Uh, yeah, the above would be the G20 peepee scandal…
What amazes me about the mini-scandals that beset the Conservatives every so often is that they don’t seem to have very much impact, if at all, on their polling fortunes. As Aaron Wherry wrote in Macleans today, “if making a spectacle of oneself were a fireable offence, Mr. Harper would be without much of his cabinet.” I’m far from a Wherry fan, but sometimes something is funny because it’s true.
Think about it. Of all the members of cabinet who have, at one time or another, made quite the parliamentary debacle, the Conservatives seem unaffected. Look at the latest polling numbers. Today’s Harris Decima survey suggests the party has a 10-point lead on the floundering Liberals. Yesterday, Ipsos Reid gave them a 14-point lead.
Time after time, despite the little setbacks on Team Harper, the big blue machine powers on. Let’s look back over the past five years at the “spectacles”:
Peter MacKay
The whopper of all mini-scandals, Peter MacKay was at the center of the so-called contrived “Afghan detainee abuse scandal.” At the heart of this issue was the question of whether the defence minister knowingly sent Afghan detainees into custody where there was a possibility of there not being high-speed internet service. [Actually, the allegations were that these detainees were being roughed up with shoes and other blunt instruments. MacKay later admitted "there were deficiencies in the arrangement of how we transfer detainees" and overhauled the previous agreement in 2007]
Bonus points for surviving the Belinda Stronach breakup. Woof!
Jason Kenney
The immigration minister’s claim to fame was the alleged ministerial interference in the 2009 decision of the Canada Border Services Agency to bar British MP George Galloway from coming to Ontario, British Columbia and Québec, where he planned to give a series of speeches promoting Palestinian causes. The CBSA denied Galloway’s entry on the grounds of national security for his open financial support of Hamas, a banned terrorist organization. Despite the heated rhetoric, Galloway was able to visit Canada in 2010 without much ado, ironically following a heinous incident in which rightwing commentator Ann Coulter was blocked from speaking at the University of Ottawa by loudmouthed and angry leftwing activists.
Bonus points for ignoring the smear that he had personally excised information about same-sex marriage legalization and the decriminalization of homosexuality in the new Citizenship and Immigration study guide for immigrants.
Tony Clement
Fake lake! Fake lake! Nobody could forget that one last summer, when the press got wind of Clement’s reflecting pool, the media practically made it trend on Twitter overnight. As it turns out the fake lake cost a mere $57,000, or slightly less than the costs from the G8/20.
Bonus points for refusing to fund heroin addiction with taxpayer dollars, despite the avarice from the left.
Gerald Keddy
There’s not much say beyond this:
Lawrence Cannon
This one I’m actually not too happy about, though it didn’t seem to really resonate with Canadians that much. Cannon refused to provide an emergency passport to Canadian Abousfian Abdelrazik, who had been stranded in Sudan for six years, despite it being clearly unconstitutional. Abdelrazik sued Cannon for $3-million upon his return to Canada, alleging misfeaseance in public office, intentional infliction of mental suffering and violation of his Charter rights. He has a good chance to win the money if a previous ruling by Justice Zinn of the Federal Court is any indication:
“Had it been necessary to determine whether the breach was done in bad faith, I would have had no hesitation making that finding on the basis of the record before me.”
Jim Flaherty
Scandals? Maybe not. But promising not to run a deficit in the 2008 election and then adding $169 billion worth of debt by 2015 is, I think you will agree, huge chutzpah.
Oh, and the income trust reversal is a bonus mark.
Pierre Poilievre
In May 2009 Poilievre was accused of having used the term “tar baby” in the House of Commons knowing the slang reference of the word to mean an epithet for black people. In fact, Poilievre was referring to a policy of carbon taxation that Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff was proposing.
Jean-Pierre Blackburn
The Jonquière MP was thoroughly interrogated in the House of Commons by Liberal MP Wayne Easter over an alleged incident that took place on Feb. 23, 2010 in an Ottawa airport. Blackburn, apparently, had wanted to bring a bottled of Tequila onto an aircraft, but it contravened Transport Canada security regulations. While Conservative-haters ran with the allegation that he had caused a scene, most Canadians who have actually been through airport “security” fully sympathized.
Rona Ambrose
The former environment minister was the first cabinet minister to walk through the Kyoto ring of fire, and though she survived the burning heat from tar-sands screaming lunatics for a full year, Harper shuffled her out of the portfolio in 2007.
Bonus points for quietly reemerging as one of the most influential and dependable members of cabinet, taking on Helena Guergis’s role after she was booted from the caucus for reasons yet unexplained.
Bev Oda
Moving right along…
Lisa Raitt
The former minister of natural resources can thank the incompetence of former aide Jasmine MacDonnell, who accidentally taped Raitt calling isotopes “sexy” and then left the tape in a CTV News Ottawa office for a week before the media finally felt obligated to run the story.
Though moved to the lower profile Labour Ministry, bonus points to Raitt for surviving the incident, and I think everybody can be grateful she unseated the bloviating Garth Turner in Milton.
Gerry Ritz
Briefly ran into trouble when he said on August 30, 2008, in response to the listeriosis outbreak “this is like a death by a thousand cuts. Or should I say cold cuts.” And when told of a death in Prince Edward Island, Ritz said, “Please tell me it’s (Liberal MP) Wayne Easter.” Though he apologized for the insensitive remarks, some of us secretly guffawed for the Easter crack.
