The article below was written by me in 2004. Still pertinent today. And this doesn't even begin to cover the Karlheinz Schreiber incident, which is the plum on the top of Mulroney's cake (where he was caught red-handed taking kickbacks in cash from Schreiber, income tax fraud, and still didn't do any time).
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In
our most recent federal election, the Liberal Party won a minority
government, which made me extremely happy. They've had a majority for
a decade, and it's about time we have some forced accountability.
However, the official opposition now is the Conservative Party, an
amalgam of the Reform Party (whose policy was created by the utterly
insane Preston Manning) and the old Progressive Conservative Party.
It's no secret that this was an effort to "unite the right",
and that the old PCs are the driving force within the party. And that
the PCs could manage to get 80+ seats in this election is very
disturbing to me. VERY disturbing.
Doesn't
anyone remember the last Progressive Conservative government, under
Mulroney from 1984 to 1993? EASILY the most corrupt government in
North American history, possibly in the history of the western world?
Well, since Canadian voters have a terrible memory, I thought it
would be worthwhile to remind everyone about that government. And
remember that it was only a decade ago, and many of the principle
characters are still the same.
Joe
Clark won a minority government for the Tories in 1979, and I
personally always felt Joe was a good man. But he tried to pass a
budget that included a 16 cent per gallon increase in gas tax (insane
to try with a minority) the ensuing loss of confidence motion allowed
Trudeau's Liberals back into power. Then in 1983 Clark was defeated
in a very close party leadership race with Brian Mulroney, who then
took over the PC leadership. Mulroney was a Montreal lawyer who since
1977 had been the president of the Iron Ore Company of Canada. He was
well-to-do but far from rich, and he was the infusion of new blood
the Conservatives felt they needed.
In
the next federal election in 1984, Mulroney and his party ran a great
campaign. Everywhere you looked you saw Mulroney, and he was always
trashing the Liberal Party with great effectiveness. There were a few
factors that led to the Liberals crushing defeat in that election;
the slickness of the PC campaign, the recent retirement of Trudeau,
the selection of John Turner to replace him (Turner was neither a
good leader or a tremendous intellect) and the “patronage” issues
of Trudeau's government. Mulroney's Conservatives steamrolled to the
largest majority government in Canadian history. They won 211 of 282
seats in the House of Commons, showing the Canadian people were ready
for a change after 16 years of Liberal leadership (with only that
brief 9 month interruption by Joe Clark).
The
corruption of the Mulroney era was about to begin.
The
primary issue Mulroney campaigned on in 1984 was patronage. Trudeau
had made a habit of appointing primarily Liberals and Liberal
sympathizers to government positions during his tenure, at a rate of
almost 80%. Mulroney promised to change this situation, and end
patronage altogether. Canadians loved to hear this, but Mulroney made
it clear from his his earliest days in office that it was a
bald-faced lie. The nickname "Lyin' Brian" was born, and
would never go away. Within 6 weeks of being elected, Mulroney fired
almost 500 federal government lawyers across the country and replaced
them with members of the PC party. Anyone who was even suspected of
being a Liberal sympathizer was removed. Six weeks later, Mulroney
fired 11 members of the board of directors of PetroCan and replaced
them all with prominent Tories. Within another couple of months he
had fired and replaced ALL port authority chairmen and 13 of 15 of
the Air Canada board of directors. The carnage was almost beyond
belief. In his first six months in office, Mulroney had made NINE
HUNDRED new appointments, almost universally to PC sympathizers. When
questioned about this in the press, Mulroney always pointed to the
TWO non-partisan appointments he had made.
Two
of nine-hundred.
And
the end of 1988 he'd also appointed 112 new federal judges. All
Tories.
Other
appointments included making his best buddies highly paid counsel to
him. He made Bernard Roy his principle secretary (Roy was Mulroney's
law school chum and had been the best man at his wedding). His
university buddy Fred Doucet became his policy advisor. Neither Roy
or Doucet had ever had any government experience.
Mulroney's
cabinet had an unheard of 40 positions (Trudeau's' biggest caucus had
been 26). He also appointed a chief of staff to each department (when
only two departments actually needed one). In effect, he doubled he
cost of his cabinet with these moves, and offered Canadians no
explanation. Then he made Guy Charbonneau the Speaker of the Senate.
