Stephen Harper demonstrates poor judgment. Lacks ethics.

There were far too many in the press who were willing to grant to Stephen Harper some grand stature as a great political strategist.

These journalists have been proven utterly wrong by virtue of their own wishful thinking and by subsequent events, which are getting more difficult by the day to ignore.

The cumulative impact of Stephen Harper’s poor judgment is making it increasingly embarrassing for all Canadians. Take four recent events:

Not long ago. Stephen Harper in his great wisdom thought he would change Canada’s long standing policy of seeking clemency for Canadians facing death sentences abroad. In September 2008, Stephen Harper failed to seek clemency for Ronald Smith who is awaiting execution by lethal injection in a US jail. By failing to maintain Canada’s long standing tradition of seeking clemency in such situations, Harper has handed a virtual death sentence to a young Canadian man sentenced to death this week in Saudi Arabia. That death will be by beheading.

This episode alone, shows profoundly poor judgment on Stephen Harper’s part and no regard for the consequences of his dogmatic and ideologically-blinded decision making

Another recent example is Harper’s meddling in the US elections and his attempts to discredit Barack Obama in the eyes of US voters over the matter of Obama’s concerns with NAFTA. Again this shows incredibly poor judgment and disregard for the unintended consequences. Canada meddling in a US election? Meanwhile Harper’s utter disregard for due process, means that he is only willing to investigate one of the two leaks that cause this diplomatic disaster show. I wonder why?

Which leads us to Stephen Harper’s ethics, or lack thereof, and the Cadman Scandal, How much doubt is left in Canadians’ minds with the following interchange:

"The insurance policy for a million dollars, do you know anything about that?" Zytaruk asks.

"I don't know the details. I know that there were discussions," Harper replies on the tape. "This is not for publication?"

As such, my thesis becomes the following: Stephen Harper is a person of low ethical standing and unscrupulous means. Furthermore he has little regard for the consequences of his actions. This was abundantly obvious to anyone who was around on October 31, 2006 when Stephen Harper broke his solemn election promise to “never raid seniors nest eggs” by taxing income trusts. He did exactly that nine months later. Even worse than his lie-proper, was his false justification for doing so. Meanwhile this issue still dogs him to this very day. The reason? People work hard for their money. Stephen Harper is a fraud.

Prove the case or drop the tax.