Huge corruption scandal rocks Canadian gov't...

Ma Deuce · Post by **Ma Deuce** » 2004-02-11 11:31am

As the Canadian members of the board are no doubt aware, the Auditor General has released a report detailing a huge Liberal Party sponsorship program, involving the misuse of $250 million of Canadian taxpayer dollars by Jean Chretien's government between 1997 and 2001. This is looking to be the biggest corruption scandal in the history of Canadian politics. Now, just add that to the $161 million that the Federal Government supposedly gave to Paul Martin's former company, Canada Steamship Lines, and the Liberal Party is up to it's neck in deep (corrupt) shit...

Real All About it...

The Dude · Post by **The Dude** » 2004-02-11 11:42am

The sad thing is, they'll still breeze through this year's election with a majority, 'cause the opposition parties are a joke.

Montcalm · Post by **Montcalm** » 2004-02-11 11:49am

The Dude wrote:The sad thing is, they'll still breeze through this year's election with a majority, 'cause the opposition parties are a joke.

What worries me is with all that shit the Bloc Quebecois may be the official opposition again,or worse its leader Gilles Duceppe could become Prime Minister of Canada

Burak Gazan · Post by **Burak Gazan** » 2004-02-11 01:06pm

Well, imagine that......the miserable scumbag was giving money to "his" shipping company - oh wait, it's run by his kid.

The sad part is, that people in the marine industry have been saying there was something fishy going on with CSL being able to build all their new forebodies, plus acquiring additional hulls for YEARS

while the other 2 major shipping companies have been scrapping units and losing business.
Whats really sad is it probably wont make a damn bit of difference unless the voters get their heads unscrewed and kick the miserable bastards out

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-02-11 01:08pm

Liberal party corruption is no secret. Just look at the money that's poured into Shawinigan, Quebec (Chretien's hometown, for all you American readers). The problem is ... who else are you going to vote for? The new Conservative party, aka the Canadian Republican Party? The fucking New Democrats, aka the Communist Party?

The Dude · Post by **The Dude** » 2004-02-11 03:32pm

Montcalm wrote:What worries me is with all that shit the Bloc Quebecois may be the official opposition again,or worse its leader Gilles Duceppe could become Prime Minister of Canada

It's extremely unlikely that the BQ will even get a majority of seats in Quebec (probably more like 20-30 out of 75). The fact that the Liberal party has been fucking taxpayers nationwide in order to funnel money to cronies in Quebec will NOT hurt them here in the least.

The Conservatives will probably only get 50-60 and the NDP 10-15, leaving 200 (!) seats for the Libs, no sweat.

I would disagree with the idea that Canada's Conservative party bears much resemblance to the Republicans; if you looked at their policies on a point-by-point basis, they're more like center/left by American standards.

Ma Deuce · Post by **Ma Deuce** » 2004-02-11 08:15pm

Burak Gazan wrote:Whats really sad is it probably wont make a damn bit of difference unless the voters get their heads unscrewed and kick the miserable bastards out

I would not hold my breath at that one

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It seems now the Liberal Party has become to Canada what the Institutional Revolutionary Party was to Mexico (Yes, they are out of power now, but they were the only major political party there for about 75 years). Hard to believe now that Canada used to have a viable two-party system...

Darth Wong wrote:Liberal party corruption is no secret. Just look at the money that's poured into Shawinigan, Quebec (Chretien's hometown, for all you American readers). The problem is ... who else are you going to vote for? The new Conservative party, aka the Canadian Republican Party? The fucking New Democrats, aka the Communist Party?

Don't you just love Canadian politics (or rather what Canadian politics became a decade ago)

.
I've only voted in a "major" election once (the Ontario provincial election), and the only choices for Premier were the sleazebag incumbant Ernie Eves, and the challanger and eventual winner, Dalton MacGuinty (who my fears about have now proven correct), and now these are the choices I'm going to have to face in the federal election!? Fuckit, I might as well stay home, because I would never, ever vote for the federal Liberals, especially after this...

Speaking of all the money funneling into Shawinigan, I'm sure you've noticed the return address on your income tax statements?