Charbonneau had been his fundraising strategist. He also appointed 3
new board members to Security Intelligence Review Committee (all
former colleagues) who had no intelligence experience whatsoever.
But
Brian promised to end patronage, right? Right.
Other
blatantly partisan appointments included Justice Minister John
Crosby's two sons as legal agents in St. Johns, Finance Minister
Michael Wilson's cousin receiving a multi-million dollar finance
contract and External Affair Minister Joe Clark's brother being named
lead council for the Calgary Olympics. A former Mulroney law client,
Jaques Blanchard, was appointed to the board of directors of Air
Canada in 1985, and then given a federal judgeship in 1986. Another
law colleague, Jean Sirois, was appointed chairman of Telefilm
Canada, despite having zero experience in the field.
Mulroney
cost Canadian taxpayers millions of dollars relocating a planned
federal prison to his own home riding. His government gave a $1.3
billion maintenance contract to Canadair rather than Bristol
Aerospace despite a significantly higher bid. Please keep in mind
that Canadair is based in Quebec, while Bristol is based in Winnipeg
(the western province where Tory support was weakest). By 1987 the
RCMP was investigating the federal bidding processes because of the
number of contracts and leases not going to the lowest bidder –
going instead to bidders that had a vested interest in Mulroney or
the Conservative party.
One
of my favorite Mulroney moves was when the government paid Dalhousie
university $100,000 so that they would give Deputy Prime Minister Don
Mazenkowski an honorary law degree (Maz had never even gone to
college). If you were a good Conservative, Mulroney made sure you got
something for your partisanship.
But
if Patronage was all Mulroney had done that was suspect, I would be
inclined to not worry about it, and pass it off as the Tories finally
getting some of their own after 16 years of being on the outside
looking in. But the corruption went much deeper. And started even
earlier.
During
the 1983 Leadership Convention where Mulroney won the PC party
leadership from Joe Clark, all 12 candidates had agreed prior to the
campaign that they would make their campaign finances public. Eleven
of the twelve did. Guess who didn't? Mulroney's campaign cost twice
as much as anyone else's and was much more high profile. To encourage
the candidates to keep everything on the up-and-up, the PC party gave
$30 000 grants to each candidate who made their finances public.
Mulroney was the only one that didn't receive this payout - obviously
he was covering up far more than $30K in additional money. A few
years later the former president of the PC party said on a CBC show
(Question Period) that it was very obvious that Mulroney was
receiving offshore campaign contributions. So Lyin' Brian's campaign
money went unexplained.
But
now I am getting to the kickback schemes and conflict of interest
concerns, the corruption for which the Mulroney Government truly made
itself legendary.
In
1985, a landholder named Andre Hamel sued the government because he
had paid a $50 000 kickback the the PCs so the government would rent
his building for the offices of the Employment and Immigration
department. The government had taken the bribe, then failed to some
through on the agreement. Hamel showed how he had been billed the
$50K through Mulroney's old law office, Oglivy Renault.
Shortly
thereafter The Globe and Mail broke the story that the Tory
government had given a $2 million a year government advertising
contract to two Toronto men (Roger Nantel and Peter Simpson) who had
little advertising experience, but who were PC party members. Nantel
told the paper that he'd been forced (as a part of the deal) to kick
back a part of his fee to the Conservative Party to secure the
contract.
In
December 1988 a Tory MP named Michel Gravel pled guilty to receiving
$97,000 in bribes and kickbacks for government contracts. He had
somehow gotten his hands on a copy of the government's Lease Book,
with all 5000 government office leases. He contacted many of them
and extorted money from them to ensure the lease renewals. Initially
he pled Not Guilty, but in order to prevent the publicity of a trial,
the PC party arranged a "no jail time" plea bargain for
him..... and then paid all of his legal bills out of their operating
budget. Nothing to hide here, right Tories?
Another
Tory MP, Richard Grise, won a $250,000 grant to build a community
center in his riding. He got the contractor, the air-conditioning
installer, plumber, electricians, and other suppliers to kick back
money to him to work on the project. He also skimmed tens of
thousands of dollars from his $165,000 annual Member of Parliament
office budget through false receipts (which all came to light when
one of his employees blew the whistle on him). Once all of this came
out in the press, Grise resigned his membership in the PC party, but
not his seat in the House of Commons. He stayed on as an independent,
but stopped going to Ottawa at all for House operations. He still
collected his salary and office expense fee (over $200k/year) for
another full year before being fined $20,000 with no jail time. And
the employee that blew the whistle was murdered and their house
burned down three days after blowing the whistle. Now I'm not
suggesting the party did it...... but it is certainly interesting.
