Is it possible the Conservative Party didn't think this through?

Enlisting a Conservative senator caught up in the current Senate scandal to stand on stage at the close of convention to deliver a report about party fundraising?

The Senate scandal dogging the Conservative government has blown wide open one of the upper chamber’s dirty little secrets: it houses plenty of party organisers and fundraisers appointed by Conservatives and Liberals over the years who wear two hats while collecting a pay cheque from the public.

That brings us to Senator Irving Gerstein. He was appointed to the Senate by Stephen Harper back on December 22, 2008, alongside Mike Duffy,  Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau.

Gerstein also just happens to be a longtime fundraiser for the Conservative Party and chair of the Conservative Fund. That’s what brought him to the stage near the end of the convention - to give an update to delegates about the party's fundraising fortunes.

But back to the party's troubles.

Court documents released in July say that as head of the Conservative Fund, Gerstein knew Nigel Wright, Harper's former chief of staff, cut a cheque to Duffy to repay disputed expense claims. The documents also allege the party had initially planned to repay Duffy’s expenses from its taxpayer-subsidized war chest, headed by Gerstein. (In his speech on Saturday, Gerstein said he told Wright that no party dollars were to go to pay Duffy's disputed claims - and that none ever were.)

This isn’t the first time Gerstein has been dragged into party problems. Remember the “in and out scandal” – when the RCMP raided the Conservative Party offices in 2008? 

In the end, the Conservative Party was fined $52,000 for breaking election rules. The party and the Conservative Fund pleaded guilty to Elections Act charges for exceeding the maximum allowable spending and filing incomplete election records. 

The deal meant charges against four senior officials – hello again, Senator Gerstein! – were dropped. The presiding judge said the offences were "of a regulatory nature but significant to the democratic process." 

With Gerstein on stage at the close the Conservative Party convention, who said irony is dead?

It’s official.

The Conservative Party decided Saturday to throw its weight behind a campaign to attack unions and undermine collective bargaining rights.

Before wrapping up their policy convention on Saturday, delegates voted overwhelmingly to back a series a motions that are so radical, even Mike Harris in Ontario and Ralph Klein in Alberta didn't go that far: optional union membership, an opt-out provision when it comes to paying for union activities, requiring detailed financial reporting, and so-called "right-to-work" legislation.

These policies is all about union busting and cobbling the ability of unions to fight for fair wages, good pensions and strong public services that benefit everyone.

Speaking of good pensions, the Conservative Party took a second whack at retirement security on Saturday when delegates adopted a motion to push government to gut public-sector pensions and benefits in favour of those "comparable" to the private sector.

The private sector is already leading in a race to the bottom on pensions, with fewer and fewer employers offering defined benefit pension plans. If the public sector moves away from secure defined benefit pension plans and replaces them with inferior alternatives – hello, defined contribution plans! – this will drive down pension benefits for everyone. Guessing nobody thought of raising the bar in the private sector?

It's also too bad the Conservative Party – and Treasury Board president Tony Clement, who spoke out in favour of the motion – don't seem to understand that many of these plans were designed by government employers, not unions, to support recruitment and retention. Federal public sector unions like the Public Service Alliance of Canada are actually legislatively prohibited from bargaining pensions.

And don't forget who stands in the way of the proposal for a bigger, better Canada Pension Plan that would give a decent defined benefit, fully inflation indexed, secure pension plan to all workers. That plan has been championed by the labour movement, endorsed by many pension experts, and is now supported by almost all of the provinces. But the Conservative government says no.

Speaking of no, let's hope the Conservative government says no to a newly adopted party policy, calling for a "less progressive" taxation system.

Photo: lynnfriedman. Used under a Creative Commons BY 2.0 licence.

Chalk this one up as a win for the social conservative wing of the Conservative Party – and a loss for all women concerned about a slippery slope towards reducing choice.

The party faithful on Saturday voted – by a large majority – to make it official party policy to condemn the "discrimination against girls through gender selection." The proposal came from the Langley riding association, where Mark Warawa is the local MP.

Harper has a sense about what this is all about – reopening the abortion debate. That’s why Harper made sure a similar motion, tabled by Warawa in the House of Commons last year, got shot down. Harper said repeatedly that "he did not intend to reopen the debate on abortion."

Looks like the grassroots of the Conservative Party have a different idea. To get a flavour of where some of them would like to take the abortion debate, this group was distributing a pamphlet at the convention to convince delegates to support the gender selection motion. Their "quest" is to "restrict abortion to the greatest extent possible."

It's decision time for the Conservative Party. Delegates vote Saturday on anti-labour proposals that, if passed, will become party policy. The motions are about one thing: undermining bargaining rights.

What better time to watch this two-minute video, made back in 2007 in Australia. "What Have The Unions Ever Done For Us?," a brilliant rip-off from a scene in Monty Python's The Life of Brian, was part a fight back campaign against John Howard’s anti-union agenda.