Dona Cadman
She’s mainly in this list because of Cadmangate, or whatever the hell they were calling it, the controversy surrounded allegations she made about her late husband Chuck Cadman. He had reportedly told her prior to a crucial vote in the House of Commons that two Conservative Party officials offered a bribe in exchange for his vote to bring down the Liberal government in May 2005.
Though the story had legs for a while, it was finished in March 2008 when Dona Cadman herself stated publicly she believed Harper when he denied any bribe was proffered.
Maxime Bernier
What list would be complete without Mad Max’s wild crash and burn with former girlfriend Julie Couillard? Although it was initially revealed that Couillard had previous ties to the Hells Angels bike gang without too much incident, the guano really hit the rotisserie when Bernier admitted he had left sensitive briefing notes for an upcoming NATO meeting at Couillard’s house after breaking up with her. Foreign Affairs was completely unaware of the missing papers for a full five weeks.
Despite this setback, Bernier has reemerged as one of the most influentially vocal advocates for fiscal conservatism in the Conservative Party.
If I’ve forgotten any “scandals”, and of course I’ve omitted Stephen Harper in the interests of keeping this below 10,000 words, I’m sure you can add them in the comments.
Funny post.
I was impressed with the relentless scandal au jour supported by the MSM as newsworthy. The upside: It has gone a long way in discrediting the media as objective.
Hudson Bay-gate with Liberals suggesting the letter “C” for Canada resembled the Conservative logo too closely.
You forgot Wafergate !, the CBC and Star especially, love to highlight Conservative scandals, interesting to see how they treat the Liberals if they ever get back into power.
A critical budget is coming next month. This will be forgotten about just like all the rest.
The only scandal Canadians care about is THEFT of taxpayers money. The Liberals hold that gem all on their own.
If female MP’s got black marks for “Screaming” in QP, it would be the Liberal females….
Check out the faces of the Liberal party in QP…they all have a slimey skeleton in their closet….
then look at the Conservatives in QP….clean cut and honest, just trying to do their jobs.
Reeves:
Don’t even go there, as hopefully the Libs will be a long time in the political wilderness along with the Dippers.
The governing party is consistently under the microscope when they are the “Big Kahuna.” A Herculean effort is required to continuously bob and weave your way through a political jungle on a 24/7 basis which is unforgiving and harshly cruel should you foul up.
Apparently, this is the never-ending task of the official opposition, rather than accomplishing something as simple as assisting with the day-to-day governing of the nation.
Does it ever get any better? The mean spiritedness of all parties combined appears to embrace the status quo, so it is not expected to improve anytime soon in my books.
Just another gotcha minute assisted by the usual MSM suspects.
E Mac
I think the reason it doesn’t dent the Conservative’s polling numbers is because, by and large, people understand these are ramped up, spun out of control media events designed to sell papers and prop up their Liberal friends. In addition, when you place any of these beside the outright corruption and dissapearance of billions of tax dollars under the Chretien Liberals, people believe this is small potatos – most of which are a natural result of good intentions going bad.
You forgot James Moore supposedly looking at “porn” in the House.
But the reason nothing sticks is that for the most part these are all contrived smears, and most Canadians have enough common-sense to see through them. Fortunately, the Liberals still believe the “big one” is out there, so they keep crying “wolf!” again, and again and again and again ….
The scandal of the week is just white noise coming from an opposition and their Libluvin media.
What Canadians see is the Opps lining up with special interest groups and activists.
Human rights activists – the Opps drag our military thru the mud trying to prove our brave soldiers are war criminals.
The Charter knows best – no refugee should be turned away; immigrants have the right to change Canadian society; if you have are born in Canada it doesn’t matter where in the world you reside, you should be rescued from flood, war and prison; criminals have human rights not victims…etc etc etc
Foriegn countries – Iffy and gang line up with the UAE, Iffy and former diplomats say Canada doesn’t deserve a seat on the UN Sec C, and Canada should bend over and let 2 foriegn govt funded airlines take over our airspace.
The Opposition keeps making a stink about it and on CTV there seems to be another screaming headline showing Iggy or Jack Layton in full outrage mode but reading the comments following the article on the CTV web site it looks like 5 to 1 negative about the importance of the story and a low percentage of support for the Opposition and CTV’s credibility.
Overlooking the merits or lack of merits of the case, for or against Bev Oda, and I can argue it both ways, it seems at least based on the comments that it’s harming the credibility of the Opposition and MSM more than it’s harming the Conservatives !
If you already hate the Conservatives and Harper, it just confirms your negative views, but is it changing the minds of the soft mushy middle swing voters or are they not even paying attention ? It certainly won’t affect the vote of committed Conservative voters I think !
A year ago, and 50 mini scandals before this, It might have concerned me or raised my blood pressure but all the ” crying wolf ” and same old same old from the Opposition is just getting ” boring ” and these storms in a tea pot don’t seem to change much except give the Opposition something to scream about hoping to change the polls !
In fact the mini scandals seem to have the opposite effect of causing harm: the public realizes that the Liberals watch every move and don’t let anything go by, thus small problems indicate a clean government for the most part. (real conservative)