Yet
another Tory MP, Andre Bisonette, somehow found out that a Swiss Arms
manufacturer was relocating to Canada, and that they had looked
closely at only one parcel of land. Bissonette bought that land
immediately, then sold it to the arms manufacturer 11 days later for
a profit of $2.1 million. No conflict of interest charges were
brought by the government, despite the obvious infraction.
Industry
Minister Sinclair Stevens appointed Trevor Eyton to the board of the
Canada Development Investment Corporation. In itself, not a big deal.
But ONE week later, Eyton refinanced all of Stevens's personal
holdings in the York Center. These guys didn't even try to cover
their tracks. Yet no charges were brought and the appointment was not
overturned. So Stevens figured he had free reign, and he appointed 2
brokerage houses as advisors to the Canada Development Investment
Corporation at the very same time the York Center was soliciting
their financial help. Even writing this I am shaking my head at how
bloody BLATANT this all was, yet nobody did anything to stop it.
During
Mulroney's first mandate, EIGHT of his cabinet ministers (CABINET
MINSTERS) were forced to resign over kickback scandals or conflict of
interest issues. One of the good ones, Environment Minister Suzanne
Blais-Grenier, went to Mulroney in September 1987 and told him the
kickback schemes were massive and embarrassing to the party.
Mulroney did nothing, so four months later she went to the newspapers
with the story. She gave the names of four Montreal area businessmen
and their recent complaints about forced kickbacks as evidence.
Mulroney's reward for her courage and determination to stop
corruption was to boot her out of the caucus, and steadfastly refuse
to answer in the press for any of the allegations. What a douchebag.
Around
the same time, it went public that you could actually purchase a
dinner at 24 Sussex Drive, along with the PM and any number of
cabinet ministers. All it took was a large contribution to either
Mulroney, or the PC Canada Fund. Those taking advantage of this were
almost entirely super-rich businessmen. It came out later that the PC
Canada Fund had issued a document in 1986 recommending that
canvassing for money should be limited to, "....chartered and
other banks, insurance companies, trust companies, CA firms, lobbyist
firms, major oil companies, automobile manufacturers, the most
wealthy Canadians, breweries, transportation, steel companies, mining
and resources, pulp and paper and major American Corporations."
That is a direct quote from the document. So these folks make major
contributions, come to dinner and rub elbows with the senior members
of the federal government, and what do they expect in return?
If
I have to tell you, I have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale that I'll
let you have real cheap.....
…..they
were looking for their zoning issues to go away. They were looking
for favorable rulings in court or findings by government commissions.
They were looking for the government to scratch their back, and
everyone knew it. The first type of business the document recommends
going after for contributions is banks. Does anyone recall a little
issue regarding the Canadian Commercial Bank around this time? They
were major lenders but in order to maintain growth rates had begun to
lend to very unsafe borrowers. By the time Lyin' Brian decided the
bank could use a little help, they were over $500 million in the red.
The PC government ended up spending over $1 billion Canadian tax
dollars to try to bail this little venture out, and then the bank
ended up folding anyway.
Did
any of the board members of this independent and privately held bank
ever have dinner with Brian in his Sussex Drive home? I'll give you
three guesses and the first two don't count..... Such is the nature
of the Canadian Progressive Conservative party, and always has been.
Need
more proof that these guys were stinking with corruption? In 1987
another one of Mulroney's cabinet ministers, Stewart McInnes, was
found to have actively managed his own stock portfolio..... despite
being business partners with a member of the Canadian Council
Investment Committee. The CCIC managed a $160 million dollar
endowment fund and any financial move they made always radically
affected market prices due of the sheer size of their purchases.
McInnes would buy into everything the fund was about to buy into, and
then would and sell just before they sold.
When
they found out about it, the PC Party was so incensed that they spent
hundreds of thousands of dollars to find out who leaked the
information to the media. Eventually they brought down a Scotia
McLeod director for the leak. This director was able to eventually
prove that he'd had nothing to do with it, but the PCs had
accomplished their mission, which was to get McInnes off page 1. Not
only did McInnes serve no time for insider trading, he was never even
charged.
