely failed (Due to a small number of their own senators disagreeing with the bill ) to pass a bill which would force even more sever transparency obligations on Unions, whilst they did all they could to ensure the same could not occur for MPs.
The Conservatives have traditionally been against unions, and this is an attack. The idea being the unions often donate to the Liberals and NDP, rather than the CPC, who get their funding from the massive corporations that their tax breaks are funding. (Corporate tax has gone down by 1/3 since Harper came into power.) This is an attempt to get people up in airs over the union spending their money politically, whilst the CPC look good, and people don't realize just how tight they are with their corporate allies.
Lets look at Nigel Wright in relation to transparency. Where did that money come from? Look at the recent senate expense scandals, the robo call conundrum, the secret 1 MILLION $ party fund controlled by Nigel Wright prior to quitting, and those are only the recent scandals! Where is the transparency we were promised? The 3(I think) billion dollars the government somehow LOST over the last three years. Oh and lets not forget the omnibus bills, where the Conservatives lump a bunch of different bits of legislation together and shove it through Parliament. Parliament is there for debate and discussion, they are interested in neither. They have shut down discussion and forced a vote more times than most. I was in the House once for a vote where they even ended the voting period, then tried to sneak in a bit of legislation at the last minute, when most MPs had already left.
Union transparency is all good, and important, in my opinion, but it is hugely hypocritical of the Conservatives to promote union transparency on a very high level, whilst completely altering a bill to do the same for MPs and public servants, who play a much larger role per individual than unions ever will. Why do the conservatives prioritize union transparency over government transparency when that very transparency is one of the big promises that got them into power. (http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2013/06/26/pol-senate-amendment-hugh-segal.html)
Is this the kind of party you want leading your country?
Politics are partisan, always have been and always will be, but those politics should not be as underhanded, hypocritical and duplicitous as those of our current government.
I expect more from my government. I hope you do too.
Screw Partisanship (despite the obvious partisanship of this post), the NDP are not perfect, not by a long shot, neither are the Liberals (Do we really want a leader whos biggest boost to power came from his last name? He needs to be his own man before he should be anywhere near the PM's seat.) or the Conservatives (Read last few hundred words.) We, as Canadians, need a government that fulfills its promises and acts for the greater good of not only itself, but of this entire country. That is the role of government, to act in OUR collective interest. Our government does not do so at this time. I would be criticizing the NDP and the Liberals if they participated in this, and I have criticized both parties prior to this, but we need to say enough is enough already. At the 2015 election, don't vote Conservatives, vote for a party that you believe will serve Canadians, not corporations, and stay true to its promises.
