Stephen Taylor

This can’t be good for the Liberals. It’s day two of the campaign and the RCMP are investigating a new Liberal scandal.

Turns out that the market moved in anticipation of Ralph Goodale’s announcement that income trusts wouldn’t be taxed and that the corporate dividend tax credit would be increased.

Goodale called it a “drive-by smear” when opposition MPs questioned him on the market jump prior to his announcement.

However:

A forensic accountant told CTV Newsnet’s Mike Duffy Live that he thinks the probability there was insider trading is between 75 and 85 per cent.

Goodale said he made it clear an announcement would be coming before the opposition non-confidence vote, which took place Monday evening.

However, Rosen said most of the trading involved three brokers at most, and seemed to occur between 3:15 p.m. and 4 p.m. that day.

Bloomberg News cites some examples of heavy trading volumes:

The Yellow Pages Income Fund rose 3.4 per cent ahead of the announcement, in which Goodale said he wouldn’t tax income trusts such as Yellow Pages.

The S&P/TSX Capped Income Trust Index climbed 1.5 per cent on Nov. 23, the day of Goodale’s announcement, and jumped 4.4 per cent the next day.

Pair this developing scandal with Conservative leader Stephen Harper’s announcement creating an independent office of public prosecutions and it’ll be very difficult for even the best Liberal spinners not to concede that this second day of the campaign has been won by Stephen Harper.

If this scandal turns out to be insider trading (75-85%), then this may end up plaguing the Liberals during most of the campaign.

Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper announced in Quebec city today that if his party is elected to government it will create an independent office of public prosecutions to ensure that if a scandal such as Adscam ever happened again, people who were involved politically would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

News of this move by Mr. Harper drew criticism from CBC political analyst Carolyn Dunn who only managed to qualify her disdain with the classic “but it’s an American style approach” excuse. Mr. Harper noted that similar offices exist within other countries such as Australia at the federal level and even within Canada at the provincial level in Nova Scotia. Dunn continued to draw parallels to independent prosecutor Ken Starr who investigated former US President Bill Clinton before the 42nd president was impeached. However, Dunn could have qualified the independent office of public prosecutions (and thus Mr. Harper’s announcement) by noting that the current US prosecutor is now chasing right-wing bogeymen of the CBC such as Conrad Black and Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

Mr. Harper’s idea to create such an office is welcome, even in the face of the criticism that by doing so would imply that the RCMP isn’t doing its job. Under political direction by Jean Chretien, Brian Mulroney faced about a decade of uncertainty as the Liberals tried to look under every rock and into every dark corner of the Conservative PM’s life. In the past couple of weeks, Mr. Mulroney has finally been cleared of any wrong doing alleged by the Liberal party.

Cases of the Liberal party using the RCMP to investigate political foes aside, the current crop of Liberals are alleged to have corrupted elements of the RCMP during the Sponsorship scandal.

An independent (of political interference) office of public prosecutions is certainly needed in a country that has faced the worst political directed scandal in Canadian history. If there is any element of Stephen Harper’s plan that is “American like”, this is merely left-wing commentators using the United States as a qualifier for their bias against centre-right politicians. In America, and quite frankly, in most industrialized nations, people that break the law sit in small cold cells for extended periods of time. While in Canada, people that break the law get to appoint their own inquiry of investigation, set its mandate and if found guilty, get to lecture ethics at McGill.

“It was this Prime Minister who determined that all Canadians had the right to know what happened in relationship to the sponsorship program. It was this Prime Minister who put Mr. Justice Gomery in place.” — Anne McLellan, deputy Liberal Prime Minister (Hansard)

Liberals broke the trust of Canadians. An independent office of public prosecutions that is impervious to political interference is what this country desperately needs.

Reporter: “Stephen Harper, do you love Canada?”

Stephen Harper: (long winded answer about how much he wants to do for the country. Doesn’t utter the exact words, but everyone gets the picture)

Liberal war-room release: “STEPHEN HARPER DOESN’T LOVE CANADA”

Liberal media: smells blood in the water, goes in a tizzy

Arguably, the 2004 campaign may have been lost by an over-caffeinated staffer in the Conservative war-room releasing the press release “Paul Martin supports child pornography”.

In the most recent example, the media followed the tune of Scott Reid’s pipe when the Liberal spinmaster wanted to emphasize how upset the country should be at the Conservative assertion that somehow, out of everything that we’ve heard at Gomery, that perhaps, just perhaps, the Liberals were connected to organized crime.

“What an outrageous statement!” Scott Reid said as he lead the media in a chorus. “When will Stephen Harper apologize?” they sang in harmony.

Now we have the Liberals questioning Stephen Harper’s love for Canada?

Most people that sacrifice much of their life, at the expense of family and friends and pursuits in private industry, to run for the leadership of this country must certainly have a love for it. This is without a doubt.

The Liberal Party assertion that Stephen Harper does not love this country ranks among the most vile and outrageous things said during any recent campaign.

If the Conservative Leader had said the same about Paul Martin, the headlines would have read “Angry Harper”. Since the Liberals issued the release, the headlines will read “Harper Might Not Love Canada”

Shame on the media.