{"id":10767,"date":"2015-08-05T07:02:01","date_gmt":"2015-08-05T12:02:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=10767"},"modified":"2015-08-05T07:02:01","modified_gmt":"2015-08-05T12:02:01","slug":"stephen-harper-serial-abuser-of-power-the-evidence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=10767","title":{"rendered":"Stephen Harper, Serial Abuser of Power: The Evidence"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/thetyee.ca\/Opinion\/2015\/08\/04\/Stephen-Harper-Abuses-of-Power\/\" target=\"_blank\">Stephen Harper, Serial Abuser of Power: The Evidence<\/a><\/h3>\n<p class=\"tagline\"><strong>An omnibus of sins, topping 50. Tell us ones we&#8217;ve missed, we&#8217;ll add to the PM&#8217;s rap sheet.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"first\">Stephen Harper and his Conservatives have racked up dozens of serious abuses of power since forming government in 2006. From scams to smears, monkey-wrenching opponents to intimidating public servants like an Orwellian gorilla, some offences are criminal, others just offend human decency.<\/p>\n<p>To spare you abuse fatigue, we&#8217;ve divided our list into two parts. The second one runs Thursday. Please help us out. As you read, if any abuses we&#8217;ve forgotten come to mind, either make a note in the comments thread after this piece or send us an email at\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:editor@thetyee.ca\">editor@thetyee.ca<\/a>, subject line Harper Abuse List. We will fold what we get into a final version as a handy reference for the campaign.<\/p>\n<p>A thanks, by the way, to a few friends of The Tyee who researched and helped with this list.<\/p>\n<p><strong>ELECTION ABUSES: SCAMS, SLIMES, STINGS AND CROOKED SPENDING<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Stephen Harper having called an election, we enter familiar territory. In the Conservative gladiators&#8217; arena just about anything goes &#8212; unless and until you are caught, that is. Kicking off The Tyee&#8217;s list of Harper abuses of power are 14 times his team violated election laws or ethics:<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Conservative Convicted on Robocalls Scam<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Tory operative Michael Sona was given jail time for his role in the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/globalnews.ca\/news\/215052\/opposition-parties-slam-election-dirty-tricks-campaign-linked-to-tories-2\/\" target=\"_blank\">robocalls<\/a>\u00a0scam. The judge<a href=\"http:\/\/thechronicleherald.ca\/editorials\/1229799-editorial-sona-s-robocalls-conviction-demands-tough-sentence\" target=\"_blank\">indicated<\/a>\u00a0more than one person was likely involved. In another court judgment in a case brought by the Council of Canadians, the ruling said the robocalls operation was\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/news.nationalpost.com\/full-comment\/john-ivison-pierre-poutine-called-voters-in-ridings-across-ontario-not-just-guelph#__federated=1\" target=\"_blank\">widespread<\/a>, not just limited to the Guelph riding. Donald Segretti who did dirty tricks for the Nixon White House\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/news\/british-columbia\/robo-calls-worse-than-watergate-dirty-tricks-op-opines\/article550730\/\" target=\"_blank\">told<\/a>\u00a0a Canadian reporter his skullduggery didn&#8217;t go so low as to run schemes sending voters to the wrong polling stations.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stephen Harper, Serial Abuser of Power: The Evidence An omnibus of sins, topping 50. Tell us ones we&#8217;ve missed, we&#8217;ll add to the PM&#8217;s rap sheet. Stephen Harper and his Conservatives have racked up dozens of serious abuses of power since forming government in 2006. From scams to smears, monkey-wrenching opponents to intimidating public servants [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2682,103,106,7877,1235,643,7876,749,5499],"class_list":["post-10767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-abuse-of-power","tag-canada","tag-canadian-government","tag-council-of-canadians","tag-orwell","tag-power","tag-robocalls","tag-stephen-harper","tag-the-tyee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10767"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10768,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10767\/revisions\/10768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}