Harper’s hypocrites & we get one-upped by Bush on the polar bear

Some miscellaneous items today that caught my eye. First, it appears that the US Government is going to propose that the polar bear be put on the endangered species list due to - surprise, surprise - “warming temperatures in the animal’s climate”. Now, I’m not going to suddenly call Bush the “greenest President ever” or anything like that, because the only reason the Administration is doing this is to come in compliance with a settled lawsuit with environmental groups. Still, the fact that it’s doing it is welcome, and I’m a bit galled that Canada hasn’t already declared a similar statement. Perhaps now that their mentors in Washington has signaled its ok to say so, we’ll see the Conservatives decide to issue a similar statement of their own in the New Year.

2ndly, this story with the amusing title, Tories Admit To Breaking Rules, greeted me in the Toronto Star today, over the Tories “quietly” admitting they failed to publicly disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of donations.

Of course, the Tories are also stating this with the caveat that they really dont BELIEVE they broke the law - its just those nasty Elections Canada people took an interpretation of the law they didnt agree with, and oh, this interpretation just hapenned recently:

“The Conservative Party of Canada does not believe that delegate fees paid to cover the basic costs of a convention should be subsidized by taxpayers through the political tax credit system,” says a letter accompanying the receipts. “However, we have recently been advised that Elections Canada takes the position that the amount of a convention fee paid by a delegate, less the value of certain `tangible benefits’ received such as meals, are to be treated as a political contribution by that delegate.”

Not so, says Elections Canada:

But while the Tories infer that counting delegate fees as donations is a recent development, Elections Canada has said that’s been the case for decades. The Canadian Alliance, Reform and Progressive Conservative parties – the precursors to the Conservative party – all considered convention fees donations.

Of course, this admission of guilt took place at Christmas, when the government was hoping the media or the public wouldnt notice (or the bloggers - fat chance of that).

So, the next time a Conservative supporter/blogger still tries to take the moral high political ground over the Liberals past indescretions and tries to push their party and Harper as the white knight in all of this.. bring this story up.