Meanwhile in the back alley....
The Liberal record: what's not to like?
(a summary of "highlights" culled from the web)
* GST promise: Broken 1993 campaign promise to scrap the GST
* Pearson Airport development fiasco: Cost some $60 million dollars in penalties
* EH-101 Helicopter Cancellation fiasco in 1993: $500 million penalty to cancel contract to replace Labradors and Sea Kings. The same Cormorant is now replacing the Labs.
* Tainted Blood Scandal: Millions of dollars not transferred to victims; many have died.
* Jane Stewart HRDC grant scandal: $1 billion mismanaged and millions unaccounted.
* Residential School Abuse Claims: $200 mil spent on admin; $38 mil goes to victims
* Jean Chrétien - Shawinigate: $780 thousand from BDBC and HRDC for Chrétien's, rocky and weed strewn Grand-Mere Golf Course and the Auberge Grand-Mere (now burned). (PM: "No violence; no sex. No scandal"). Unjustly fired BDBC President, Vennat, who protested loans, sues for $4.6 mil in damages and is awarded severance and pension benefits of $445,000.
* Employment Insurance Fund Rip-off: $44 billion excess contributions stashed in Reserve Fund contrary to government's own guidelines.
* 7 year failure to collect GST fraud: Over $1 billion lost through loop-holes
* Under funded Armed Forces: $ Billions short. Service personnel only had forest green uniforms for Afghanistan desert wear.
* Un-tendered Bombardier contract: $101 million to purchase two Challenger executive jets. Thousands of hours of life remain on the old aircraft.
* $1.4 billion home heating fuel rebate program: Refunds for excess heating bills was even mailed to chronic care hospital patients and prison inmates.
* Paul Martin's "flags of convenience" Canada Steamship Lines: $161 million in federal development money "unknown" to PM. CSL criticized for its use of off-shore tax havens.
* Gov. Gen. Adrianne Clarkson (and friends): $41 million holiday to northern Europe
* $250 million Quebec Sponsorship Fraud: Internal audits in 1999 and 2001 identified abuse. Auditor General's 2003 audit finds non-compliance of contracting rules reached unprecedented proportions. $100 million paid to ad agencies for work of nil or little value. Even the RCMP is found guilty of "diddling the books" via use of a hidden bank account used to buy horses and trailers.
* Chretien insiders Gagliano, LeFrancois, Ouellet and Pelletier are fingered: Brault, Coffin and Guite' charged and arrested by RCMP. Parliamentary Inquiry shut down.
* $10 million Adscam gravy train rolls on: Damage suits by Gagliano ($4.5 mil), LeFrancois ($2.7 mil) and Pelletier ($3 mil).
* Owner licensing and firearms registration Boondoggle: $2 million net cost promised in 1995; over $1 billion spent by mid 2004. Expenditures also hidden in other department budgets. Government announces it will eliminate registration and transfer fees and limit spending to $25 million per year.
* 71.6 per cent of Canadians in April 2004 JMCK poll want long gun registry scrapped.
* Department of Defense Fraud: DND had $366 million Compaq-Hewlett-Packard computer maintenance contract. $159 million unaccounted
* PMO's "Secret" Unity Fund: $500 million spent over ten years on Liberal vote buying
* $36 million "Great Bum Wad" fiasco: Gov't buys Weston plant eyesore across from Parliament Bldgs - for site of future park - and then leases it back to owner for 25 years.
* $2.3 million Bluenose grant: $1.9 million has been siphoned off by an ad agency.
* Untold billions stashed in "private" gov't foundations - hidden from public scrutiny and beyond the reach of the Auditor General and Privacy Commissioner
* $6.5 billion spent annually on outside consultants - to buy "advice" largely available from within the public service.
* Ottawa' $5.5 million contract with Prairie Plant Systems produces "medical marijuana" for registered users - costing over $15,000 per ounce. It has a THC content so low - it has few therapeutic benefits. "Triple A" street cannabis sells for under $200 per oz. (Cannabis bureaucrats take lessons from gun registry staff, instead of Molson"s Gold).
* $1.9 million spent on severance payments and separation allowances for departing Chrétienite PMO staffers to make room for incoming Martinets.
* $3 billion offered on eve of election for health care after years of cuts in transfer payments: In a breaking news story, the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute reports 187,000 "adverse events" and 7,000, to 24,000 patient "medical misadventures" yearly. 7.5% of 2.5 million admissions are at risk; only 37% are preventable. Scary odds!!!
* $11 billion in increased health care spending announced by Martin on May 25th - After slashing transfer payments by $25 billion since 1995.
Want more? Bend over and vote Liberal again.