Attention Any Canucks

I realize this is not a political forum. However, given recent polls in Canada suggest that Stephen Harper's Conservatives may be headed to a majority government, I am going to post this and hope it's read by a couple of Canadian voters. If it influences even one of them, it will have been worthwhile for me.

Harper has made it clear that he considers Brian Mulroney an icon, and someone to aspire to be like. This scares me. Below is an article I wrote during the last federal election on the crimes of Brian Mulroney's Conservative government. The party hasn't changed. DO NOT VOTE FOR THIS PARTY. PLEASE.

------------------------------------

In the most recent federal election, the Liberal Party won a minority government, which made me extremely happy. They've had a majority for a decade, and it's about time they had some forced accountability. However, the official opposition now is the Conservative Party, which is an amalgam of the Reform Party (whose policy was created by the insane Preston Manning) and the old Progressive Conservative Party. It's no secret that it was an effort to "unite the right", and that the old PCs are easily the driving force behind the party. And that the PCs could manage to get 80+ seats in this election is very disturbing to me. VERY disturbing.

Do you guys remember the last Progressive Conservative government, under Mulroney from 1984 to 1993? EASILY the most corrupt government in North American history, possibly in the history of the western world? Well, since Canadian voters have historically had a terrible memory, I want to remind everyone about that government. And remember always that it was only a decade ago, and the majority of the principle characters are still the same.

Joe Clark won a minority government for the Tories in 1979, and I personally always felt Joe was a good man. However, when as Prime Minister he tried to pass a budget that included a 16 cent per gallon increase in gas tax (insane to try with a minority) they were forced into an election due to the loss of confidence motion, and Trudeau's Liberals were back in power. In 1983 Clark wanted to make sure he was still the man of choice for his party, and he was defeated in a very close leadership race by Brian Mulroney, who became the new PC leader. Mulroney was a Montreal lawyer who since 1977 had been the president of the Iron Ore Company of Canada. He was certainly well-to-do, but was far from rich, but he was the infusion of new blood the Conservatives felt they needed.

In the next federal election in 1984, Mulroney and his party ran a great campaign. Everywhere you looked you saw Mulroney, and he was always debunking the Liberal Party with great effectiveness. Due to how well oiled his campaign was, coupled with the recent retirement of Trudeau and the selection of John Turner to replace him at the helm of the Liberal Party (Turner was not a very good leader or a tremendous intellect), Mulroney's Conservatives steamrolled to the largest ever majority government in Canadian history. They won 211 of 282 seats in the House of Commons, showing the Canadian people were ready for a change after 16 years of Liberal leadership (with only that brief 9 month interruption by Joe Clark). The corruption of the Mulroney era was about to begin.

The primary issue Mulroney campaigned on in 1984 was patronage. Trudeau had made a habit of appointing primarily Liberals and Liberal sympathizers to government positions during his tenure, at a rate of almost 80%. Mulroney promised to clean this situation up, and end patronage. Canadians wanted to hear this, but Mulroney made it clear in his early days in office that it was a complete lie. The moniker "Lyin' Brian" was born, and would never go away. Within 6 weeks of being elected, Mulroney had fired almost 500 federal government lawyers from across the country and replaced them with lawyers who were members of the PC party. Anyone who was even suspected of being a Liberal sympathizer was canned. Six weeks later, Mulroney fired 11 members of the board of directors of PetroCan and replaced them all with prominent Tories. Within another couple of months he had fired and replaced ALL port authority chairmen and 13 of 15 of the Air Canada board of directors. The patronage carnage was beyond belief. In his first six months in office, Mulroney had made NINE HUNDRED new appointments, almost universally to PC sympathizers. When questioned about it in the press, Mulroney always pointed to the TWO non-partisan appointments he had made. Two of nine-hundred. And before 1989 (the end of his first mandate) he'd appointed 112 new federal judges. All Tories.

