2008: A most forgettable year in Ottawa politics

The worst of it for us was the bummer of an election we had in October.

Stephen Harper called the election because he wanted a majority in the Commons. We paid $380 million for it. Harper never got his majority and now he is nastier than ever.

Remember that Puffin Bird doing its droppings on Stéphane Dion’s right shoulder. Harper gave Dion “the bird” alright. It must have set some sort of new low for election campaign advertising.

Harper was the architect of his own electoral shortcomings. Nobody forced him slam cultural events and wealthy patrons of the arts. That was the turning point in Harper’s campaign.

Maybe he was going after the Yahoo vote, but it didn’t wash with the rest of us. Wife Laureen had to cancel her guest appearance at the big National Arts Centre gala two nights later. Her new blue evening dress went back into the cupboard. It was one time a politician should have listened to his wife.

Harper did rid us of Dion and his Green Shift. Harper’s good friends in the Alberta petroleum business are all most grateful. They won’t be obliged to do anything serious about greenhouse gas until 2050. Is there any doubt who runs the country?

2008 was a year of scandals in the federal government – a good dozen of them. A few stand out more– the Mulroney Schreiber secret commissions and the Airbus purchase, Chuck Cadman offered a $1 million insurance policy on his deathbed to change his vote to turf out a Liberal government in 2005, and the Conservatives and their 2006 election advertising scam that brought in the Mounties. Don’t forget the Couillard-Kevlar land deal scam in Quebec City.

Through it all, Harper managed to ride straight up, head held up high. The Liberals never laid a glove on him.

Given a chance during the leaders’ debate to revive our failing economy, Harper just sat on his hands.

Given a second chance in an economic update statement afterwards, Harper came up with the not-so-bright idea of taking away pay equity from working women and removing the right to strike of public servants, and then replacing public financing of political parties with old-fashioned political donations from private sources.

That almost got Harper bounced out of office. Luckily he was able to save his skin by shutting down Parliament.

Then Harper came up with an original idea to create jobs. He appointed 18 new Senators.

That’s $130,480 each a year until age 75.Tack on travel, office staff, telephones, internet, research, and it comes to about $862,000 a year for each new senator. Now multiply by 18.

Not bad for a guy who swore up and down that he would never again appoint a single new unelected Senator.

The Commons ended up sitting only two weeks in the last six months. But everybody, including Harper, still got paid.

And now we fast forward to the end of the month, if Harper doesn’t close down the Commons a third time before then.

He must come up with a budget to revive the economy. Then we’ll find out if the new Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff has the stuff to challenge Harper or will play lapdog for another two years.