The Dude wrote:The Conservatives will probably only get 50-60 and the NDP 10-15, leaving 200 (!) seats for the Libs, no sweat.

Shit. If you turn out to be correct, then Parliament goes back to what it became after Chretien's '93 landslide: The Prime Minister's personal rubber-stamp committee...

J · Post by J » 2004-02-11 09:32pm

Ma Deuce wrote:I've only voted in a "major" election once (the Ontario provincial election), and the only choices for Premier were the sleazebag incumbant Ernie Eves, and the challanger and eventual winner, Dalton MacGuinty (who my fears about have now proven correct), and now these are the choices I'm going to have to face in the federal election!?

On a slight aside, don't you just love Dalton MacGuinty? He's got to be the most incompetant jackass ever, and not only that he's also a blithering idiot and lying shithead. I would honestly have taken Ernie Eves over him, in fact I did vote for the Conservatives this past election. At least they're not going to run the province into the ground and piss everyone off, but no, the damn sheep vote for MacGuinty. I swear to god this guy's gonna be worse than Bob Rae.

Stuart Mackey · Post by **Stuart Mackey** » 2004-02-11 09:41pm

Does Canada not have corruption laws? or at least a serious fraud office?

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2004-02-11 09:59pm

The Dude wrote:The sad thing is, they'll still breeze through this year's election with a majority, 'cause the opposition parties are a joke.

*sigh* Just like here in Australia... like Kent Brockman says, democracy simply doesn't work (sometimes)

Ma Deuce · Post by **Ma Deuce** » 2004-02-11 10:13pm

jmac wrote:
Ma Deuce wrote:I've only voted in a "major" election once (the Ontario provincial election), and the only choices for Premier were the sleazebag incumbant Ernie Eves, and the challanger and eventual winner, Dalton MacGuinty (who my fears about have now proven correct), and now these are the choices I'm going to have to face in the federal election!?
On a slight aside, don't you just love Dalton MacGuinty? He's got to be the most incompetant jackass ever, and not only that he's also a blithering idiot and lying shithead. I would honestly have taken Ernie Eves over him, in fact I did vote for the Conservatives this past election. At least they're not going to run the province into the ground and piss everyone off, but no, the damn sheep vote for MacGuinty. I swear to god this guy's gonna be worse than Bob Rae.

After much consideration, also decided to vote conservative (because of the fact the the name on the ballot is actually for the local MPP, and I liked the job mine was doing), even though I didn't care for Eves at all. On the other hand McGuinty's past (sordid) history in the Ontario Legislature spoke for itself, as does that of the Liberals. Where most politicians are expected to break campaign promises, the Liberals seem to go out of their way to do so (remember the "Red Book"?). Another factor influencing my decision: The record of Ontario's last Liberal premier, David Peterson.

Oh well, at least McGuinty did one good thing: He didn't lower the threshold for official party status to accomodate the NDP...

muse · Post by **muse** » 2004-02-11 10:55pm

Ma Deuce wrote:Oh well, at least McGuinty did one good thing: He didn't lower the threshold for official party status to accomodate the NDP...

yeah, but he caved in and offered them a bunch of benefits so it's not like they're losing all that much.

Meest · Post by **Meest** » 2004-02-13 04:23am

Well at least when Canadian politicians divert money to their own companies there's a country wide uproar, in the US no one seems to care

Col. Crackpot · Post by **Col. Crackpot** » 2004-02-13 10:37am

Meest wrote:Well at least when Canadian politicians divert money to their own companies there's a country wide uproar, in the US no one seems to care

hardly a good example. The paper trail for this scandal seems a mile long.

GySgt. Hartman · Post by **GySgt. Hartman** » 2004-02-13 12:53pm

Is there a single party in any country that has been in power for an extended period of time and has not had any corruption scandals? Power corrupts.

Stuart Mackey · Post by **Stuart Mackey** » 2004-02-14 12:11am

GySgt. Hartman wrote:Is there a single party in any country that has been in power for an extended period of time and has not had any corruption scandals? Power corrupts.