The labour movement won that fight – Howard, a pal of Stephen Harper's, was tossed out of government before the year was over.

//www.youtube.com/embed/184NTV2CE_c?rel=0

Prime Minister Stephen Harper delivered some head-scratchers in his speech to the party faithful on Friday night at the Conservative Party convention. Here are 10 of them, starting at the beginning of his speech and working down from there.

1. "In this party, we say what we will do, and then we do what we said."

Is it unfair to go all the way back to March 2004, when Harper said, "I will not name appointed people to the Senate"? For more recent history, how about not uttering a word about cutting public pensions during the 2011 election, then doing just that in the 2012 federal budget?

2. "Cutting the GST from 7, to 6, to 5%!"

For a person who likes to tout his economic credentials, surely Harper's read what key experts have had to say about this policy. A reduction in the GST is "among the worst possible tax cuts to boost productivity…. Worse still, even a one percentage point reduction in the GST, at a fiscal cost of a whopping $5.2 billion per year, gives up a lot of government revenue.''

3. "We took money out of the hands of the lobbyists, academics and bureaucrats, and we gave it to the real child-care experts. Their names are Mom and Dad."

Harper is talking about the government’s $100 monthly payment to parents for each child under the age of six. If you know anything about the cost of child care (and you don’t live in Quebec, where the provincial government stepped up to create a $7-a-day child-care program), you know $100 only pays for a few days of care every month, if you can find a spot. Mom and Dad also know the difference between a baby bonus cheque and a child-care program.

4. "Let’s never forget, that only this party takes to heart the debt owed to our brave men and women in uniform."

Tell that to the wounded Canadian soldiers who claim they’re being discharged from the military before they’re eligible to collect a pension. Or, better yet, read the latest report of Canada’s veterans ombudsman. It says the New Veterans Charter has “urgent shortcomings” that must be fixed.

5. "That it was this party that took action to clean up the mess the Liberals left behind."

Can’t quibble about the sponsorship mess, but it takes nerve to talk about clean government in the middle of a Senate ethics scandal involving allegations of extortion by the Prime Minister’s Office. 

6. "This is the only party that has tried to reform the Senate. We were blocked by the other parties in the minority parliaments, and now we are being blocked in the courts."

Blaming the courts is a familiar refrain for Harper, but this one doesn't cut it. After being in power for seven (!) years, the Conservative government finally referred six reference questions to the Supreme Court earlier this year on how to reform the upper chamber.

7. "[Conservative senators] have begun by demanding greater transparency in senate expenses, and what that has shown is that there are a few senators who have collected inappropriate expense reimbursements to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

No mention that these “few” senators at the centre of this ethics scandal were appointed by Harper himself. And he tapped two of them – Mike Duffy and Pamela Wallin – because of their star power and ability to raise money for the Conservative Party while collecting a pay cheque from the public purse.

8. "And let me be very clear here tonight, as Conservatives we believe that actions have consequences."

Harper, staying with the Senate theme here, apparently doesn't believe there should be consequences for the person who appointed the senators now under investigation for disputed housing and residency claims and other alleged abuses. The cases of Duffy and Wallin are especially interesting, given Harper's appointees from Prince Edward Island and Saskatchewan both lived in Ontario.

9. "Our government’s vision is about securing real prosperity, for real people."

Tell that to those struggling to get ahead. Inequality has been worsening in Canada where the top 1% of tax-filers now receives 14% of all income, up sharply from 8% in the early 1980s.  

10. "Canadian families work hard to balance their books. So do we."

The Harper government has clocked deficits every single year since coming to power. They've ranged in size from $5.8 billion to $55.6 billion a year.

Photo: pmwebphotos. Used under a Creative Commons BY 2.0 licence.

The Conservative Party convention has brought out people's button A-games. Here's a sampling:

Here we go again.

The Fraser Institute, a right-wing think tank that flogs the "government bad/market good" mantra whenever it can, has just released a compilation of "wasted" federal government spending.

The report relies on reports of the Auditor General of Canada from 1988 to 2013. The problem? It exaggerates the problem by completely ignoring the many instances in which the Auditor General found that programs worked efficiently and met stated goals.

This cherry picking also totally neglects important work by the Auditor General on the costs of tax avoidance.

In reports dating back to at least 1996, the Auditor General has, among other tax compliance issues, reported on lost revenues resulting from the illegal and improper use of offshore tax shelters by wealthy individual Canadians and by corporations.

We’re talking about huge amounts of money. In 2007, for example, the Auditor General reported on progress made by the Canada Revenue Agency in reassessing 72 trusts with capital gains of over $600 million. These trusts had been created to avoid Canadian tax by using the treaty with Barbados.

If recommendations had been acted on, government could have recouped plenty.

Could it be possible that the Fraser Institute has a double standard? Government spending – bad. Not paying taxes – good.

Photo: arobrien. Used under a Creative Commons BY 2.0 licence.