Ontario Ad-scam?
What are the rules in Ontario on the value of advertising contracts? Steve Janke has some questions to ask about a $50,000 Caledonia related promotional contract that was sole-sourced to an Ontario Liberal connected ad firm... then, a week later, after it had been awarded, it was inflated to $210,000.
That sounds REALLY fishy to me. If it were a sole-sourced $50,000 to a Liberal firm, I could handle that... I don't have any problem with legit contracts being sourced to friends... it's nice to be able to give a project you have to ideologically compatable people. But to have it, after awarding, instantly inflated to $210,000, without retendering it, certainly causes questions to arise... at least in my mind.
h/t to Dust My Broom.
That sounds REALLY fishy to me. If it were a sole-sourced $50,000 to a Liberal firm, I could handle that... I don't have any problem with legit contracts being sourced to friends... it's nice to be able to give a project you have to ideologically compatable people. But to have it, after awarding, instantly inflated to $210,000, without retendering it, certainly causes questions to arise... at least in my mind.
h/t to Dust My Broom.
posted by Christian Conservative @ 2:53 p.m.
6 Comments:
At Fri Jul 07, 11:56:00 p.m. EDT,
Michael Fox said…
Before I even read it.. I bet it's the same people that produced their "I won't raise your taxes" ads, and the same people that they paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to redesign Ontario's logo - a job which ended up consisting of cutting and pasting a portion of the Liberal logo.
At Sat Jul 08, 11:20:00 a.m. EDT,
Anonymous said…
I have a quick question... do you believe all Liberals are godless crooks? I'm a born-again believe, a card carrying liberal and a man who prefers honest governments, do you believe that's an oxymoron?
I'll make you a deal though, I will give you three, if you give me three. That is, I'll give a compliment to three high-profile conservatives, if you give compliments to three Liberals (I think it's good for the soul to say think about and say something nice about the enemy)... I'll even go first and I won't quantify my compliments, I'll simply let them stand:
1) Stephen Harper - Has kept his word about campaign promises and stuck to his guns. He's hasn't been the demon Martin made him out to be in the campaign and has clearly warmed Canada's relationship with the U.S. which will likely amount to a better deal for the Canadian people on many trade deals.
2) John Tory - I watch the Toronto Mayoral campaign 3 years ago with great interest and was quite impressed with how Mr. Tory handled himself, both with dignity and respect. I truly believe that if the campaign had lasted a few weeks longer he would have beaten Miller for the Mayors position. As it is now, he will likely become Ontario's next Premier.
3) George W. Bush - Has also stuck to his guns and has rid the world of a truly terrible dictator (Saddam Hussein). He is right to take such a hard-line against the like's of Kim Jong Il and Iran's suppressive government. Not to mention his Mid-East "Roadmap to Peace", which both Olmert and Hamas should go back to.
There! That was difficult for me and my brain is screaming to quantify some of those statments, but the ball is in your court now. Are you a blind ideologue, or can you see the reason in the other-side's thinking? Good Luck!
At Sat Jul 08, 09:27:00 p.m. EDT,
Christian Conservative said…
Anonymous, I'd love to know who you are! Feel free to drop me an e-mail, I'd love to continue the conversation. I know few card carrying Liberals who would call themselves "born again" as I call myself, so, to be honest, you've peaked my interest. ;-)
There are quite a few good Liberals out there, but for the most part, I tend to disagree with their overall stand on the issues. So, for my three...
1) Dan McTeauge: Did I mention that I voted Liberal in 1997? That's because he was my MP, and I'd met him several times, and he earned my respect and vote... and the votes of my family, as I convinced them to support him too. Over the years, he has stood firm on issues that have gone against the flow within the Liberal Party. Some have said that if he towed the party line more, he'd have been in Cabinet years ago.
2) Bill Graham: The Interim Leader of the Liberal Party, and during the Afghan vote, went against 2/3 of his own party and voted to contine the mission. I think that was great NOT because he voted against most Liberals, but because it took guts to do that. (Iggy and Scotty get props too for that, but for other reasons, they don't make my top three)
3) Warren Kinsella: Known as "The Prince of Darkness" amongst Tory insiders during the 90's. He was on of PM JC's political advisers, and he's one of the best in the business. Most people on the blogs hate him (including many who frequent here) but I think he knows his stuff, and people ignore his advice at their peril. I read his blog at least twice daily.
