Former Liberal MP Paul Szabo has been looking into how our democracy works. What he reports is deeply disturbing. Michael Harris writes:
His documented investigation makes clear the Liberals are about as interested in playing by the rules as Dean del Mastro, whose fast and loose approach to getting himself elected landed him in a jail cell. This time the focal point is how parties conduct nominations.
According to Szabo, the Liberal Party thwarts local voters to cherry-pick its chosen nominees. The campaign expense reports of some of those nominees are often late, incomplete and perhaps even illegal. Worse, many of the memberships that secured the nomination for one candidate over others were allegedly fraudulent.
Szabo is no lightweight who doesn't know what he's talking about:
Before anyone thinks that Szabo is the king of sour grapes — an accusation I have heard — consider his resume: 17 years in Parliament; professional chartered accountant; science degree; director and vice-chair of two hospitals; director of a shelter for abused women; voted hardest working member of Parliament three years running by fellow MPs; 2,500 debates in the House of Commons; and a 95 per cent attendance record for votes.
This guy didn’t fall of the turnip truck last night.
This was how things worked under Stephen Harper's Conservatives. And it's how things work under Patrick Brown's provincial Progressive Conservatives:
As Ontario gears up for its next election, PC leader Patrick Brown is knee-deep in charges of skullduggery bordering on corruption.
His party’s nomination system has been rife with ballot stuffing, fake memberships, fake membership forms, people registered without their knowledge, payment or permission, as well as cheating so egregious that it elicited a rebuke from one of the staunchest Tories of them all: former Conservative Senator Marjory LeBreton.
It's been clear for sometime that most -- if not all -- parties put their fingers on the scales. And, as citizens give up, convinced that nothing will change, those tipping the balance march on.
Image: dreamtime.com
4 comments:
The series of (lets be nice and call them) negative ad's currently being aired in Ontario from various political partys and their supporters does nothing to make me think that the scales are not being weighted, Owen. That such expensive and vicious 'campaigns' are being aired long before the election period says much about where our political system is headed.
The election is a year away, Rural, and the mud slinging has already started.
garbage in garbage out, the whole system needs recycling.
Unfortunately, it looks like the same old garbage will be with us for awhile, Steve.
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