New Zealand, Finland....

Solauren · Post by **Solauren** » 2004-02-14 01:30am

I'm familair with Dalton Mcquinty. He's actually a fairly honest man, just given to making promises without finding out if he can keep him first.

And working at the Minstry of Finance, let me say, if he'd talked to us before the election, he could have found out about the huge deficient the PC's had generated.

(In the Pc's defense, part of that was caused by the Blackout, but only about 10 - 15% of it, the other parts of it that are not the PC's faults, I can't talk about without violating confidentiality clauses)

Paul Martin has been known as a 'tree shaker' of shorts in the Liberals for a long time. He might be the man to turn things around.

As for the next electrions
Liberals at the Federal level: Unknown. If Martin does a lot of house keeping and reveals all of Chrietian's crap and removes the people behind it, he's got a decent chance.
Province level in Ontario: They have 4 years to turn things about. I think they can do it if they come down hard on (confidentiality clause), as well as not making any serious spending mistakes

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2004-02-14 09:04am

Darth Wong wrote:Liberal party corruption is no secret. Just look at the money that's poured into Shawinigan, Quebec (Chretien's hometown, for all you American readers). The problem is ... who else are you going to vote for? The new Conservative party, aka the Canadian Republican Party? The fucking New Democrats, aka the Communist Party?

Well.. what kind of commies are they? They Hippy kind or the kind that you'll at least get a decent military out of?

Psycho Smiley · Post by **Psycho Smiley** » 2004-02-14 09:27am

If I recall correctly, one of their platforms several years ago was to abolish the military entirely, so the hippy kind I guess.

muse · Post by **muse** » 2004-02-14 11:04am

Sea Skimmer wrote:
Darth Wong wrote:The fucking New Democrats, aka the Communist Party?
Well.. what kind of commies are they? They Hippy kind or the kind that you'll at least get a decent military out of?

The retarded hippy kind, they'd kill military spending and funnel all the money into social programs and bailouts for crown corporations, and in the meantime rack up a massive debt while killing businesses and forcing them to move elsewhere. From what my parents tell me they were a big part of why we lived overseas during the early 90's.

Ma Deuce · Post by **Ma Deuce** » 2004-02-14 12:33pm

Col. Crackpot wrote:
Meest wrote:Well at least when Canadian politicians divert money to their own companies there's a country wide uproar, in the US no one seems to care
hardly a good example. The paper trail for this scandal seems a mile long.

Not to mention the fact that Mssr. Cretin was funneling lots of taxpayer's money into his hometown for years, and nobody gave a shit...

Wicked Pilot · Post by **Wicked Pilot** » 2004-02-14 01:20pm

Well then, I guess I won't be defecting to Canada any time soon.

What's the weather like in New Zealand?

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-02-14 01:31pm

Solauren wrote:I'm familair with Dalton Mcquinty. He's actually a fairly honest man, just given to making promises without finding out if he can keep him first.

Bullshit. "Fairly honest man"? One does not make promises without bothering to figure out whether he can keep them unless he was never serious about keeping them in the first place. When someone asks if he can borrow $5k from you, would you give an unqualified "yes" without making sure you could actually afford to loan him this money?

Xon · Post by **Xon** » 2004-02-14 02:08pm

Wicked Pilot wrote:Well then, I guess I won't be defecting to Canada any time soon.

I'ld recomending defect to Australia, but we have extradition treats with the USA.

But I'ld wait to see how the USA-AUS free trade agreement pans out. We might be importing some really nasty copyright & patent laws

What's the weather like in New Zealand?

Fairly nice, But wet.

Australia has the full range of climates, except artic conditions.

Montcalm · Post by **Montcalm** » 2004-02-14 03:08pm

ggs wrote:
Wicked Pilot wrote:Well then, I guess I won't be defecting to Canada any time soon.
I'ld recomending defect to Australia, but we have extradition treats with the USA.

But I'ld wait to see how the USA-AUS free trade agreement pans out. We might be importing some really nasty copyright & patent laws

I`d suspect that Australia could be screwed the same way Canada was with the damn NAFTA