Caught on Tape: Conservatives tried to Buy a Dying MP’s Vote

The Harper Conservatives who love to talk about the Liberal’s lack of ethics, have been recently caught with their pants down so to speak, in a little influence pedaling of their own. A book about the life of Independent MP Chuck Cadman revealed that members of the Conservative party tried to convince him to vote against the Liberal party in a key confidence vote in 2005 by offering him a one million dollar insurance policy. Mr Cadman refused the offer but discussed it with his wife and daughter before his death.

How did the Prime Minister Harper respond to the charge? - By lying of course and saying that there was "absolutely no truth" to the allegations. He promptly denied any such offer to Mr Cadman. Too bad for Stephen that he had admitted to the scheme in a taped interview to the author of the book. Oops, denial didn’t work - so the Conservative are now saying that the insurance policy was a way of recruiting him into the party.

Mr. Harper, do you really think the Canadian public is so dense as to fall for such a flimsy cover story? We are not your Cabinet. You cannot simply crack the whip and we will say “Yes Sir, of course Sir how silly of us to question you!”

Reference: Cadman's daughter backs up mom's bribe story

Conservative Bill Takes Small Sneaky Step Towards Re-Criminalizing Abortion

The “Unborn Victims of Crime Act”, seeks to amend the Criminal Code to allow separate homicide charges to be laid in the death of a fetus when a pregnant woman is attacked. Currently a fetus is not considered a person under the law until it exits the birth canal alive. The bill tries to amend Part VIII of the Criminal Code, “Offences Against the Person and Reputation”; however, the fetus is not a legal person and cannot rightly fall under this section.

This bill takes the focus from the real issue which is violence against pregnant women and places focus on the victim's fetus. The bill does not protect women, only fetuses and similar laws in the U.S. have resulted in the pregnant woman being charged with a crime against her unborn child rather than addressing the issue of violence against women. A better approach would be to place harsher penalties on persons that attack pregnant women.

Since the focus of the bill is on the "murder" of fetuses and provides no protection for the mother, it is reasonable to suspect that the real intent of the bill is to give fetuses personhood and thereby criminalize abortion.

Bill C-484 was introduced in Parliament on December 13th, 2007 and is projected to be coming up for its second hour of debate on February 29th, 2008.

Oppose amemdments to Canada Grain Act

Canada's "open and transparent" government has gaged yet another group of its employees by threatening them with discipline. The employees of the Canadian Grain Commission are seeking help to oppose Bill C-39.

In the early 1900s, grain farmers in Canada were at the mercy of the grain companies who often had monopolies that offered "take-it-or-leave-it" prices to farmers. The creation of the Canadian Grain Commission was a direct response to this abuse.

"The proposed changes will decimate long standing Grain regulations and lay off [the employees] who enforce the regulations that protect Canadian Grain farmers and their families," said Bob Kingston, the First Executive Vice-President of the Agriculture Union, a PSAC Component. "What is really ironic and deeply disturbing about this proposed legislation is that it eliminates the protections for farmers from multinational corporations that the Act was originally designed to do while leaving the the rights and privileges of those corporations completely untouched." More...