Rona Ambrose is Ticked Off!

Or The Harper Party Wants Your Support!

Health Minister Rona Ambrose is upset because her department has given the OK for some heroin addicts to receive their drugs through a special program.

The Harper Party wants YOUR support to stop this from happening again.

Now if this confuses you that’s understandable, since Health Minister Rona Ambrose, the person in charge of the Ministry of Health, who has the final say so on things like this let it happen.

At least your former colleague Bev Oda had the sense to find the piece of paper and write NOT on it.  But then again, that didn’t work out so well either, did it?

I have no doubt that Ms. Rona and her pals in the Harper Party will be shouting about the bureaucracy and how they did this without her approval, and it’s getting a bit tiring.

It seems like just yesterday when our friends in the Harper Caucus were ranting and raving about accountability and how the governing Liberals weren’t doing it.  They wanted heads on platters for every crime, real or imagined that they could sling at the government, but now the shoe is on the other foot.  Can’t blame the Liberals anymore, can’t blame the NDP either, oooh wait a minute…

Yes!  The new sign up to stop things page at the Harper Party website is up.  They want you to stop the NDP and the Liberals from letting this like this happen in the 2015 elections!

Sorry folks, no link, I’m not supporting the current cast of clowns in Ottawa.

For a party that ran on accountability among other things the Harper Party has been anything but accountable.  From Bev Oda’s infamous “▼NOT” to her $16.00 OJ to Peter Penashue and his difficulties with what is a proper election expense on down to Dean Del Mastro and his issues with election expenses...

No matter what happens, it is always someone else’s fault and then the Harper Loyalists stomp their feet and point in all directions but not one of them has the chutzpah to step up and say “I messed up” and take the heat for it.

Rona Ambrose, you messed up.

You were in charge of the Ministry of Health when this happened.

You can point fingers across the aisle all you want Rona, but you were the one in charge… You let it happen.

Look, the one thing that bureaucrats hate to do is to make decisions.  The Ottawa Citizen has a wonderful piece on what happens when you ask a federal department a question, you can read it here.

Frankly I’d be amazed if the piece of paper that would provide heroin to addicts as part of their substance abuse program didn’t pass in front of Rona Ambrose’s nose if not at the very least through her office.  No bureaucrat would want that target hung of their back.

The bottom line is that we all want the same thing.  We want people to stop using these drugs.  If a doctor wants to provide safe heroin to help someone end their addiction isn’t that a good thing?  If we have safe injection sites where addicts can be counselled on how to end their addiction, isn’t that a good thing?

In the mean time, we’re stuck with a government with a belief that punishment or the threat of punishment will stop the bad people from using drugs and selling drugs.

It hasn’t worked so far.

And we have a government that is focused on diversion and distraction when they screw up.  After all the yelling and carrying on your people did about the lack of accountability in the previous government Stephen, when are you going to put your money where your mouth is and start making your people accountable too?

Maybe we could start with Rona?

Cheers! BC

The Transparent Credibility Gap

When I was younger, one of my preferred reading materials was “Mad Magazine”, a glorious combination of humour and satire.

One thing sticks in my mind from those days, from those magazines… Why is it when your child tells a fib it’s called lying, but when the President does it, it’s called a “credibility gap”? (I’m running off memory here, forgive me if I messed that up.)

The reason it popped into my head again, is the ongoing nonsense from Ottawa. Why does it seem that it is impossible for any member of the Stephen Harper Party (SHP) to fess up when they make a mistake or if they screw up?

The standard operating procedure for the SHP seems to be lie about it create a credibility gap.

A while ago, Bev Oda signed a document she (according to the SHP) shouldn’t have signed recommending funding for a group. So rather than just step up and say “I did it by mistake”, she fudged. Someone using “the arm”, the auto signer for important people, signed it for her. In the recommendation someone stuck in a caret and the word “not”, except the two bureaucrats that signed it were in fact sending a recommendation to pay, so an unknown staffer stuck the ^not in on their own accord then later on Bev Oda’s say so.

She got a promotion instead of a kick in the pants.

Tony Clement and the G8/G20 spending fiasco. The tapes say one thing and Hansard says another. Someone changed something, no one’s saying who.

Peter MacKay and his rescue “training mission”. Now we get the emails that the military was hesitant about picking him up and developed the cover story about how MacKay wanted to see them in action. Here’s a thought, in the real world, where we don’t get free helicopter rides, we plan our vacations to not interfere with our work.

Now we have the Stephen Harper talking heads pop up and say “It was OK, it was business”. No. He knew full well that he had an appointment and could have arranged to leave his buddy’s fishing lodge two hours earlier, but instead he misappropriated a military helicopter and then has the gall to lie about it create yet another SHP credibility gap.

Supposedly, when we have elections, we are choosing from among our best people to choose the very best to represent us in the House of Commons. It ain’t happening kids… adults suck it up when they screw up, the SHP crew cover up and fib.

You see where I come from, a person’s word is their bond. If I tell you I will do something, I will do it. If I screw up, it is my responsibility to admit it.

Now if my memory isn’t too far off, Stephen Harper said there would be transparency and accountability on his watch. Ministers would answer for their decisions.

I also recall Stephen Harper saying that the SHP would be better than the Liberals. He preached honesty, integrity, transparency, and accountability.

Or was that all one big credibility gap?

Oh, the guy on the right is Balok the puppet from Star Trek.