Conservative intramurals
By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - 10 Comments
The current president of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, and a former aide to Reform leader Preston Manning, laments the use of taxpayer dollars to promote the candidacy of the former president of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, who was a former aide to Stephen Harper, who was formerly the chief policy officer of Preston Manning’s Reform party.
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Our cynicism runneth over
By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 15, 2009 at 12:53 PM - 31 Comments
The experts react to the Chronicle-Herald’s analysis of stimulus spending in Tory ridings.
A pattern of heavy spending in Conservative ridings uncovered in a Chronicle Herald analysis of federal stimulus spending is just business as usual, part of a long bipartisan pattern of using tax dollars for political gain, say political observers…
“Old style politics is all about bringing home the bacon,” said Kevin Gaudet of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. ”All they’ve done is paint the pig a different colour.”
Nothing new here, said Charles Cirtwill, of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies. ”The Liberals did this for years and the Conservatives sat outside and pointed fingers and raged and pulled their hair,” he said. “And now the Liberals are doing the same thing. The only folks who are really consistent are the NDP, and that’s primarily because at the federal level they’ve never had a chance to pass out the dough.”
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Tax freedom? What a lot of rubbish.
By Andrew Potter - Thursday, May 28, 2009 at 1:00 PM - 22 Comments
Only the Fraser Institute could see it as a bad thing that we spend less of our income on basics like food and shelter than we used to
What is it about springtime that makes anti-government types go light-headed? As millions of Canadians from coast to coast were getting ready to celebrate the Victoria Day weekend by opening the cottage, firing up the barbecue, or—er—watching hockey, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation took the opportunity to declare May 14 “Gas Tax Honesty Day.”Designed to “kick off the summer travel season for Canadian motorists” by reminding us of “the high tax component hidden in the price of gasoline,” this 11th annual holiday consisted—according to CTF propaganda—of “events” across the country. The highlight event was a jamboree down at the Ashbridges Bay Pumping Station in Toronto that featured CTF director Kevin Gaudet engaging in such summer-fun activities as . . . releasing a report on gas taxes . . . and . . . demanding that gas taxes be lowered.
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Anatomy of a Prime Minister
By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, May 23, 2009 at 12:22 PM - 8 Comments
Kevin Gaudet is unimpressed. And your Saturday morning Globe gets a bit racy.
Mr. Gaudet was particularly critical of Mr. Harper, who started his political career as a Reform Party MP and served as the head of the right-wing National Citizens Coalition in Calgary before becoming Conservative Party leader.
“Mr. Harper may left his balls out West when it comes to taking a principle stand against bailing out this industry like he used believe in,” he said.