Then
how about Tory Senator Jean Bazim, who had billed Ottawa over $750
000 in legal fees through his own law firm, despite never doing any
work for them? When this came out he didn't even try to fight it -
within two hours of the press making it public he had resigned his
Senate seat and left the parliament buildings. No charges brought.
No repayment ever made.
And
did anyone notice when Mulroney's personal investment councilor was
banned for life by the Toronto Stock Exchange for insider trading? I
did. Nobody seemed to care that Mulroney's personal holdings were
being managed by a crook....
My
personal favorite is the saga of Roch LaSalle and Frank Majeau.
LaSalle was a Conservative MP, and Majeau was his business partner.
Now stay with me here.....
Under
Joe Clark's 1979 minority government, LaSalle was a defense cabinet
minister. He arranged for tenders for a $5.5 billion defense contract
to purchase 138 fighter jets. The two companies that it came down to
were General Dynamics for their CF-16 and MacDonnell Douglas for
their CF-18s. LaSalle's partner Majeau approached MacDonnell Douglas
and told their senior executives that for a kickback of $10 million,
he would use his influence to ensure they received the contract.
MacDonnell Douglas approached the FBI who along with the RCMP tried
to entrap Majeau, but he caught on and managed to escape with nothing
bruised except his reputation. He then went into the strip club
business in Toronto with Real Simard, a known Montreal hitman
responsible for at LEAST four mob-related hits. Simard worked in
Montreal for the Cotroni family, and the two began running cocaine
from Montreal to Toronto on the traveling strippers. The RCMP has a
photo of Majeau and Simard in a phone booth with Hamilton mob boss
Johnny Papalia and the phone records show they were calling Cotroni
in Montreal. Within a couple of months two hoods tried to horn in on
the coke supplying business in Toronto and Simard killed them in
their hotel by shooting both execution style. Unfortunately for him,
one survived and fingered him to the cops.
After
all this Mulroney still supported LaSalle's 1984 candidacy, even
throwing a $20,000 fundraiser for his campaign (LaSalle was still
Majeau's partner at the time, unbelievable as that may seem). After
being elected to the house in 1984, Frank Majeau was named to the
Harborfront Committee with a government-paid salary, and was also
named policy advisor to LaSalle. McLean's magazine did an expose on
this guy, and also showed that when Mulroney appointed him to
Harborfront that he had already failed the standard RCMP security
screening. When this came out, Majeau was fired. He sued the
government for wrongful dismissal and McLean's for libel. McLeans won
their part of the case, but the government settled with Majeau,
offering him a six figure payout. For being a crook.
Now
how about Mulroney's personal freedom in pissing away tax dollars to
his own delight? In six months in 1985 and 86, Mulroney spent
$811,000 for trips to New York, Washington and Paris. The Paris trip
alone cost over half a million dollars. Many of his 52 person
entourage stayed in $3400/day suites, spent $109 000 on chauffeured
cars, bought 50 high cost ballet tickets, and Mulroney's wife Mila
personally spent $9000 in the hotel's boutique. When this became
public, the PC Canada Fund tried to cover many of the bills, but it
was obvious that Mulroney expected Canadians to pay for everything.
In
May 1986 Mulroney and his cronies went to Hong Kong, which cost over
a million dollars, and cost and additional $300K for a video crew
filming the government mission (which was simply diplomatic). Among
the people Mulroney took along at the taxpayer's expense were his
personal butler and maid. They stayed in their own luxury suites as
well as everyone else. At one other point, Mulroney and crew went to
Japan for 11 days. Cost to the taxpayers? $1.1 million. On top of
that, daily expenses for the group were $76,000. After the trip was
over, Mulroney submitted vouchers to be reimbursed for $26,000 he had
spent himself on the trip and that he claimed was for government
business-related activities. $26K. In 11 days. Lynch this man
please.
In
1987 Mulroney went to California for ONE day for a speech. Cost to
the taxpayer? $95,000.
And
what of the previously mentioned Senate Speaker Guy Charbonneau?
Well, his oldest business partner was an architectural firm called
LaValle Engineering. In 1987 LaValle was awarded a $250 million
contract to develop new computer software for the Canadian
government. The other software companies that had bid for the
contract were stunned. LaValle is an engineering company – and had
never done any software development whatsoever. After a couple of
years of aborted efforts, they failed to provide a system that could
work for more than a few seconds before crapping out. A quarter
billion tax dollars down the drain.
