Tagged with: Access to Information Act


June 22, 2017 | No Comments

Diotte’s Dirty Dozen of Liberal Lowlights

It’s been less than two years since October 2015’s election of a Liberal majority government. But as the latest House of Commons session drew to a close it was clear Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his party had broken many key campaign promises and disappointed Canadians as a government. Here is a Dirty Dozen of Liberal Lowlights:

 

  1. HEARTLESS: During his election campaign Trudeau was all about “sunny ways” and heartfelt hugs. But the Liberals were heartless in voting down Wynn’s Law, a bill that would have made it mandatory for judges to view an accused’s criminal record and any pending charges during bail hearings. Every Liberal in the House but one voted against the bill as widow Shelly Wynn sat in the gallery, tears streaming down her face. Her police officer husband was killed by a career criminal who’d been granted bail. Neither his criminal record nor his pending charges were revealed at that bail hearing.
  2. FLIGHTS OF FANCY: During the election campaign, the Liberals promised to hold an “open and transparent competition” to replace Canada’s CF-18 fighter jets excluding the Lockheed Martin F-35 Stealth. The Liberals later said it had to address a “capability gap” in our forces by making an interim purchase of 18 Super Hornets from Boeing. But now it’s backing away from that pledge after Boeing complained that Bombardier Inc. is getting an edge in the aviation industry due to unfair government subsidies. 
  3. OFF BASE: Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan lost all credibility with those in the Canadian Armed Forces when he falsely claimed to be the “architect” of Operation Medusa – a major anti-Taliban offensive in Afghanistan. Despite repeated calls for him to step down, Trudeau kept the disgraced minister on the job.
  4. PARTISAN POLITICS: After huge Opposition backlash, Liberals had to back down from appointing Madeleine Meilleur as the non-partisan official languages commissioner. Meilleur, a life-long Liberal, is extremely partisan.
  5. CLEARLY FALSE: During the election campaign Liberals promised to be more open and transparent than the previous government. But a scathing June report by Parliament’s information commissioner Suzanne Legault lashed the Liberal government for its lack of transparency. Indeed Legault said the Access to Information Act “is being used as a shield against transparency.”
  6. DON’T COUNT ON IT: Despite promising to run a deficit of “only” $10 billion for two years and to balance the budget by 2019, Liberals proposed a $28.5-billion deficit in its latest budget and the prime minister now refuses to say when, if ever, we’ll have a balanced budget. Canada’s youth will be stuck paying off the tab.
  7. POSTHASTE: Justin Trudeau repeatedly promised 2015 would be the last election where people are elected in a first-past-the-post system. But the Liberals ditched that controversial promise after the Conservative Opposition argued such a radical change shouldn’t take place without a national referendum.
  8. CASH FOR ACCESS: Liberals were rightly slammed for months when it was revealed they’d been holding scores of fundraisers that gave private access to cabinet ministers and the prime minister. Those raised questions from Canada’s ethics commissioner and were a violation of the Liberals’ own “Open and Accountable Government” rules.
  9. ETHICAL LAPSES: The prime minister has breached House of Commons ethics rules by taking a trip on a private helicopter to visit a billionaire family friend. Canada’s ethics commissioner launched a formal probe into the affair but Trudeau has repeatedly refused to say how often, if at all, he has met with the commissioner.
  10. HEAVY HANDED: Liberals tried ramming through unilateral changes to the way Canada’s Parliament operates, including ending Friday Question Period and proposing a single day when the prime minister would answer all questions in Question Period. After much opposition and public outcry they backed down on many of those changes.
  11. CRIPPLING CARBON TAX: The Liberals are imposing a national carbon tax despite critics saying it will kill jobs and hurt the economy especially since the U.S.A. has no plans to have such a levy.
  12. TAX THIS: The Liberals have raised a slew of taxes on just about everything, most recently on beer, wine and Uber rides.

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