Took me a minute to find three, but I made it through it. ;-)
To answer the overall question, NO, I don't think that all Liberal supporters are heartless lefties who are complete morons. I find, however, that I disagree with a lot of their views. I do not favour the "statist" mindset that many within the party seem to have... the notion that we need more government or more "programs" to solve our problems. (ie - Childcare)
I also feel that the Liberal Party is GREAT at spin... I honestly think that a great number of people in Canada vote Liberal because they seem to think that the Liberal Party offers a "middle of the road" option. IT DOESN'T. It is a left-leaning, statist supporting party, that to me, seems to favour the status-quo, or governs based on what is leading the headlines, rather than looking honestly at our problems and making the tough choices that we need to in order to solve our long-standing problems.
I also agree with Elizabeth's view that the Liberal Party is ACTIVELY pushing, to a large degree, an agenda that marginalizes, or actively degrades, those who hold a Christian world-view. For example, they say that SSM is a "right", thus, if you're against it, you're a bigot. Or if your pro-life, then you must be anti-woman, and you're a throwback to the stone age.
You'd think a tolerant nation like Canada wouldn't tolerate a political party that actively attacks people like the Liberals do.
But, alas, this is Canada... and the Liberal Party is, of course, the "True and Only Official Government of Canada Party"
At Sun Jul 09, 11:56:00 a.m. EDT,
Anonymous said…
Well it has been interesting to read the responses of the rest of you and CC, I was happy with your list. I'm not familiar with #3 on it, but will read up on it some more...
I feel I need to explain why I believe that CC and I hold generally the same Christian Value's (I'm going to ASSUME a little bit here CC, so if I'm a bit off, I truly apologize):
I believe in the holy trinity, which is God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. I believe that God created the world in 7 days, as outlined in Genesis and I believe that salvation (through the blood of Jeasus Christ, the son of God) is the one and only way to make it into Heaven. And I believe that ALL Scripture is God breathed (which is the BIBLE, unaltered and uninterpreted). I gave myself to Christ at the age of 11, in the presence of my father, then rededicated myself at the age of 20, while I was attending university. As I currently live in Japan, I do not attend Church regularly, but I do when I live at home in Ontario.
I believe that the above is very similar to CC (going out on a limb here a bit, so once again, my apologizes if I have made a mistake) and if you'll notice, none of that has anything to do with political affiliation. It could be believed by a tree-hugging Hippy just as easily as a memeber of the Christian Heritage Party.
I want to give you a quote by a young Baptist Minister from Sasketchewan in the 1950's... "The religion of tomorrow should be less concerned by the dogma's of theology and more concerned with the social welfare of humanity... when one see's the church spending it's energies on the assertation of dogma, but dumb as a oyster to the poverty and misery all around it, we can't help but recognize the need for a new direction for the church."
That quote is by Tommy Douglas, founding leader of the federal NDP.
The important factor is how you "weight" your opinions.... For example, I believe that Homosexuality is a sin (yes, I'm a card-carrying member of the Liberal Party and I believe that). But I also beleive that making a constitutional amendment banning Same-sex marriage (or over-riding the constitution in order to ban it) will not make a single homosexual person into a hetrosexual... In most cases, I beleive that only the love of Jesus Christ can do that. Therefore, the existance of Homosexuality and the push for SSM has less to do with the "failure of the law and the moral decay of our government" and has more to do with the failure of the Church.
Hence Tommy Douglas points out the error in the church pushing dogma, rather than addressing the true problems people in society have.
Wow, that was long and I could go on and on, but I will leave it at that for now. My main reason for being a Christian Liberal is that I beleive that the Conservative Party is more interested in pushing dogma, while the Liberal's address more or the 'real' issue's facing Canadian's (this is a generalization of the two parties and I realize it's not always the case. And I'm not making this comment to be antagonistic, I'm simply sharing my opinion, which I understand, may not be shared by all).
At Sun Jul 09, 05:18:00 p.m. EDT,
Christian Conservative said…
In terms of basic doctrine, it sounds like we're on the same page. (could you give us your initials, real or fake, so we can know which comments are yours from hereon in?)
However, your comments haven't addressed one of my concerns, in that the Liberal Party, or the left in general, for the most part, seems to be quite anti-Christian.
