[Newsbot]

<strong>Filibuster Cartoon</strong>
<strong>Title: </strong> <a href="http://www.filibustercartoons.com/archive.php?id=20071116" target="_blank">Mulroney returns</a> (click to view)
<strong>Date: </strong> November 16, 2007

Way way back in the 1980\'s Brian Mulroney was Prime Minister of Canada. And Air Canada was still owned by the government. In 1988 Mr. Mulroney met with a dodgy German businessman who wanted to sell Air Canada three Airbus jets. Mr. Mulroney agreed, and in exchange the German allegedly paid Mulroney 300,000 bucks in cash. This is a fairly mainstream allegation, and it\'s been circulating the Canadian media for many years. Entire books have been written about the matter. <br> <br>But only now has an official government investigation been launched into the scandal. The key turning point was the fact that the German guy has recently come out of the closet and openly admitted to giving Mulroney the money, whereas before he was pretty quiet about the matter. <br> <br>Prime Minister Harper, who was a harsh critic of Mulroney when he was in power, flip-flopped a bit on whether or not to support an official inquiry into the Airbus affair. He has since come down in favor. There had been talk recently that Harper and Mulroney were beginning to make peace with each other, but Harper will now likely <br>be keen to establish as much distance as possible from his predecessor.

[Jabrwock]

It was interesting to watch the Liberals call Harper's bluff. He was hedging "no way the Liberals would want another sponsorship scandal, and any investigation will likely turn up equally damaging info about their dealings." This was pretty much his talking point for a while there. "I'd LOVE to call an investigation, but really, do the Liberals want ANOTHER investigation into backroom deals? Huh? Do they? I doubt it, so I won't waste taxpayers money on this."

What he forgot was that the Liberals had already hit the bottom, and therefore had nothing to lose, and everything to gain from embarrassing Harper. They are already covered in mud from the sponsorship scandal, and so an extra few coats of muck won't faze them as much as a the chance to spread some of that muck around...

[sasquatch2]

Jabrwock

Quote:

What he forgot was that the Liberals had already hit the bottom, and therefore had nothing to lose, and everything to gain from embarrassing Harper. They are already covered in mud from the sponsorship scandal, and so an extra few coats of muck won't faze them as much as a the chance to spread some of that muck around...

Actually this was a case of over-estimating the opposition. Inexperienced, naive and ignorant.

Cretin and Martin are having kittens.....Alan Runt is "no comment"---he learned.

Unless this is the Dion gangs great white hope to forever vanquish the LIBRANO old guard-----and foolishly squandering the only asset they have..........the Liberal Brand.

[CanadianJeff]

....Honestly I look at it this way.

Harper was elected on a government acountability platform. Many of his actions such as senate reform and such are results of this action. What Harper did was try to shift the focus back on the sponsership scandal but in the end he realized that he ran on a platform of government acountability and it would be wrong for him NOT to follow up on this.

So follow up he has and is even going so far as to bring his own party up to snuff on being acountable in government. Frankly it's one of the best things he's ever done. This has been sitting idle for far too long. It's kind of ironic but appropriate that an acountable Conservative government is the one triggering the investigation that is long overdue.

We let far too many rich people off the hook when they commit crimes. As far as I'm concerned this is one step closer to social equality by putting everyone on the same level of acountability when they commit crimes. Just becuase you can afford a high payed lawyer doesn't mean that you don't deserve to be punished just the same as anyone.

[dotDarkCloud]

Great cartoon, my political science proff showed this in class, got a lot of laughs.

[kenmore]

harper is frequently advised by mulroney and bush... so how could the torys not be crooked...

[Wally_Sconce]

the tory are crooked, but the Liberals are 1 billion times worse.

[kenmore]

oooooooooooh great come back aging...... i dont drink but even the name mulroney makes me drive by a liquor store...

[Wally_Sconce]

Kenmore, i have a serious question for you.

How can you forgive the Liberal Party? The adscam was $100,000,000.00 of tax payers money that was pissed away and stolen UNDER THE NAME OF NATIONAL UNITY

At the very minimum, don't you think the liberals should reform under a new name?

[Wally_Sconce]

Why is there no reform sect of liberals? Are there no liberals that are ashamed of the Liberal Party?

[fire_i]

Well I for one think the Tories are just as crooked as the Libs, except that up to now it didn't show as much (and maybe since the sponsorship scandal, everyone decided to be more careful... wonder how long that's gonna' last though).

Really, considering who else we can vote for, I think making the Libs stagnate at ~25% of the popular vote shows everyone is still pissed off at them, and that they'll need a real effort to be forgiven, not Stéphane Dion.