Stephen Harper and the Attack of the Con Scandals

It must be Stephen Harper's worst nightmare. Just as he's trying to scare Canadians into voting for him, with his politics of fear and his Great War on Terror.

He himself must be terrified by the number of Con scandals coming out of the woodwork to tarnish his government's already soiled reputation..

For as if Mike Duffy and Dean Del Mastro weren't enough to keep him awake at night.

Now comes his old buddy Vic Toews, staggering out of the darkness to haunt him.

Vic Toews’ wife complained to the Winnipeg Police Service on Thursday about “absurd” financial records that appear to show a transfer of almost $1 million from a Manitoba first nation to her company. Stacey Meek, common-law spouse of the former federal minister, said in an email Thursday that her company did not receive $966,500 for “strategic advice” from Peguis First Nation.

For it can't help but make people wonder what kind of "strategic advice" could Toews' very young wife offer the Peguis First Nation?

As well as remind people that Harper made him a judge...



Aimee Fortier, executive assistant to the chief judge of the court, said Mr. Toews recused himself from dealing with the case. She said Mr. Toews could not answer questions about his business dealings. 

“The subject of your questions is not something that would be appropriate for a judge to comment on,” she said in an email.

And if that wasn't bad enough, then there's that other scandal he just can't escape. The one involving his Public Work's Minister Diane Finley...



And his old buddy Nigel Wright.

The one Michael Harris calls the ethics problem that just won't go away. 

By any rational measure, the Diane Finley affair should be the boot that punts Stephen Harper’s sorry ass out of office. This one’s a dead skunk in the middle of the road — or maybe a dead flounder on the Highway of Hypocrites.

The strange story of the Jewish community centre that received a grant it wasn't qualified to receive. Apparently because the man who applied for it, rabbi Chaim Mendelsohn, is such a good friend of the Conservative party. And such a "dear friend" of John Baird.

Despite the fact that public servants in the department of Human Resources disqualified the Mendelsohn application on its merits, a crew of Conservative political heavies revived it. Baird, Peter Kent, Nigel Wright and others in the PMO either advised, strong-armed or lobbied Finley into reconsidering the project. 

Wright told Dawson that he had advised Finley that the matter had to be considered “carefully and fairly.”

Which can only remind people of the role Wright also played in the Duffy scandal...



As well as reminding everyone of Harper's broken promises.

Stephen Harper rode into power on a tide of popular revulsion against Liberal corruption in the ad sponsorship scandal. He took office on the promise of accountability and transparency, but delivered neither. 

The new sheriff failed miserably to clean up Dodge. Instead, after nearly ten years in power, he has a clothesline buckling under the weight of his own dirty laundry — stretching all the way from the In-and-Out scandal of 2006 to Dawson’s report on Finley.

And to make matters even worse, now even the Brazman has come back to haunt him.



Now we’re being told by suspended Conservative senator Patrick Brazeau that Finley pulled funding from a community centre because the NDP won the riding in which it was located. 

Brazeau alleged that he met Finley — then the Social Development minister — and Nigel Wright, then the PM’s chief-of-staff, about the pulled funding.

And as I said the other night, all these scandals will hurt Harper, if only by reminding many Canadians how much they wanted to get rid of him, before the terrorist scare revived his sagging fortunes.

The economy will do him the most damage. 

But the war will not help him.

And his scandals will finish him off...



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