Friday, January 27, 2006
Harper to Move Forward on Accountability Act
There is NO difference in what I have asked for for five years. I went to Valeri reporting an RCMP conspiracy, wanting the RCMP to be held accountable for ineptness in their white collar investigations, causing irreparable damage to innocent Canadians, (now uncovered by MacLean's magazine).
Laws are enacted by parliamentarians. He was my MP. If he had pushed for this, my case would HAVE to have been investigated and my concept would have moved forward. Valeri did nothing. Why? Why? Why?
If Harper can push forward an Accountability Act for Politicians, then there is absolutely no reason an Accountability Act for Police could not be made law.... THAT WORKS!!??!!! And please make it retroactive!! I have to believe that by the time Maclean's reported it, Ottawa must have been cognizant of their corrupt force much, much earlier.... and if they did not, then Ottawa is more inept than I thought!!
Here's an update from today's Toronto Star on the investigations to be expected on past government corruption and scandal
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Harper may expose Liberals' skeletons
Jan. 27, 2006. 01:00 AM
BRUCE CAMPION-SMITH
OTTAWA BUREAU
OTTAWA—Stephen Harper is promising to pull back the curtain on yet more misspending by the outgoing government.
In his first news conference since winning Monday's election, Harper said he intends to make good on campaign pledges to open up government and launch legal action to recoup the $40 million he claims is still missing in the Liberal sponsorship scandal.
And he suggested that David Dingwall, the former Liberal cabinet minister who resigned as head of the Royal Canadian Mint, may be out of luck in his bid to get severance.
Dingwall quit his $277,000-a-year post in September after questions were raised about his expenses. He later told a Commons committee he was "entitled to his entitlements," including severance — a line that became the centrepiece of a Conservative campaign ad.
"We have never favoured paying a severance package to someone who voluntarily resigns. That's our understanding of the situation," Harper told reporters yesterday. "I'm going to be interested to see, when I get full briefings ... exactly what the legal situation is with regard to any negotiations with Mr. Dingwall."
The question for any new government is always how much to reveal of any skeletons found in the closet of the previous government.
And yesterday, Harper sounded like he was ready to throw the door wide open, starting with his promised accountability act.
That measure includes extending the Access to Information Act to cover all Crown corporations, Officers of Parliament, foundations and organizations that spend taxpayers' money, opening yet more of the government to greater scrutiny.
"There were a number of commitments in our platform and before the campaign to much further open up access to information. We're going to adopt those recommendations," said Harper, who'll take over as prime minister on Feb. 6.
He also signalled he would likely follow through on a vow to sue the Liberals to recover misspent sponsorship funds. The Liberal party has repaid $1.14 million to the government, but Harper has said up to $40 million remains unaccounted for.
"I've indicated in the past ... we intend to draw to the attention of the appropriate authorities the necessity of trying to recover the missing money," he said yesterday.
Harper also promised during the election that a Conservative government would launch an inquiry into federal spending on partisan public opinion polls.
While all this could add up to a heap of trouble for the Liberals, the Conservatives have little to gain from "picking" old fights with their political rivals, cautioned Nelson Wiseman, a political scientist at the University of Toronto.
"It wears off after a while... Piling on is a penalty in football and politics," he said yesterday.
Copyright Toronto Star Newspapers Limited.