Other amazing appointments included making his best buddies highly paid counsel to him. He made Bernard Roy his principle secretary (Roy was Mulroney's law school chum and had been the best man at his wedding) and his university buddy Fred Doucet his policy advisor. Neither man had any government experience. He'd made up his new cabinet, and it was an unheard of 40 positions (Trudeau's' biggest caucus had been 26). He also appointed a chief of staff to each department (only two departments needed one). In effect, he doubled he cost of his cabinet with these moves, and offered no explanation. Even further, he made Guy Charbonneau the Speaker of the Senate. Charbonneau had been his fundraising strategist. He also appointed 3 new board members to Security Intelligence Review Committee (all former colleagues) who had no intelligence experience whatsoever. But Brian is going to end patronage, right?

Other amazingly partisan appointments included Justice Minister John Crosby's two sons as legal agents in St. Johns, Finance Minister Michael Wilson's cousin receiving a multi-million dollar Finance contract, External Affair Minister Joe Clark's brother being named lead council for the 1988 Calgary Olympics and Mulroney's brother Gary being appointed to run the Manicouagan constituency office. A former Mulroney colleague, Jaques Blanchard - who had been involved with Mulroney's law firm - was appointed to the board of directors of Air Canada in 1985, and then given a federal judgeship in 1986. Another law colleague, Jean Sirois, was appointed chairman of Telefilm Canada, despite having no experience. And basically any upper-level public servant suspected of being a closet Liberal was either fired or demoted (a perfect example is Joel Bell, who had been head of the Canadian Development Investment Corporation, who was removed without cause).

Other instances where patronage was obvious (but somewhat less obvious) was when Mulroney cost Canadian taxpayers 100s of thousands of dollars relocating a planned federal prison to his own home riding, and when the government gave a 1.3 billion dollar maintenance contract to Canadair rather than Bristol Aerospace despite a significantly higher bid. Please keep in mind that Canadair is based in Quebec, while Bristol is based in Winnipeg (the western province where Tory support was weakest). Because of this (and similar deals) the RCMP by 1987 was investigating bidding processes because of the number of contracts and leases not going to the lowest bidder.

One of my favorite Mulroney moves was when the government paid Dalhousie university $100 000 so that they would give Deputy Prime Minister Don Mazenkowski an honorary law degree (Maz had never gone further than grade 12 in school). If you were a good Conservative, Mulroney made sure you got something for your partisanship. The patronage path he cut was wide and obvious.

But if Patronage was all Mulroney had done that was suspect, I would be inclined to not worry about it, and pass it off as the Tories finally getting some of their own after 16 years of being on the outside looking in. But the corruption went much deeper. And started even earlier.

During the 1983 Leadership Convention where Mulroney wrested the PC party leadership from Joe Clark, all 12 candidates had agreed prior to the campaign that they would make all of their campaign finances public. Eleven of them did. Guess who didn't? Mulroney's campaign cost twice as much as anyone else's and was much more high profile. To encourage the candidates to keep everything on the up-and-up, the PC party gave $30 000 grants to each candidate that made their finances public. Mulroney was the only one that didn't receive this payout - obviously he was covering up far more than $30K in additional money that he didn't want anyone to know where it had come from. In fact, a few years later the former president of the PC party said on a CBC show (Question Period) that it was obvious that Mulroney was receiving offshore money.

So Lyin' Brian's campaign money was unexplained. But on September 26 1984 two of Mulroney's chief lieutenants had their offices broken into and all files copied. Two days later, the PC Party's Quebec headquarters were also broken into and all files copied. These break ins were almost surely attempts to get blackmail ammunition, and one of the burglars was caught that December and described checks and amounts donated to Mulroney's campaign, including an $80 000 donation from a Canadian financier through the Bank of Bermuda. It had clearly been laundered, but without the actual documents, charges could not be laid.

Then we come to the kickback schemes and conflict of interest concerns, for which the Mulroney Government truly made it's name.

In 1985, a landholder named Andre Hamel sued the government because he had paid a $50 000 kickback so the government would rent his building for the offices of the Employment and Immigration department. The government had taken the bribe, then failed to some through on the agreement. Hamel showed how he had been billed the $50K through Mulroney's old law office, Oglivy Renault.

