Keeping it Real…

First, let me declare my conflict: I know I will NEVER be offered a Senate seat!    Hell, when I retired after after 38 years as a reporter, 34 working in B.C. media,  I didn’t warrant even a Thank You note or phone call from the Premier (who I had known and covered since 1972, when he was Assistant to then Vancouver Mayor Art Phillips).

I did get nice cards and many calls from the people who always counted most to me: the people I wrote my stories for; the people I asked questions for; and even some of the people I covered and even made squirm from time to time with my sometimes not too subtle queries. (By the way, NDP Carol James did send a nice note).

But anyone who has read, seen my work, or follows this Blog, knows I am not “the type” any Prime Minister would ever want as a Senator. I speak my piece; I stand up for what I believe; I do not let others tell me how to vote; and, I would never sacrifice my personal or political  principles … period!

Which brings me to Stephen Harper.

This is the man who, in the campaign before the Jan, 2006 federal election, PROMISED to make the Senate more independent. And in Dec. 2006, this is the man who, as Prime Minister, introduced legislation that called for “consultation” with Canadians on Senate appointments.

“This bill will see voters choose their preferred Senate candidates to represent their provinces and territories,” news reports quote the government as saying at the time.

Ha!!!

Liars! Deceitful charlatans! There has been only one elected, and then officially appointed Senator … Stan Waters of Alberta. That was it. All for show, quite clearly now not representing any ongoing real substance.

Because now, the Prime Minister has publicly and unashamedly  reverted to the same cynical sewer-level pork barrel politics he used to so loudly condemn.

Remember the Triple E principles for the Senate? Equal, Elected and Effective.  Gone, caput, trampled to death by a Prime Minister who had already shown us he is willing to use the political jack-boot to retain power …  shutting down Parliament to prevent it voting against him.

And now he has abandoned Triple “E” opting instead for a Triple “P” Senate: Pork-appointed Partisan Prostitutes.

Harper and the “new” Conservatives have shown how power has corrupted their ideals and principles.  And one look at those appointed shows just how badly! 

The media are making a lot of the appointment of two more of their own: Pamela Wallin and Mike Duffy.  They will join another media appointee, Jim Munson, sent to his Senate reward by Jean Chretien. 

Interestingly, I spent 8 years in Ottawa on Parliament Hill, working beside all three … and I can’t remember a single question they ever asked or point they ever made …  unlike my own confrontation with Bloc Quebecois Leader Lucien Bouchard; many other exploits like my revelations about the high-spending lifestyle of Speaker and then Governor General Jeanne Sauve and my victory, as a British Columbian, just to get recognized to ask questions at major press conferences, previously reserved almost exclusively for Central Canadian/Quebec media … exploits I have been told are still remembered on the Hill.

Yet although the Wallin and Duffy disgraceful paybacks for  ’a job well -done’ … yech! …are making the headlines,  there is another appointment that I believe really shows Harper at his worst.

Fabian Manning!   Ever even heard of him?  No, not Preston … Fabian?

He was a Newfoundland Conservative MP,  defeated in his bid for re-election in the federal election just two months ago … and now he will be a Senator. After only two years in Parliament as a Conservative MP before the voters fired him. No Elected Senator here!

At 44, Manning can now suck at the public teet until he is 75 … so his “reward” for having served not even a SINGLE full term in Parliament will cost the taxpayers more than $4 million dollars just in salary, not to mention other perks, allowances, world travel and all kinds of other office and living expenses he can generate . 

I don’t blame the appointees … who would really resist such largess, such financial payoffs, such honour (?) as a Senate seat brings? Without any serious requirements that you regularly even show up.

But, in my view,  if anyone had any doubts about Harper’s lack of principles and political integrity, they now know the truth.

In his rush to fill 18 Senate seats because he fears his government could lose a confidence vote in January, Harper has exceeded the worst excesses of those he and his supporters used to so effectively and gleefully condemn.

The appointment of these 18 Senators will cost Canadian taxpayers a hundred million dollars before they retire. And not one of them faced Senate election or even any kind of consultation process with Canadians over their selection.

The only thing Equal, Effective about these lastest appointments is that they will add to the un-Elected partisanship that has long discredited the modern Canadian Senate.

Harper’s Christmas Gift to them … and 18 lumps of coal to Canadians.