If you have ever wondered how Canada’s Tories can lie to voters as they do, just remember MP Paul Calandra and former MP Dean Del Mastro. Both these gentlemen have served as parliamentary secretaries to the Prime Minister of Canada. They have salutary stories for future aspirants to be a Conservative Member of Parliament.
Dean Del Mastro from Peterborough, Ontario is better known for his being found guilty of breaches of the Election Act and his teary resignation of his seat in parliament. Yet his answers to questions in the House on behalf of the Prime Minister were often more interesting for their level of bafflegab than anything that might enlighten the subject under discussion.
Paul Calandra from Oak Ridges-Markham, Ontario. at the moment, is still a Member of Parliament. During his tenure as Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, he is expected to be advised of notices of questions to the Prime Minister that he will be required to answer. He is also expected to be given advice by the Prime Minister’s staff on how he might answer the question.
In his tearful apology to the House of Commons for his deliberate obfuscation of answers to straight-forward questions from the Leader of the Opposition, Calandra let the kids in short pants from the Prime Minister’s Office off the hook. He took all the blame.
While Calandra might write the truth in his memoirs, the best guess is that it was fellow MPs from his own party who demanded his retraction of his answers and his apology to the House of Commons. It might have been the same group who convinced Del Mastro to resign after being convicted of breaching the Elections Act.
For the truth of the matter is that not all Conservative MPs are sleazebags. We are unable to name these few members at this time because of the danger of having our comments used as an endorsement in the 2015 federal election.
But it is the lack of truth, sincerity, caring and concern from the top down in the Conservative Party that leaves us appalled. There are just too many of the elected MPs who are making no contribution to the betterment of this country that we love. We simply cannot allow them to continue in office.
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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry
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