The Globe and Mail soon after broke the story that the Tory government had given a $2 million a year government advertising contract to two Toronto men (Roger Nantel and Peter Simpson) who had little advertising experience, but were PC party members. Nantel told the paper that he'd been forced (as a part of the deal) to kick back a part of his fee to secure the contract.

In December 1988 a Tory MP named Michel Gravel pled guilty to receiving $97 000 in bribes and kickbacks for government contracts. He had somehow gotten his hands on a copy of the government's Lease Book, with 5000 government office leases and all information included. He had initially pled Not Guilty, but in order to prevent the publicity of a trial, the PC party arranged a "no jail time" plea bargain for him, and then picked up all of his legal bills.

Another Tory MP, Richard Grise, won a $250 000 grant to build a community Center in his riding. He got the contractor, the air-conditioning installer, plumber, electricians, and other suppliers to kick back money to him to work on the project. He also skimmed thousands of dollars from his $165 000 per year Member of Parliament office budget through false receipts (an employee blew the whistle on him). After all of this came out in the press, Grise resigned his membership in the PC party, but not his seat in the House of Commons. He stayed on as an independent, but he stopped going to Ottawa at all for House operations. He still collected his salary and office expense fee (over $200k/year) for a year before being fined $20 000 with no jail time. And the employee that blew the whistle was murdered and their house burned down three days after blowing the whistle. There is no evidence of who did this, but it is certainly interesting.

Yet another Tory MP, Andre Bisonette, found out that a Swiss Arms manufacturer was relocating to Canada, and that they had looked closely at only one parcel of land. Bissonette bought that land parcel immediately, and sold it to the arms manufacturer 11 days later for a profit of $2.1 million. No conflict of interest charges were brought by the government, despite the obviously blatant infraction.

Industry Minister Sinclair Stevens appointed one Trevor Eyton to the board of the Canada Development Investment Corporation. In itself, not a big deal. But ONE week later, Eyton assisted in refinancing Stevens's personal holdings in the York Center. These guys didn't even try to cover their tracks. Yet no charges were brought and the appointment was not overturned. So Stevens figured he had free reign, and he appointed 2 brokerage houses as advisors to the Canada Development Investment Corporation at the very same time the York Center was soliciting their financial help. Amazing.

In all, during Mulroney's first mandate, EIGHT of his cabinet ministers were forced to resign over kickback scandals or conflict of interest issues. Mulroney's Environment Minister Suzanne Blais-Grenier went to Mulroney in September 1987 and told him the kickback schemes were massive and embarrassing to the party, but Mulroney did absolutely nothing. Four months later she went to the newspapers with the story, as she was concerned about the future of the party and wanted the corruption stopped; she gave the names of four Montreal area businessmen and their recent complaints about the kickbacks as evidence. Mulroney's reward for her courage and determination to stop corruption was to boot her out of the caucus, and steadfastly refuse to answer in the press for any of the allegations. What a shitbag.

Around the same time, it became public that you could actually purchase your way to a dinner at 24 Sussex Drive, along with the PM and any number of cabinet ministers, for a price. All it took was a large contribution to either Mulroney, or the PC Canada Fund. Those taking advantage of this were almost entirely super-rich businessmen. It came out later that the PC Canada Fund had issued a document in 1986 recommending that canvassing for money should be limited to, "....chartered and other banks, insurance companies, trust companies, CA firms, lobbyist firms, major oil companies, automobile manufacturers, the most wealthy Canadians, breweries, transportation, steel companies, mining and resources, pulp and paper and major American Corporations." That is a direct quote from the document. Now these folks make major contributions, come to dinner and rub elbows with the senior members of the federal government, and what do they expect in return? If I have to tell you, you are a very naïve person. They are looking for their zoning issues to go away. They are looking for favorable rulings in court or findings by government commissions. They are looking for the government to scratch their back. And everyone knows it. The first type of business the document recommends going after for contributions is banks. Does anyone recall a little issue regarding the Canadian Commercial Bank around this time? They were major lenders but in order to maintain growth rates had begun to lend to very unsafe borrowers. By the time Lyin' Brian decided the bank could use a little help, they were over $500 million in the red. The PC government spent over $1 billion Canadian tax dollars to bail this little venture out, and then the bank ended up folding in a few months anyway because the depositors no longer trusted the board of directors and ran to the major safe banks with their deposits. Did any of the board members of this independent and privately held bank ever have dinner with Brian in his Sussex Drive home?

