– and not simply because it is Harper and Flaherty being called to task for breaking campaign promises, this is good news because elected officials are being called to task for lying to the electorate.
OTTAWA - A national advocacy group has launched a formal complaint against Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty for lying to Canadians by reversing an election promise not to tax income trusts.
Harper and Flaherty deceived voters and should be forced to compensate Canadians for any lost investments due to their surprise decision to change a campaign promise not to tax trusts, said Duff Conacher, co-ordinator of Democracy Watch, a citizen group that advocates for democratic reform.
Federal ethics rules require politicians to act honestly and Harper and Flaherty should be held to account for announcing they would break an election promise and start taxing income trusts, said Conacher.
Election cycle, after election cycle, we see the same thing…. politicians on the campaign trail promising to do this, or that, or vowing that they will not do “A”, or “B” - and then after taking power, either not following through, or doing just the opposite.
The question here is not whether or not income trusts should, or should not, be taxed; the issue is much larger than that.
The question is whether or not political parties and politicians on the campaign trail have the legal and ethical responsibility to follow through on their promises, or whether we finally officially admit that campaign promises are not really “promises”, but meaningless carrots to be dangled in front of the masses once every four years or so in the hopes of gaining power.
Either way, any ruling on this is significant.
[1] If campaign promises are in fact binding agreements between the party/politician making them then we may see caution and a bit of realism injected into the process.
[2] If campaign promises are not binding agreements between the party/politician making them then we can all finally officially admit that their spouting on the campaign trail is meaningless and conduct ourselves accordingly.
Personally I do not believe that the payment of “stiff fines for deceiving voters” goes far enough, not by half; the loss of the seat a politician is elected to for not following through on a campaign promise, regardless of what the party line may be, would be a really good start.
You know what is even more depressing, I almost guarantee the only reason the Liberals argued so hard against it in QP is that the NDP and Bloc all voted for it, so they had a free reign to slag it without any possible recourse.
It was going to happen regardless, I had thought the Conservatives were the only ones who were against it before the election.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a parliament that worked together instead of against each other. Instead of argueing they would say “the bill proposed by the honorable member has definite merits, and if he would be willing to work with us, I’m sure we could come to a reasonable variation that would be acceptable by our members and voters as well….”.
Isn’t THAT the way the system was supposed to be in the first place? Especially in a minority situation.
Some faith was restored when Harper talked to Jack about the environment, but I’m not holding my breath on that one either.