Now
we've seen what happens when the Tries are paying out (free money for
supporters), but what of when they're selling? Let's look at the
Falconridge radar base in Sudbury, for example. When the base was
shut down, the 290 hectare plot of land was valued at $5.2 million.
The federal Tory government sold it to PC party member Henry Shepherd
for $140K. He sold it a few months later for almost 4 million
dollars. The Moisee radar base in Quebec was very similar, also on a
290 hectare plot. It was valued at the time the government sold it at
$6 million (much of it is right on the Moisie river). It was sold to
a former Tory MP candidate (Guy Lefebvre) for $187,500.
Need
more corruption? You got it! Mulroney personally worked very hard to
secure both a $9 million grant and a $85 million federal loan for
Curragh Resources, a Toronto based mining company. Mulroney was
friendly with their board members. There was fierce opposition to
these financial moves because of concerns of the mine's safety. In
1992 it exploded and then collapsed, killing 26 men.
Jon
Stewart, Mulroney's senior advisor on appointments (who was also on
the board of the ACOA, which awards government grants and loans) was
tried in 1994 for having $500K of unexplained cash in the bank, and
also for filing false tax returns when he was a member of Mulroney's
government. In 1987 when he claimed an income of $23,000, the
auditors found it was actually $125,000, in 1988 he claimed $41K on
an actual income of $244K, and in 1989 he claimed $21K on an actual
income of $243K. All of this money was from kickbacks for grants and
loans, and it landed from offshore accounts. Stewart was simply too
stupid to hide it once he had his hands on it. A senior Tory. A
senior asshole.
In
his 1984 campaign, Mulroney's campaign chairman was a fellow named
Norm Atkins. He eventually started a company called Camp Associates
Advertising. Most of the largest government advertising contracts
then went to one company. Can you guess which one? I bet you can.
In
1992 Mulroney appointed George Vari to the Security Intelligence
Review Committee. Vari was Mulroney's oldest personal friend and a
man he described as being a second father to him. Good qualifications
for the job – he had no other background in the intelligence arena.
Mulroney
often told the press he wasn't looking for a free ride, and that he
bought his own groceries for his home. In fact he did write checks
for $4000 every six months to defray grocery costs. That is $8K per
year (for a family of 6), or $171 a week. In his final year as PM,
Mulroney's official bills for food and alcohol at his residence were
$153,000, all but $8k at taxpayers expense. Lyin' Brian strikes
again. On top of that, for his home on Sussex drive (himself, his
wife and their four children), Mulroney decided they required a
full-time staff of 12 people, with annual salaries of over $340K.
Guess he didn't want Mila to have to iron anything......
Notice
how I've stayed completely away from Mulroney's policies? I'm just
focusing on the corruption around his governement. But Mulroney,
whose party was at a 7% approval rating in 1987, managed to get
re-elected to another Majority (165 seats this time) in 1988 on the
strength of the free trade deal with the USA. His campaign was
massive, INCREDIBLY expensive, and funded almost entirely by
corporations that desperately wanted the free trade deal to go
through. They managed to convince the majority of Canadians that free
trade would be beneficial, because for some reason Canadians believe
what they read. There were two-page gate-fold ads in every national
newspaper almost daily telling how great free trade was going to be.
I was one of many who didn't fall for it, and told anyone who'd
listen that it would destroy factory work in Canada. Once he was
re-elected and the deal sealed, within 6 months 400,000 high-paying
blue-collar jobs went south to the states, never to return. Factory
employment is virtually non-existent in Canada now, and blue collar
employment has never come close to fully rebounding. Since not
everyone is good in school, this basically screws 10% of the
population for life, no matter how badly they want to work. It
plunged the nation into economic chaos for nearly a decade, and only
now is the total number of jobs exceeding what there was at the time
of the deal.
Have
I said I hate Mulroney? Man, do I ever. But that he is still alive is
proof positive that no Canadian politician will ever be assassinated.
If anyone ever begged for it, it was Lyin' Brian.
In
1988 in preparation for the upcoming federal election, the riding of
Hull-Aylmer invited all local party members to elect their candidate
for the election. 72 people showed up and cast ballots. 79 ballots
were cast. Think about that for a second. The PCs even screw their
own party!