I'll give you three guesses and the first couple don't count.....

This government was clearly only for those that could do something for them in return. Such is the nature of the Canadian Progressive Conservative party, and always has been.

Need more proof that these guys are stinking with corruption? In 1987 another one of Mulroney's cabinet ministers, Stewart McInnes, was found to have actively managed his own stock portfolio despite being business partners with Ross Montgomerie, who was a member of the Canadian Council Investment Committee. The CCIC managed a $160 million dollar endowment fund and any move they made always affected buy/sell prices of anything they were onto because of the sheer size of their purchases. Needless to say, McInnes had been very successful in his personal portfolio's management. Just buy into everything the fund was about to buy into, and sell just before they do. Then, to deflect publicity from this obvious conflict of interest/inside trading, the PC Party went on a witch hunt to try to determine who leaked the documents that led the press to finding out about it, and eventually brought down a Scotia McLeod director for the infraction. Of course, this director was able to eventually prove that he'd had nothing to do with it, but the PCs had accomplished their mission, which was to get McInnes off page 1.

Then how about Tory Senator Jean Bazim, who it was aired had billed Ottawa over $750 000 in legal fees through his own law firm? When this came out he didn't even try to fight it, the conflict of interest was so blatant. Within two hours of the press making this public, he had resigned his Senate seat and left the parliament buildings. There are almost too many similar stories to be bothered to tell. And did anyone ever notice that the senior partner in Mulroney's old law firm somehow was appointed the Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations? Or how about the fact that Mulroney's personal investment councilor was banned for life by the Toronto Stock Exchange for insider trading?

One of my personal favorites is the saga of Roch LaSalle and Frank Majeau. LaSalle was a PC member of parliament, and Majeau was his business partner. Under Clark's 1979 minority government, LaSalle was a defense cabinet minister. He was arranging for tenders for a $5.5 billion defense contract to purchase 138 fighter jets. The two companies that it came down to were General Dynamics for their CF-16 and MacDonnell Douglas for their CF-18s. LaSalle's partner Majeau approached MacDonnell Douglas and told their senior executives that for a kickback of $10 million, he would use his influence to ensure they received the contract. MD approached the FBI who along with the RCMP tried to sting Majeau, but he caught on and escaped with nothing bruised except his reputation. But he then went into the strip club business in Toronto with one Real Simard, a Montreal hitman who is responsible for at LEAST four professional hits. Simard worked in Montreal for the Cotroni family, and the two began running cocaine from Montreal to Toronto on the traveling strippers. The RCMP has a photo of Majeau and Simard in a phone booth with Hamilton boss Johnny Papalia and the phone records show they were calling Cotroni in Montreal. Within a couple of months two hoods tried to horn in on the coke supplying business in Toronto and Simard hit them in their hotel by shooting both execution style. Unfortunately for him, one survived and fingered him to the cops. Of course Mulroney supported LaSalle's 1984 candidacy, even throwing a $20 000 fundraiser for his campaign (LaSalle was still Majeau's partner at the time). After being elected to the house in 1984, this criminal and con artist Frank Majeau was named to the Harborfront Committee with a government-paid salary, and was also named policy advisor to LaSalle. McLean's magazine did an expose on this guy, and also showed that when Mulroney appointed him to Harborfront that he had already failed RCMP security screening. When this came out, Majeau was fired. He sued the government for wrongful dismissal and McLean's for libel. McLeans won their part of the case, but the government settled with Majeau. If you're a good Tory, it obviously doesn't matter how bad a person you are. They'll look after you.

