First elected on the basis of transparency and accountability and acting quickly to pass the Accountability Act, the Harper Government's actions have fallen far short of words. Instead they have failed to honour the Act but rather to control information flow to the public.
The Accountability Act's single greatest failure is unaccounted spending of a missing $3.1 billion of the $12.9 allocated to the Public Security and Anti-Terrorism Initiative. Other errors too numerous to mention have been documented and reported.
Additionally judgements made by those who still can, judges, have been misrepresented to the public. In this important case concerning hundreds of thousands of dollars, "Tory spin on robocalls ruling at odds with judge's own words."
Rather than transparency with the public being increased, the opposite has been imposed on scientists who can not speak of their findings without permission. Most outrageously disabled veterans must sign a document saying they will not speak of inadequacies in their treatment. A document which, quite rightly, "they see as a threat to their right to speak out about the failure of the Department of National Defence and Canadian Forces to take care of the wounded."
The public, informed of these actions must ask of their local Members of Parliament this, "Can you say you have asked the Government "Are these actions that our soldiers fought and were wounded and died for?"
Joe Hueglin,
Niagara Falls, ON.
