The politically correct pork barrelling continues:
"Our government is committed to the advancement of women's leadership throughout our country," said Minister Ambrose. "We are pleased to partner with Actions Femmes Î.-P.-É Inc. to create real leadership opportunities so that francophone and Acadian girls and young women can contribute to Canada's prosperity."
Since 2007, the Harper Government has invested $2.8 million in funding to 16 projects in PEI.
That's a heck of lot more than Wallin, Duffy & Justin are alleged to have used and abused.
This is the real scandal of modern Canada, the real misuse of taxpayer dollars. Not the few hundred thousand being skimmed off the top by greedy pols. It's not as if private sector executives don't expense stuff they're not suppose to. Give people free stuff and sometime to get comfortable and they'll likely over indulge. For some people that can take decades, for others a few weeks. The penny ante spectacle we've seen in Ottawa these last few weeks is routine.
Never mind the party or the personnel, this kind of low-level pocket stuffing has been with us since John A was in knee-pants. It ain't ever going away. A vigilant media, a strong Auditor General and an engaged electorate can keep this sort of behaviour to a rough minimum, but no more. A nation as rich and strong as Canada will not have its democracy undermined by Nigel Wright's cheque book or Justin Trudeau's speaking itinerary.
What can undermine a free society, even an old free society like Canada, is a widespread culture of rent-seeking and subsidy. When citizens turn to the state, rather than to themselves, family and neighbours, society loses its vigour. From free individuals we become enervated subjects. We are now long past the ideal, pushed for by the early advocates of the welfare state, of a safety net for the poor and feeble. It is an astonishing conceit to imagine that the federal government has a responsibility to "create real leadership opportunities" for Francophone girls and young women anywhere in Canada, much less in a province where only 4% list French as their mother tongue.
I've described this abuse of taxpayer money as micro-pork. It is how governments attempt to secure their re-election. In the large and wealthy urban ridings of Toronto or Calgary this sort of micro-pork has little impact. People are too busy making money and live too atomistically to be pandered to in this way. A denizen of the Mississauga sprawlands has little attachment to the place and little time to care about his neighbours. He lives like a number. But the residents of PEI have been there for generations. There are small French enclaves here and there on PEI.
A well place "investment" in a small local community might swing a few polling stations in the direction of a Tory candidate.
The whole of PEI is Liberal controlled. The woman making this announcement, Susan Truppe represents London North Centre. It would seem the Tories are bribing people who would never vote for them. But let's look a little more closely. The announcement was made in the town of Morell, which is in the riding of Cardigan. The Tories lost that seat by 2379 votes in the last election. The Francophone population of the riding is about 1.2%. There were 27,127 eligible voters in Cardigan in the 2011 election, of whom a remarkable 78% showed up to vote. This single announcement isn't likely to swing the seat, but a few more like it might put Cardigan into contention.
Now compare that to the riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands, represented by our old friend Lizzy May. The riding had 91,673 eligible voters in 2011, of which 31,890 voted for May. A mere 24,544 voted for the then sitting Conservative MP Gary Lunn. That would mean a 7346 raw vote gap between Lunn and May. It should be noted that Lizzy benefited enormously from the collapse of the Liberal vote in that riding. Still if you're a Conservative strategist looking to pick up ridings, where would you spend the taxpayer's money?
It would take a lot of vote buying to swing 7346 odd votes your way. It would take rather less to swing 2379 odd voters in a much poorer and more cohesive region of the country. Both ridings entitle their occupant, or more accurately their party leader, one vote in the House of Commons. When you're building, or maintaining, a majority government, you need to pander in an efficient way. Since it's other people's money this is about as efficient as it gets.
You could instead provide the nation with some vision and principles, but that would be hard work.
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