CadScam?

I admit it: I've given Stephen Harper and his Conservatives something of a free ride.

It's not that I'm "Steve"'s biggest fan. It's just that I have this severe allergic reaction any time I'm told what to think, and over the past few years there's been no shortage of Liberallissimos trying to convince me that Stephen Joseph Harper is the walking, talking Antichrist. Or at least "Antichrist Lite"--Big Daddy being, of course, one George "Dubya" Bush.

Whatever. I don't like George W. Bush at all, but I'd stop well short of suggesting he's evil: merely misguided, in my opinion. And Harper is nobody's "little Bushie". If he was, we'd probably be in Iraq instead of Afghanistan and our economy would be in a tailspin.

I've been neutral tending towards positive on Harper's government. After eleven years of Chretien's government by inaction and almost three years of Paul Martin trying to do everything at once and spinning like a top, Harper's steady, measured approach has been more than welcome...especially since he's had to balance getting stuff done with keeping in power. And stuff has been getting done. There are areas where Harper and I disagree...I'd like to see him craft some real environmental initiatives, and his drug policy is, quite simply, insane. But overall...not bad.
And I might as well admit to a little racism, or whatever it is: it sure is nice to have a PM who can speak English coherently. Note to American readers: if you think Bush's malapropisms are bad, get a load of this:



I haven't been alone in giving Harper a free pass. The blogosphere lit up over the Chalk River incident, but the mainstream media virtually ignored the story, and it didn't affect Harper's polling numbers.

Nothing does seem to affect Harper's polling numbers, for better or worse. Maybe it has something to do with the results of this Nanos Research/Sun Media study, suggesting that Liberal supporters tend to vote by rote regardless of leader, while Conservative voters tend to value policy, regardless of leader.
I can state that in my case, at least, this holds true. I've voted Conservative my whole life, up until the last provincial election...not because I like words that begin with "C", or because Mommy always voted that way (I don't even know if that's true; politics has always been a private subject in my family). No, I voted Conservative because, on balance, I liked their policies on the same three things Greg Weston cited: taxes, crime, and defense. Also because I have this libertarian streak in me that says those are among the very few things government should concern itself with in the first place, whereas Liberal supporters tend to want government to be everywhere all the time. Yecch.

If neither side cares particularly who the leader is, then Stephen Harper's unrelenting emphasis on himself isn't just arrogant, it's pointless.

Getting back on track: Harper's Conservatives have been largely scandal-free; the few things that have flared up have been mostly political, not at all the sordid mess that did in Martin's Liberals.

Until yesterday. And by God, it's as if Harper's making up for lost time. L'affaire Cadman has the makings of a government-killer.

The story is here. In a nutshell, it appears as if (a) money was offered to a dying Independant MP (Cadman) in exchange for his vote on a matter of confidence and that (b) Harper knew about it, condoned it and possibly authorized it. That money may have been in the form of a million-dollar life insurance policy, as Cadman's widow alleges, or not: no matter, it's illegal and unethical.

Cadman did not vote the way he was allegedly bribed to, which proves either there was no bribe or he couldn't be bought.

I do feel compelled to mention, for whatever it's worth, that Chuck Cadman had terminal cancer. There is no way an insurance company would issue a million-dollar policy on someone in his condition. Also that Cadman himself appeared on national television shortly after this offer is supposed to have taken place and denied any offer had been made. However, it certainly appears as if some sort of money was on the table. Even if this can be explained away, the rank stench will linger.

At this point--and I'm avidly watching this story develop--I have just one question:

Why now? This would have had maximum bombshell effect sometime in mid-December, 2005...in the middle of the election campaign. Had this story broken then, we could well have a different government in power right now. Not to mention if I'm Dona Cadman, I'd be outraged somebody was trying to buy my husband's support, and so crassly: I'm running to the media the second I find out about this alleged life insurance policy. That would have been May, 2005...almost three years ago. Why sit on this information this long? To what purpose?

In the meantime, my image of Stephen Harper as a man of no small integrity is taking a serious beating.