Now how about Mulroney's freedom in pissing away tax dollars to his own delight? In six months in 1985/86, Mulroney spent $811 000 for trips to New York, Washington and Paris. The Paris trip alone cost over half a million dollars. Many of his 52 person entourage stayed in $3400/day suites, the group spent $109 000 on chauffeured cars, they bought some 50 high cost ballet tickets, it went on and on. Mulroney's wife Mila personally spent $9000 in the hotel's boutique. When this became public, the PC Canada Fund tried to cover many of the bills, but it was obvious that Mulroney expected Canadians to pay for his excessive spending.

In May 1986 Mulroney and his cronies went to Hong Kong, which cost over a million dollars, and cost and additional $300K for a video crew filming the government mission (which was simply diplomatic). Among the people Mulroney took along at the taxpayer's expense were his personal butler and maid. They stayed in their own luxury suites as well as everyone else.

At one other point, Mulroney and crew went to Japan for 11 days. Cost to the taxpayers? $1.1 million. On top of that, daily expenses for the group were $76 000. After the trip was over, Mulroney submitted vouchers to be reimbursed for $26 000 he had spent himself on the trip and that he claimed was for government business. $26K. In 11 days. Is it too late to have him shot?

In 1987 Mulroney went to California for ONE day for a speech. Cost to the taxpayer? $95 000.

And what of the previously mentioned Senate Speaker Guy Charbonneau? Well, his oldest business partner was an architectural firm called LaValle Engineering. In 1987 LaValle won a $250 million contract to develop new computer software for the Canadian government. The other software companies that had bid for the contract were stunned. LaValle does software development? As it turned out....NO. After a couple of years of aborted efforts, they failed to provide a system that could work for more than a few seconds before crapping out. A quarter billion tax dollars down the drain. Of course, two of the bidding companies were offered small parts in the deal BEFORE the tenders were read. When they asked about this, they were TOLD they could not win the contract no matter what they bid.

Now we've seen what happens when the government is paying out (free money for supporters), but what of when the government is selling? Let's look at the Falconridge radar base in Sudbury, for example. When the base was shut down, the 290 hectare plot of land was valued at $5.2 million. The federal Tory government sold it to party member Henry Shepherd for $140K. He sold it months later for almost 4 million dollars.

The Moisee radar base in Quebec was very similar, also on a 290 hectare plot. It was valued at the time the government sold it at $6 million (much of it is right on the Moisie river). It was sold to a former Tory MP candidate (Guy Lefebvre) for $187500.

Need more corruption? You got it! Mulroney personally worked very hard to secure both a $9 million grant and a $85 million federal loan for Curragh Resources, a Toronto based mining company. Mulroney was friendly with the board members. There was fierce opposition to these financial moves because of concerns of the mine's safety. In 1992 it exploded and then collapsed, killing 26 men.

Jon Stewart, Mulroney's senior advisor on appointments (who was also on the board of the ACOA, which awards government grants and loans) was tried in 1994 for $500K of unexplained money, and also for filing false tax returns when he was a member of Mulroney's government. In 1987 he claimed an income of $23000, the auditors found it was actually $125000, in 1988 he claimed $41K on an actual income of $244K, and in 1989 he claimed 21K on an actual income of $243K. All of this money was supposed to have been from kickbacks for grants and loans, and landed from offshore accounts. Stewart was simply too stupid to hide it once he had his hands on it. A senior Tory. And another senior ass-hole.

In his 1984 campaign, Mulroney's campaign chairman was a fellow named Norm Atkins. He eventually started a company called Camp Associates Advertising. Most of the largest government advertising contracts then went to one company. Can you guess which one?

In 1992 Mulroney appointed George Vari to the Security Intelligence Review Committee. Vari was Mulroney's oldest personal friend and a man he described as being a second father to him. Good qualifications.

Mulroney often told the press he wasn't looking for any free ride, and that he bought his own groceries for his home. In fact he did write checks for $4000 every six months to defray grocery costs. That is $8K per year (for a family of 6), or $171 a week. In his final year as PM, Mulroney's official bills for food and alcohol were $153,000. Lyin' Brian strikes again. On top of that, for his home on Sussex drive (himself, his wife and their four children), Mulroney decided they required a full-time staff of 12 people, with annual salaries of over $340K. Guess he didn't want Mila to have to iron anything......

