Friday, March 25, 2011

Harper charged with CONTEMPT, four years after the fact


Today a motion of being in contempt of Parliament (ergo the Canadian people) was brought against Stephen Harper by the Liberals.

Stephen Harper's first act of contempt against the Canadian people and against the precepts of democracy was his patent lie that income trusts cause tax leakage, which was nothing more than an artifice argument that he employed to get out from under his explicit election promise in 2006 to "never tax income trusts". Instead the contemptuous Stephen Harper double-taxed income trusts.

The need to get out from under this explicit promise to the Canadian electorate arose from the fact that once Harper got into office Harper was more concerned about appeasing the wishes of Canadians CEOs who wanted to kill income trusts for their nefarious reasons than he was about honouring his promises and election campaign commitments.

To achieve that end the inherently dishonest Stephen Harper came up with the bogus argument that income trusts cause tax leakage. This argument, as facile as it was, was successfully in duping about 99% of Canadian media (including the CBC, Globe and Mail, National Post, etc, etc.) along with virtually every one of the 308 Members of Parliament who were elected to represent the people and uphold the standards of Parliamentary democracy by demanding proof for such allegations. All Harper ever produced as evidence for this claim of tax leakage was 18 pages of blacked out documents, citing National Security as his reasons for not revealing the analysis that underlay these blacked out documents. As absurd as the argument of National Security was, and as absurd and untrue as the claim of tax leakage was, Canada's Parliament with the support of the NDP and the Bloc ushered in a tax policy that had no factual underpinnings to it whatsoever and that caused Canadians to lose $35 billion in the value of their hard earned retirement savings and a policy which saw a wave of foreign takeovers of devalued trusts, with the result that real tax leakage was caused to the tune of $1 billion a year!

So where was Canada's media and Members of Parliament when this fraudulent act was going down? Where were the cries of Contempt for Parliament when Harper was able to psin his lies about tax leakage by employing black out documents as his proof for the lame brains in Parliament? Lame brains like Jack Layton, Judy Wasylycia-Leis, Pat Martin and Thomas Mulcair? Lame brains like Diane Ablonczy, Dean Del Mastro and Riok Dykstra? Lame brains in the media from A to Z? From the CBC to the Globe and Mail? Where were those cries of contempt? Why were income trust investors the only ones concerned about Parliamentary due process, accountability, transparency and the effects that Harper was having on our democracy. That was over four years ago that we first raised these issues and forewarned people about where such conduct was sure to lead.

It has only taken the rest of Canada including our media and elected representatives four years to catch up to us. Well done. NOT.

And why did it take Michael Ignatieff over four years to utter these words and actually act upon them for once?

"You have spoken, Mr. Speaker. The committee has spoken, and now the House must speak with a clear voice," Ignatieff told the Commons today.

"And it must say that a government that breaks the rules and conceals facts from the Canadian people does not deserve to remain in office."

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Brent,
The difference between then and now is that then the whole House was in contempt of the truth. They bot Flaherty's lies and blacked-out documents because they all heeded the insurance companies and power-brokers over and above ordinary Canadians.

Anyway I hope Harper survives for awhile because Canadians have not been punished enough for keeping him in power.

KL

Dr Mike said...

As contemptuous as the deed behind the trust tax was , we were nothing more than lambs at the slaughter. It was said that we had no constituency & they were right as we were left swinging in the wind on our own.

Not only did a lot of hopes & dreams of ordinary Canadians die that day , but so did democracy. It was the beginning of the end.

So now what do we have to look forward to down the road , 4 more years of Harper.

Heaven help us all.

Dr Mike Popovich

Anonymous said...

Flahertys next vacation

http://www.fin.gc.ca/n11/11-032_1-eng.asp

Bruce Benson said...

Brent your summation is right on the mark as usual. Additionally the CCCE lobbied and was successful in killing Income Trusts. Assisting this dastardly deed was the Press. Since the Press is owned by the CCCE, connect the dots. Therefore the Press insured that the ignorant were kept ignorant and Harper and Flaherty’s lies went unchallenged by the Canadian public. Damn, can’t have any of that tax leakage. Pretty slick eh!