More Con Lies

Transparency. Accountability. Horseshit.

Harper's Cons promised oversight. Sandy Crux blindly trumpets it. Liars.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his cabinet have exempted contracts with Parliament and Canada's spy agency from oversight by a new ombudsman's post that was central to the 2006 Conservative election campaign.

The government slipped the exemptions through last week in regulations that empower the contract procurement ombudsman under the Accountability Act -- flagship legislation the government introduced as its first bill soon after taking office.

What a fucking achievement! Of course, having been sold a bill of goods, the witless drones will clap like happy fools and regurgitate their talking points. Because yes means no and up is down in Happy Harper's Funpark of Fibbin'.

Opposition MPs were taken by surprise at the exemptions, saying they were unaware the Senate, the House of Commons and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service would be excluded from the ombudsman's statutory duty to review contracts for "fairness, openness and transparency."

The exemptions also mean anyone who has a complaint about contracts to supply goods or services to Parliament -- including contracts with offices of MPs, senators or CSIS, will be unable to have them reviewed by the ombudsman.

One wonders when the terminally stunned morons, um, I mean Conservative Party of Canada base, will wake up to the fact that their heroes are operating business as usual. The oblivious cheerleaders like Crux seem willing to swallow each new lie, twist and scandal as though it were a refreshing treat. There is nothing so sad as the willfully stupid and the eagerly blind.

Harper's anger over the opposition's refusal to endorse his nomination of a friend and party supporter, Calgary oil baron Gwyn Morgan, as head of a new commission for federal appointments has led to the prime minister's refusal to put the commission in place to independently screen cabinet appointments to government posts.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has been under opposition attack after his former chief of staff, who went on to a government appointment, broke government tendering rules when he awarded a well-connected Tory an untendered $122,000 contract to write the 2007 budget speech.

The government has also come under fire for eliminating a database containing a massive historical list of government documents that have been released under the Access to Information Act. The data base had been widely used by academics, researchers and journalists.

The contract-oversight regulations say the ombudsman "shall not'' perform the duties and functions of his office in regard to contracts with "the Canadian Security Intelligence Service; and the staff of the Senate and the House of Commons.''  Those are the only exemptions listed in the regulations.

And on it goes, the grim march of lies that are, in a few short years, challenging the echoes of corruption and entitlement assumed by the rightly maligned Liberals of yore. I'd call for an election but until the Liberals either grow spines and quit the role of enablers, there's no point. This era will pass as a dark stain on Canada's political history. If the choice is bold liars or cowardly liars, I choose neither.