New Democrats led the way in 2012, proposing solutions to today’s challenges and effectively holding Conservatives to account for their mismanagement and ethical scandals.
For Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, 2012 was a banner year for getting it wrong. In order to help the Conservatives with their New Year’s resolutions, let’s countdown the Top Ten list of the worst Conservative lowlights from the past year.
Second worst Conservative lowlight of 2012:
Replacing our aging CF-18’s – the F-35 fiasco
After running an election campaign on a platform promise to buy the sole-sourced F-35 fighter, Conservatives are now claiming to have hit the “reset button” on this boondoggle in the making.
This buzzword is meant to distract Canadians from the reports of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, the Auditor General and KPMG who all concluded that the cost of the F-35s is billions more than Conservatives were willing to admit.
The AG's scathing report went even further, demonstrating that the Conservatives' procurement process was irresponsible and made mincemeat of the rules. The government even went so far as to keep two sets of books -- real numbers for the Conservative cabinet and make-believe books for the public.
This issue has it all: Conservative Ministers hurling vile attacks at the opposition, a government caught redhanded misleading Canadians and mismanagement on a titanic scale that starts and stops at the Prime Minister’s front door.
Indeed, the tale of the F-35 procurement process will one day be filed in the annals of history under ‘Conservative Procurement, how we did everything wrong.’
While Conservatives listen only to lobbyists and their insider friends, New Democrats will continue to provide practical leadership in the New Year, focussed on building a fairer, greener and more prosperous Canada.
