Local Harper hit-man Hiebert under fire for huge annual expenses

I am entitled to my entitlements

Conservative MP Russ Hiebert (South Surrey - White Rock - Cloverdale) deserves the same sort of scorn and treatment the HST is getting in British Columbia. He is quick to denounce taxation, quick to applaud tax cuts, but even quicker to spend our tax dollars for his own expenses.

Hiebert ran for parliament partly on a campaign against real and perceived corruption during the tenure of prior governments. The Conservative Party of Canada tried to link any Liberal-connected figure to corruption or paint them as being elitist and out of touch with ordinary Canadians. One of the most often-repeated slurs, used even to this day, was handed to the Conservatives by David Dingwall, a former Cabinet minister in the first Chretien government and a Liberal appointee to head the Canadian mint. Under questioning by committee Dingwall had defended the perks of his job. Regardless of the specifics of the issue, Dingwall will forever be known as the source of the infamous quote "I am entitled to my entitlements".

What Hiebert says in his own defence is no different than David Dingwall's claim, and quite frankly neither stand up to the common sense sniff test that most Canadians would apply as to whether these are "fair" arrangements.

CTV British Columbia - B.C. MP defends using taxpayer money to fly family - CTV News

Hiebert told CTV News he was actively encouraged to travel with his family by his peers and he believes he is the only MP with a young family who has to travel a long distance.

"Because my wife and I made a commitment to keep our family together, that means my wife and kids come with me when the house is in session," Hiebert said.

Hiebert believes he is not only entitled to his entitlements but has been encouraged to make use of them. Not very many Canadians have such luxury. Something is topsy-turvy here, who is the master, and who is serving who?

I can attest from long personal experience that there are tens of thousands of Canadians out on the road, far away from home, doing their job each and every week and the vast majority do not have the luxury of shipping our family along with us. Here I find myself agreeing with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation:

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation says the auditor general needs to examine whether the spending guidelines are too lax.

"If you have a regular job at a regular company and you want your family or children to travel with you, you pay for it out of your own pocket not out of the company pocket," said Scott Hennig.

For many years I was one of those road warriors, commuting every week from Vancouver to Edmonton, Calgary, or Toronto. For the first year of our marriage I barely saw my new bride, and business travel unfortunately became a regular Monday morning feature for many years to come. I missed huge chunks of the first years of my children's lives, returning tired at the end of the week to try to catch up on what I'd missed. Yes, it was hard on family life, but it was a sacrifice we all walked into knowingly.

Russ Hiebert walked into his job as a Member of Parliament knowingly, too.

After many years of commuting by plane to work in other provinces, we decided that we no longer needed nor wanted to make that sacrifice and I resigned from my position.

Mr. Hiebert: You should make the same decision, as should all MP's who are shipping their families back and forth across the country on the back of the taxpayers. Join the rest of the Canadian public who have demanding work out of town, without our spouses or children by our side -- or move them permanently to Ottawa on your own dime -- or do the right thing and resign your seat.

From the it couldn't happen to a more worthy guy department:

The Globe and Mail reports in Anti-HST campaign grows in strength that petitioners operating under B.C.'s citizen driven initiative laws have almost completed gathering sufficient signatures - with plenty of time remaining before the deadline - to force the B.C. government's hand if they go ahead with the roll out of the Harmonized Sales Tax as planned for June 1. See where your riding stands at the Fight HST campaign progress report page.

You can feel it in the streets here, public anger goes far beyond the HST itself. This issue, like the campaign to oust David Emerson back in 2006, has touched people in B.C. in a way that defies party lines. So many are angry not just at the HST but at the underhanded, undemocratic, way in which it came to be this government's leading priority, immediately after an election during which it was discussed not once.

In this regard Campbell took a page from Stephen Harper's book of tricks. During the 2008 election, which by Harper's own fixed election date law should never have been called, Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty repeatedly said that Canada would not go into deficit spending. A couple weeks after the election, both announced that of course, Canada would be digging the country deeper into debt through significant deficit spending. Conservatives will argue that the circumstances forced a change in direction, but nothing could be further from the truth, as data from the Ministry of Finance clearly showed (when released after the election) that the Harper government had already pushed Canada deep into deficit spending at a rate never before seen in the prior decade, before the election call of 2008.

Campbell, like Harper, was willing to lie by omission. Hiding significant material facts or plans from the public in order to win votes and grab power is no different than lying through your teeth to buy votes.

Were Campbell and Harper regulated like the national securities regulator that federal finance Minister Flaherty is about to push onto the provinces, both would be in gross violation of securities (electoral) law for not disclosing these material facts to investors (voters).

Why do we insist upon one standard of ethics for corporations, but settle for a much looser set of ethics and morals out of our politicians?

Gordon Campbell has painted himself into a corner from which he cannot escape. He can't back down, without giving those who oppose him or the GST a very public victory. Pushing ahead with the HST despite the citizen-driven initiative will further weaken his support in the province and will be a big factor in fuelling to completion what will probably be the very first successful MLA recall campaigns in this country's history. Given the ease with which some ridings were able to achieve the necessary numbers for the HST petition, with plenty of margin for safety, it would not be hard to envision a great many Liberal MLA's being forced to resign and run again in by-elections. That would be a great moment in the history of Canada's democracy.

Fight the HST.

And then we must make B.C.'s recall legislation work for the very first time by forcing the resignation of Premier Gordon Campbell, Finance Minister Colin Hansen, and recalling any other member of the B.C. legislature who continues to stand up for the HST given the duplicitous manner in which it was introduced.