I don't usually post articles in the entirety however this one is too important and I am willing to face copyright infringement *** REVISED***

Harper is guilty of a greater crime

By: Allan Rankin

Until now I have resisted writing about the alleged misdeeds of Senator Mike Duffy, perhaps because I worked for six years in Ottawa as a policy advisor to another, far more ethical and honourable Prince Edward Island Senator, but also because the whole sordid mess is rather depressing.

Not long after I began working on the Hill, the new Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Official Opposition requested to meet with the Senate Committee for Legal and Constitutional Affairs, which at the time was studying various constitutional issues.

I wanted to see this new political leader from the west in action, and so I slipped into the committee room to watch.

What I witnessed was the most arrogant, dismissive, and disrespectful performance by a politician in my lifetime.

Mr Harper outlined his own party’s agenda for change in a forceful manner. However, he spoke to the Senators in the room, including parliamentary giants Lowell Murray and Serge Joyal, as if they were children.

That brief encounter with the man who would become Canada’s 22nd prime minister shook my political rafters, and it conveyed a clear message that while Ontario and Quebec were to be placated in a Harper government, only western Canada really mattered, and federalism as we had come to know it, was soon to be an antiquated concept.

Harper scoffed at, and openly challenged, the appointed Senators to oppose his proposed reforms.

http://www.peicanada.com/eastern_graphic/article_615b626a-5652-11e5-9bc9-8f4d147afce8.html

I have truncated the post to meet copyright laws and suggest that you copy the link above and paste it so you may read the full article by Mr. Rankin.

We have learned from watching and listening to Stephen Harper's  lack of respect in the House of Commons for the rule of democracy and his disdain for parliament, Mr. Rankin, with his first hand knowledge, simply confirms what the majority of us thought.