Notwithstanding his failed attempt with Chuck Cadman, Harper did succeed in corrupting Canada’s Parliament

By his own admission, Stephen Harper had prior knowledge and therefore involvement in his party’s attempts to bribe Independent MP Chuck Cadman to vote with the Conservatives in 2005 to bring down the Martin Liberals.

This is a criminal code violation as it represents an attempt to corrupt the Parliament of Canada, the very cradle of our democracy.

Stephen Harper has shown other examples of his utter disdain for democracy and his “win at all costs” brand of “leadership”. I use that term lightly. Two widely publicised and/or far reaching examples are of note.

The first incident involved the 200 page manual that had been written by the Conservatives and provided to every Chairperson of a Parliamentary Committee, all of whom were Conservatives.

The purpose of this manual was to advise these Committee Chairpersons on the various strategies and tactics whereby these committee could be rendered less democratic and less effective for the opposition parties, in light of the fact that the Conservatives were only a minority party and the opposition parties collectively represented the majority of Canadian voters.

The purpose of the manual was to subvert Canada’s democratically elected members of Parliament in the committee where they had their greatest opportunity for influence.

The second incident involves the corruption and fraud known as the income trust tax. Do you think it is appropriate for the 308 members of Parliament to be voting on a fra reaching tax measure that asserts certain conditions exist, and yet parliament is offered no such tangible proof that such conditions exist? And yet the conditions that are alleged to exist are infinitely determinable? Sort of like: "Just the facts, mam"

Except Canadians have been denied any facts from the Harper Government or the Department of Finance on this matter.

Their best defense so far has been from Brian Ernwein, a senior Finance official who testified before Parliament: “I guess if we were incompetent, we wouldn’t admit to it.”

That said, I guess Canadians would have to be completely complacent and comatose to accept this as a suitable response. Ditto for the 18 pages of blacked out documents.

Meanwhile this unproven trust tax has caused the takeovers of $65 billion in Canadian Companies , including BCE. These takeovers alone have caused the permanent loss of $1.4 billion in annual taxes. To solve an alleged problem of $500 million a year ion list taxes.

Meanwhile there is no proof. As such, Parliament had been hijacked. Stephen Harper has been successful in hijacking Canada’s Parliament for those extremely narrow interests who are well served by killing income trusts: Foreign Private Equity, Foreign Big Oil, and Canada’s Big LifeCos. They have as their spokesman people like John Manley. Lawyer hypocrite for hire.

Meanwhile all we need are the facts and not statements of hypocrisy from people like John Manley or Jack Mintz or other lesser lights of highly questionable professional qualifications.

In order that Canada’s democracy not be hijacked, we need to heed the call of the Green Party for a public inquiry into alleged tax leakage, and/or the Auditor General needs to do her job as called upon to do so by Parliament and formally by the Liberal Party of Canada, just yesterday

Since when did we disregard what is core to democracy as enunciated by the Auditor General: “Parliamentarians need objective fact based information on how well the Government raises its funds (taxes).”

Still waiting to hear whether the NDP and Bloc think this way as well.

Failing which they will have succeeded in allowing themselves to be corrupted by Harper.

And making them his partners in crime.