October 21, 2009

Conservatives Confuse Party With Taxpayers Funds

(Kamloops) Local federal NDP candidate Michael Crawford called on the Prime Minister to stop the blatant partisan politics he and his MPs have shown in branding government stimulus spending as originating with their party or from their MPs.

Over the past week hundreds of examples have been found of Conservative MPs handing over government cheques with their party logo on them, photographs of their MPs, or with their signatures on them. The NDP have asked ethics commissioner Mary Dawson to launch an investigation.

“The cheques are going out looking as if they come from the Conservative party or the MP and that’s wrong” said Crawford. “They come from the taxpayer and through the government, not courtesy of any political party”.

“With one of the Olympic logos looking very much like the Conservative Party logo and all the tens of millions they are wasting telling us how much spending they are undertaking, it is hard to not think of the cheque fiasco as part of a deliberate plan to brand economic stimulus spending as coming from their party” said Crawford.

“Our local MP surely knew when she presented a cheque to the Mayor of Valemount that she should not have put her name on the cheque - that doing so was wrong and misleading” said Crawford. “ I hope she can assure people in this riding that it won’t happen again and perhaps she will offer an apology for taking such crass partisan advantage with public funds”.

A photo (attached) of MP Cathy McLeod together with BC MLAs Kevin Krueger and Shirley Bond presenting a $209,000 cheque for infrastructure upgrades to the Mayor of Valemount Bob Smith can be found on Shirley Bond’s MLA website, on page 16 of the photo gallery.
http://www.shirleybondmla.bc.ca/EN/3891/#

“These guys are confusing taxpayer money with their own in a way no different than the Liberals with Adscam.”

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