Here's another situation to consider... for decades, many churches have run various programs to help the less fortunate. In recent years, many such programs have been forced to shut down or give up their main focus, proclaiming the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, because of pressure from the left. Remember what "YMCA" or "YWCA" stands for? They certainly aren't that anymore.
The Catholic diocese in Boston was forced to shut down recently because gay-rights activists took them to court over their policy of not granting adoptions to gay couples. (just for the record, I don't lump in Catholics with Christians, however, as they are a religious group, I'm using them as an example)
Christian works that I tend to support are those who focus on sharing the Gospel of Christ by doing things like feeding the hungry. Most of the left objects to this, and seek to feed the hungry stomach as an end in and of itself. Thus, many church related works have had their funding cut off over the years because of their focus on faith, and I feel that parties like the Liberals, for the most part, are a part of this trend/problem.
It's a shame when groups who were doing good work are forced to compromise because of continued pressure from the left. That's why, I think, you see churches pulling out of such works more and more. And that's a real shame.
Anywho, that's just another set of thoughts.
I'd appreciate knowing more of why you support the Liberal Party, I'm really curious now. ;-)
At Mon Jul 10, 11:08:00 p.m. EDT,
Anonymous said…
Well, I have to apologize about not being able to identify myself better... As I currently live in Japan, I'm forced to use a Japanese computer and doing more than typing and pushing enter become's quite a chore (My Japanese language skills are still quite limited). My name is Mike (real name) and in the future, I'll put my name at the bottem of my posts to help you know it's from me.
Why I support the Liberal Party? There are, in fact, many reasons I support them, but I'll try to limit my response to just a few:
1) I support 'Big Government' - Basically, I believe that many people in society are not able to make good, educated choices about what is best for their families (Not necessarialy the case for me, or for you, or for Dirk and Elizabeth for that matter, but we all seem to be fairly educated people who likely come from a good family and had a solid foundation in our childhood.... which is somewhat uncommon in society these days).
The Liberal Party believes that the government can generally make better decisions about the social welfare of it's people, the the people can themselves... And I agree! I'll give you an analogy; If you're walking through downtown Toronto and see a homeless person, is it better to give them $10 cash, or buy them Dinner? Dinner may not be exactly what they 'want', but it is likely the best thing for them! If you give them Cash, perhaps some of them will buy food, some of them might buy beer and some of them might buy a little pink hat... but if you buy them food, you know they'll get what they need!
The same, I believe, applies to society in general (because the chances of that homeless person buying food is about equal to the chance's that a parent will use a childcare allowace to better the life of their child, for example - It will happen in some cases, but certainly not all...). Hence a govenrment program forces the money to be used in a more effective manner.
2) I am a product of good Liberal Programs - When I was about 10 years old, my father had a bad car accident and suffered brain damage. Physically, he looks fine and can even act quite normal sometimes, but he was definitely brain damaged (as his son, I definitely know this is true). After this, he stopped working and it was through good Liberal programs that put food on my plate every night when I came home from school. It was through good Liberal programs that my father got free health-care and I didn't have to work full-time at the age of 15 to pay for his medical bills. And, it was through good Liberal programs that allowed me (and my brother and sister), to go to university coming from a family that had no money. I think it's important to protect (and even expand) these Liberal programs to ensure kids like me, or in other similar or dis-similar situations, can have the same opportunities I had.
3) While I don't beleive the Liberal Party holds Anti-Christian view's (I hold strong Christian view's and I'm not the only one in the party), I will admit however that it's 'perceived' to be the case. The reason for this is that right-wing Christian's have allowed themselves to be 'polorized' by issue's such as SSM and abortion... they tend to vote, based on those divisive issue's, rather than more important issue's. Since the Conservative Party is most likely to share their value's on these issue's, they beleive that the CP is the Natural Christian Party. However, if most of these Christian's were able to look beyond 'Dogma' and focus more on what the Parties want to do to better the live's of the Canadian People, I beleive the Liberal Party is more likely to reflect Christian value's.
I apolozies for this being so long, I was hoping to keep it short, but I want to leave you with just one more thought, from Barak Obama which I believe's summarizes why I support the Liberal Party... It's not about what is best for me, it's really about what is best for society;
"If there is a child, who can’t read, that matters to me, even if it’s not my child. If there is a senior citizen somewhere who can’t pay for their prescription drugs, and having to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it’s not my grandparent. If there’s an Arab family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties, even if I am not Arab"
Mike
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