I discovered THIS Magazine over the summer and this recent piece by Graeme McElheran is making it one of my regular reads:
It seems the Conservatives have been in power too long – in Alberta, at least. They’ve lost touch with their grassroots. The Reform movement that Harper and many of his cohorts were parts of – that gave rise to the current government – had a tightfisted ethos. One of its mainstays was for government to cut spending, and strict accountability for spending that could not be cut.
I wonder what Preston Manning would say about political advertisements for incumbent Conservative MPs being paid for not from Conservative party coffers, but with taxpayer funds.
The “non-partisan” Canadian Taxpayers Federation – traditionally a Liberal-bashing, Conservative-extolling lobby group with links to Manning, Reform and the Conservatives – clearly disapproves of taxpayers bearing the cost of campaign advertising. The CTF filed a formal complaint with Elections Canada over perceived Liberal indiscretions of this vein in Beaches-East York, saying a Liberal MP’s pamphlet “amounts to election advertising and its cost should not be borne by the taxpayers of Canada.”
In Alberta the CTF made similar comments – but alas, filed no grievance – when Conservative campaign propaganda circulated during the weeks just prior to and now following the election call.