Notice how I've stayed completely away from Mulroney's policies? I'm just focusing on corruption. But Mulroney, whose party was at a 7% popularity rating in 1987, managed to get re-elected to another Majority (165 seats this time) in 1988 on the strength of the free trade deal with the USA. His campaign was massive, INCREDIBLY expensive, and funded almost entirely by corporations that wanted free trade. They managed to convince the majority of Canadians that free trade would be beneficial, because Canadians believe what they read. There were two-page gate-fold ads in every national newspaper almost daily telling how great free trade was going to be. I was one of many who didn't fall for it, and told anyone who'd listen that it would kill blue-collar work in Canada. Once he was re-elected and the deal sealed, within 6 months 400,000 high-paying blue-collar jobs went south to the states, never to return. Blue collar employment almost is non-existent in Canada now. Since not everyone is good in school, this basically screws 10% of all people to live in poverty their whole life, no matter how bad they want to work. It plunged the nation into economic chaos for nearly a decade, and only now is the total number of jobs exceeding what there was at the time of the deal.

Have I said I hate Mulroney? Man, do I ever. But that he is still alive is proof positive that no Canadian politician will ever be assassinated. If anyone ever needed it, it was Lyin' Brian.

In 1988 in preparation for the upcoming federal election, the riding of Hull-Aylmer invited all local party members to elect their candidate for the election. 72 people shoed up and cast ballots. 79 ballots were cast. The PCs were trying to screw even their own party!

Remember Bais-Grenier? The cabinet minister that told Mulroney that the kickback schemes were huge and embarrassing, and Mulroney rewarded her by kicking her out of the caucus? She testified in a 1991 hearing that the PC party routinely demanded 5% of all lease values of grant/loan totals as kickbacks. This was to be paid through accounts in Luxembourg to wash the money for the party. Much of it, she testified, went into a "retirement fund" for Mulroney. These hearings resulted in 13 Mulroney associates being charged with conspiracy to commit fraud. Their lawyers (many paid for by the PC Canada Fund) blinded the courts under such a blizzard of paper that it was determined the trials would be too costly to even hold. All charges were dropped. Gotta love this country.

Mulroney announced in late 1992 that he would be retiring soon. And he really kept himself busy for that last 6 months. His wife's best friend received an 5 year appointment to the Citizenship Court of Canada. Her only work experience had been as a secretary. Another Mila Mulroney buddy, Pat McCaffrey was appointed to the Official Residences Council and her husband named to the Immigration and Refugee Board. Mulroney's notary Harvey Corn was given a position on the Canada Pension Committee, and Jean Dugre (who started the "Friends Of Brian" fundraising committee) was appointed to the Federal Parole Board. Mulroney's primary personal campaign fundraiser since 1976, Jaques Courtois, was named to the Security intelligence Review Committee (along with Brian's 'second Dad', George Vari). Between December 1992 (when Brian announced he'd be retiring) and January 1993, Mulroney made 178 appointments to the Privy Council office. Don Guthrie, a PC Canada Fund board member, was named to the board of the Canadian National Railway. In December 1992 Mulroney's riding received a $120 million aluminum smelter grant, a $3 million grant for an environmental center and a $1.5 million grant for a new performing arts center.

On his last day in office, Mulroney appointed 4 new senators (even the PC party said this really should have been done after the upcoming election). In his final 60 days in office, he made 241 appointments, and in his final 6 months made a whopping 655 appointments.

FOUR of those 655 appointments went to non-Tories.

Mulroney then went on a world 'farewell tour' that cost Canadian taxpayers $600,000.

And what of Brian after he left office? Well, despite never earning more than $200K a year in his life (either as president of Iron ore or as PM), he and his wife bought a $1.7 million dollar home in Montreal, and spent over half a million dollars renovating it. Property taxes are $25000 a year, and with a son attending Duke, a daughter attending Harvard and two kids in lavish private schools, his children's educations were costing him no less that $75K a year. Of course, incoming PC prime minister (who was nearly crushed in the massive defeat of the fall elections that year) had already appointed Brian to the ULTIMATE plum, on the board of Horsham Corporation, where he gets a thousand dollars for every board meeting he attends and 250,000 stocks (worth about $2 million). He also set up Cansult Communications where he rents himself out as a keynote speaker at $65K a pop. Not too shabby.

