Stephen Harper’s prima facie guilt

Stephen Harper didn’t leave much open for interpretation when he confessed that:

"But the, uh, of the offer to Chuck [Cadman] was that it was only to replace, uh, financial, uh, considerations, he might lose due to an election."

This is a clear acknowledgement that Stephen Harper had first hand knowledge that an attempt had been made by his party to influence Chuck Cadman’s vote in Parliament with financial inducements.

Any lingering doubt about the occurrence of such an event was eliminated by corroborating statements of Chuck Cadman’s wife, daughter and son-in-law.

Such an event, that goes without thorough investigation and punishment is intolerable. Meanwhile it needs to be acknowledged that the level of corruption in any society is a direct function of that society’s tolerance for corruption.

Is it the wish of Canadian people that their elected officials be subjected to bribes, and that those who proffer the bribes be exempt from the criminal laws that prohibit such subversive activity?

This tolerance for bribery was, in fact, Stephen Harper’s initial knee jerk reaction when the Mulroney-Schreiber scandal first broke and when he stated:

“This [public inquiry route] is not a route that I want to go down, and I don’t think that if the Liberal Party thought twice about it, it is a power they would want to give me.”

This statement was nothing more that a public statement that Canada should be acceptant of the type of conduct exhibited by Brian Mulroney concerning the acceptance of cash payments while in office, and no doubt Stephen Harper would advocate that such a laissez faire attitude should also apply to the Conservative Party’s failed attempt to bribe Chuck Cadman.

The essence of Harper’s argument was that the Liberals too, should see value in keeping these scandals from seeing the light of day.

Except, that clearly wasn’t what occurred with the Cadman scandal. The Liberals went after this issue in a manner that serves Canadians’ best interests and in preserving our institutions like Parliament.

Therefore the key strategy for Harper was to raise the stakes, whereby the Liberals would see value in being “hushed” or in becoming “self censored” Hence the lawsuit that was launched by the Conservative’s against the Liberals, ostensibly to clear Harper’s good name.

This lawsuit served to keep the contents of this scandal out of the last election. The prospect of ongoing legal costs to be borne by the Liberals in defending themselves against this frivolous lawsuit seems to have worked, because they have now agreed to settle the case, by simply dropping the case.

Meanwhile there was much more evidence in the form of email correspondence and other testimony that would have corroborated the guilt or innocence of Stephen Harper, Doug Finlay, and Tom Flanagan, that may never see the light of day.

Now Harper has rationalized his dropping of the case on the basis that Stephen Dion is no longer the leader of the Liberal Party. Strange rationale, since the lawsuit was a lawsuit against the Liberal Party and not Stephen Dion per se, and how does Stephane Dion’s new role serve to protect Harper’s good name against the charges of bribery? What became of Harper’s righteous indignation now that he has dropped the lawsuit, as those charges against his "good" name remain unresolved and inconclusive?

The unresolved and unpunished nature of these self-confessed bribery events admitted to by our Prime Minister, is wholly unacceptable to me and should be wholly unacceptable to all Canadians.

The RCMP needs to thoroughly investigate this matter. Failure to do so will simply mean that Harper has succeeded in raising Canadians’ level of tolerance for corruption by their elected officials to levels in keeping of some third world dictatorship My, what a legacy that is?

A legacy that can only be brought about by a crooked politician and the passivity of Canadians. It's your choice to do something or to do nothing. To be tolerant of corruption or to be intolerant of corruption. I choose the latter by expressing my outrage in this blog. What do you intend to do?