Remember
Bais-Grenier? The cabinet minister that told Mulroney that the
kickback schemes were huge and embarrassing, and Mulroney rewarded
her by kicking her out of the caucus? She testified in a 1991 hearing
that the PC party routinely demanded 5% of all lease values of
grant/loan totals as kickbacks. This was to be paid through accounts
in Luxembourg to wash the money for the party. Much of it, she
testified, went into a "retirement fund" for Mulroney.
These hearings resulted in 13 Mulroney associates being charged with
conspiracy to commit fraud. Their lawyers (paid for from the PC
Canada Fund) blinded the courts under such a blizzard of paper that
it was determined the trials would be too costly to even hold. All
charges were dropped. Gotta love this country.
Mulroney
announced in late 1992 that he would be retiring soon. And he really
kept himself busy for that last 6 months. His wife's best friend
received an 5 year appointment to the Citizenship Court of Canada.
Her only work experience had been as a secretary. Another Mila
Mulroney buddy, Pat McCaffrey, was appointed to the Official
Residences Council and her husband named to the Immigration and
Refugee Board. Mulroney's notary Harvey Corn was given a position on
the Canada Pension Committee, and Jean Dugre (who started the
"Friends Of Brian" fundraising committee) was appointed to
the Federal Parole Board. Mulroney's primary personal campaign
fundraiser since 1976, Jaques Courtois, was named to the Security
Intelligence Review Committee (along with Brian's 'second Dad',
George Vari). Between December 1992 (when Brian announced he'd be
retiring) and January 1993, Mulroney made 178 appointments to the
Privy Council office (all to Tory party members). Don Guthrie, a PC
Canada Fund board member, was named to the board of the Canadian
National Railway. In December 1992 Mulroney's riding received a $120
million aluminum smelter grant, a $3 million grant for an
environmental center and a $1.5 million grant for a new performing
arts center.
On
his last day in office, Mulroney appointed 4 new senators (even the
PC party said this really should have been done after the upcoming
election). In his final 60 days in office, he made 241 appointments,
and in his final 6 months made a whopping 655 appointments.
FOUR
of those 655 appointments went to non-Tories.
Mulroney
then went on a world 'farewell tour' that cost Canadian taxpayers
$600,000.
And
what of Brian after he left office? Well, despite never earning more
than $200K a year in his life (either as president of Iron ore or as
PM), he and his wife bought a $1.7 million dollar home in Montreal,
and spent over half a million dollars renovating it. Property taxes
are $25,000 a year, and with a son attending Duke, a daughter
attending Harvard and two kids in lavish private schools, his
children's educations were costing him no less that $100K a year. Of
course, the incoming PC prime minister (who was decimated in the
massive defeat of the fall elections that year) had already appointed
Brian to the ULTIMATE plum, on the board of Horsham Corporation,
where he received 250,000 stocks (worth about $2 million) for signing
on.
The
parting shot he took at Canadians is unbelievable even for Brian.
While Mulroney's new home was being renovated, Mulroney stored all of
his furnishings at taxpayer's expense (as usual). Cost? $100K. When
they moved into Sussex Drive, their personal appointments and
furnishings were valued at $98K, but when they moved out there was
20,000 pounds of furnishings requiring four full-sized moving trucks
(this according to the movers themselves). But the real kicker was
when he submitted an invoice to the government for $150K for the
furnishings they left behind. The government had it valued, and found
it to be worth less than $20,000. They told Mulroney they weren't
going to pay, and that he should come and get the furniture since it
was so valuable to him. He didn't. It was (mostly) thrown away. But
Brian showed he was leaving office in the same manner he entered it
and how he conducted himself while he was there: he acted like tax
dollars were his, and that all he had to do was try to some up with a
way to get his grimy little sleazy hands on them.
Many of
the principle characters of the Conservative Party are still the
same. Yet in the last election (a month ago) they won 80 seats.
Canadians, these guys are flat out crooks. Not all, but a large
percentage. It's only been a decade, and they have not changed .
Their new leader, Stephen Harper, is open with his admiration for
Mulroney, and Lyin' Brian is considered a major senior spokesperson
for the new party.
Do
us all a favor. Vote Liberal. Vote NDP. Vote for the Bloc Quebeqois.
Vote for the Green Party. Vote for the Family Coalition Party. Vote
for the Libertarian Party. Vote for the for-God's-sake Rhino Party.
But for your sake, my sake, and the sake of all Canadians, DO NOT
VOTE FOR THE CONSERVATIVES. Ten years of screwing us was enough.