But one last parting shot he took at Canadians is unbelievable even for Brian. While Mulroney's new home was being renovated, Mulroney stored all of his furnishings AT TAXPAYER'S EXPENSE (as usual). Cost? $100K. When they moved into Sussex Drive, their personal appointments and furnishings were valued at $98K, but when they moved out there was 20,000 pounds of furnishings requiring four full-sized moving trucks (this according to the movers themselves). But the real kicker was when he submitted an invoice to the government for $150K for the furnishings they left behind. The government had it valued, and found it to be worth less than $20,000. They told Mulroney they weren't going to pay, and that he should come and get the furniture since it was so valuable. He didn't. It was (mostly) thrown away. But Brian showed he was leaving office in the same manner he entered it and how he conducted himself while he was there: he acted like tax dollars were his, and that all he had to do was try to some up with a way to get his grimy little paws on them.

Most of the principle characters of the Conservative Party are still the same. Yet in the last election (a month ago) they won 80 seats. Canadians, these guys are crooks. Not all, but a large number of them. It's only been a decade, and they have not changed (as evidenced by Mike Harris's Tory government in Ontario, which it will take years to recover from). Their new leader is open in his admiration for Mulroney, and Lyin' Brian is considered a major senior spokesperson for the new party.

Do us all a favor. Vote Liberal. Vote NDP. Vote for the Bloc Quebeqois. Vote for the Green Party. Vote for the Family Coalition Party. Vote for the Libertarian Party. Vote for the for-God's-sake Rhino Party. But for your sake, my sake, and the sake of all Canadians, DO NOT VOTE FOR THE CONSERVATIVES. They will screw us all again. And ten years of screwing was enough.

OK, now I guess the ban on INTERNATIONAL politics has also been lifted.

Stephen Harper has now announced that if elected he will re-open talks with the US regarding the North American Strategic Defence Program and pull out of the Kyoto Accord. PLEASE please please people do not vote for this fucking guy. He is Mulroney-Lite. He wants to burrow right into the US president's asshole just like Lyin' Brian. He cannot be allowed to have the power to do either of those things.

Goddam Canadians. Why can they never see the wolf in sheep's clothing?

Bump.

Election is Monday. Too close to call accurately, but it looks like a Conservative minority, bordering on majority. Dammit Canucks, smarten up. Read the initial post in this thread. Do NOT vote Conservative. The Liberals are choirboys by comparison in their sponsorship events. Vote for ANYONE - just not Harper's Tories.

Oops.

Oh well, it's only politics, right? PeteLeo.

It could have been much worse. I can live with a razor-thin miority government because they just don't have the seats to do all the things they were talking about. Which means we stay in the Kyoto Accord, we have nothing to do with any Strategic Defense Program, and the abortion policy stays status-quo.

Could be interesting. A Conservative government forced to be middle-of-the-road because of their tenuous hold on power. This hasn't been seen since the 60s. I hope that Harper drops any thoughts suggested by his Mulroney idolitry, and just does his job.

Speaking of Mulroney, he was interviewed on CBC during the election returns. 12 years later, and I still get livid seeing the man. Plus, he tried to take credit for the Conservative win - a guy who ran that party into the ground so hard it actually lost official party status for 4 years. It's the first time I felt like Elvis watching Robert Goulet on TV. Bam.

Yeah, but . . . you still have Harper. PeteLeo.

.....but Cdn politics are a very different animal than American politics. He has 124 of 307 seats. The Liberals have (I think) 104 and the NDP have 29. The Bloc have 51. The opposition can bring down the government any time they want.

So I'm interested to see what Harper does. His government will have to be a very, very cooperative one with the other parties ro his leadership will be very short-lived. And since it's much easier to make a fool of a reigning PM (as the Tories showed in this latest campaign), a brief or uncooperative government this time around would be disastrous for his party.

Believe it or not, I think he actually has a chance to do a good job for 18-24 months before the opposition force a new election.