Stimulus Spending - Kennedy

[CHIMO]

We started this segment with a clip of Globe and Mail political columnist Jeffrey Simpson's brief assessment of the tradition of pork-barrel politics in Canada. And yes ... it goes back to the building of the original parliament buildings. Not long after that, Prime Minister Wilfred Laurier got one of his buddies to build the bridge over the Rideau Canal. And Jeffrey Simpson goes on to say that Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's Quebec ministers met every week to allocate contracts to Liberal favourites.

And according to Gerard Kennedy this tradition is alive and well in the federal government today. He is the is the Member of Parliament for Parkdale-High Park and the Liberal Party's Infrastructure Critic. He has been investigating the federal government's Infrastructure Stimulus Fund. And he was in Ottawa.

Stimulus Spending - Menzies

The Current requested interviews with Vic Toews -- the President of The Treasury Board -- and John Baird -- the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. Neither of them was available this morning to respond to Mr. Kennedy's allegations. But for the government's perspective on this, we do have Ted Menzies. He's the MP for the riding of Macleod in southwestern Alberta and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance. Ted Menzies was in Ottawa.

http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2009/200910/20091007.html

[Posteritatis]

1. Nova Scotia got creamed pretty obviously by that

One quarter of the stimulus money wound up in the Minister of Defence's riding - surprise! His riding and the other two got twice as much as the rest of the province combined.

(Of course, conservative voters are saying this is a good thing, and complaining that all the other ridings got any money whatsoever.)

[CHIMO]

2. Tory logos on federal cheques draw fire

Federal opposition MPs are taking aim at the ruling Conservatives over the appearance of their party's logo on ceremonial cheques at funding announcements.

An oversized $300,000 cheque was handed out last month by Gerald Keddy, Conservative MP for South Shore-St. Margaret's in Nova Scotia. The money, from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, is for an upgrade to a rink in Chester, a community in Keddy's riding.

A photo of the cheque presentation was published in a local newspaper.

Keddy said he never noticed the Tory blue design and large Conservative Party logo in the top left corner, or his signature at the bottom.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/nova-scotia/story/2009/10/14/ns-keddy-cheque.html

Last Updated: Wednesday, October 14, 2009 | 7:12 PM AT


Partisan cheques put Tories in hot water
Caught red-handed, the Conservatives have hurriedly disavowed an MP who splashed the party's logo on mock cheques dispensing government funds to a local riding.

But the MPs are free to doctor the cheques in other ways, the government insists.

The misadventure lends credence to opposition concerns that the Conservatives are using stimulus funds and other government spending for partisan purposes, having campaigned against exactly those shenanigans.

“We find it quite despicable that they would be blatant in this, especially when they came to office saying they would do things differently,” said Nova Scotia NDP MP Peter Stoffer, who first exposed the Tories' stunt.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/partisan-cheques-put-tories-in-hot-water/article1323521/
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/partisan-cheques-put-tories-in-hot-water/article1323521/

So the local fellow says he doesn't know where the mark up came from and the PMO is telling the locals to stop doing it.

After just four years in office the stiff, top down rulers don't know what the heck is going on. Must be lots of dirt just under the horizon.