Lies, damned lies, and Harper's 2006 election campaign platform

Here's a link to the CONs 2006 Election Campaign Platform entitled: “Stand Up for Canada”.

Today, that same platform would probably be entitled “Stand up or get off the pot, Canada”, as Harper’s New Government is a government of bluster and daily ultimatums.

Harper’s New Government most certainly isn’t a government of accountability or transparency, as promised on page 8. Apart from 18 pages of blacked out documents in support of the government’s allegation of tax leakage, we certainly didn’t get :”People who work hard, pay their taxes, and play by the rules want accountability from their political leaders. We don’t expect politicians to be perfect. But we do want to know that our tax dollars – money we’ve worked for – are being spent properly and wisely.”

Hey, the false construct known as tax leakage is borne out of the fact that the government doesn’t acknowledge the TAXES paid on the 38% of income rusts held in RRSPs. If not, then why do we pay them in the first place? So that they can be ignored which forms the basis of policies that are regressive to RRSPs and the 70% of Canadians saving for retirement who, unlike the politicians and bureaucrats themselves, don’t have pensions?

Nor is Harper’s New Government the government who thought it unwise and unjust to raid seniors nest eggs in the Section entitled “Security for Seniors” on page 32 where they shamelessly exploited “The Liberal track record for Canadian seniors is a sad story of unfair taxation, poor government services, and now an inexcusable policy blunder that has destroyed the retirement savings of Canadians invested in income trusts.” That’s only wrong on both accounts, as the Liberals didn’t destroy anything in the end, and the CONs were soon going to destroy the entire income trust market after they broke their campaign promise on page 32 that read “Stop the Liberal attack on retirement savings and preserve income trusts by not imposing any new taxes on them.”

What could be clearer than that?

Harper’s New Government also broke their promise of: “ Protect the integrity of the CPP investment fund to stop politicians from raiding it to balance the budget” on two accounts, since the CPP has lost $158 million year to date on their income trust portfolio and Flaherty actually deducted the full value of the assets of the CPP against the federal debt when he proclaimed that Canada’s debt would be paid off by 2010.

If that ain’t raiding then what is raiding?

Then there was the promise/lie contained on page 43 that read: “timely compensation will be paid to all persons who are deprived of personal or private property as a result of any federal government initiative, policy, process, regulation, or legislation.”

If that’s the case, then we’re still waiting for our $35 billion cheque. Is it in the mail?

There are no end to the other lies in Harper’s 46 page manual in How to deceive the public, but I will let you find them on your own. This document was a precursor to Harper’s 200 page How to obstruct Parliament manual

No doubt you have some personal favorites of your own from this CON election manual of just how Harper promised he would Stand up for Canadians. Enjoy