I grew up Liberal. It's fairly easy to do this, when you're not rich, but you have enough to live on. And you're a little bit idealistic, but not too much. As I aged, and started acquiring more material wealth, I became more Conservative. The fanatics on the left went too far left for me; the fanatics on the right went, yes, further right. I may be a middle-aged white guy, but I do favour having more than one each of race and religion. As for the actual political parties, seeming to have realized the detriment of having hardcore prinicples, well, the Liberal party strayed right; the Conservative party strayed left. There's not a lot to choose between the two now, but I ended up on the Conservative side of the voting a few years back, and I stayed there.

I also am bright enough to realize that running a whole country is complicated and a lot of work. I cut my government a lot of slack; I don't agree with them all the time, and that's ok. Sometimes I applaud them; sometimes they really piss me off. But I vote for them, and trust, as much as I can, that they are trying to do a good job, and probably better than I would. (But sometimes I wonder on that last point...) The opposition is SURE they can run the country better, but I'm not convinced of that either. Every little slip of the government is the oppositions excuse to call them out. Often on things they hope they don't get called out on themselves if they ever happen to take power.

And then comes Minister Bev Oda.

Now I want to make it absolutely clear what my beef is, since many people are muddling the issue in the media. I don't give a flying rat's ass which NGOs get funded. I'm sure a few don't deserve money, but I bet most do. And I'm sure we don't have enough money to go around. I'll let the government handle that piece of the complicated puzzle. So where Bev Oda decided to throw millions of our tax money is not my complaint. Maybe it should be, but it's not.

No, my beef is with how she enacted the funding cut.

As I understand from the media (and the reports are consistent enough to be believed) the Minister takes a fully completed and signed document, and has an assistant add the word NOT. As in, changing a phrase in the document from "approved" to "not approved". I am a business man. I write documents, quite a few, for the approval of people above me. If they do not like them, that's fine. Sometimes I re-write them; sometimes the document just dies. Sometimes they listen to me; sometimes they ignore me. But NEVER do they change my documents and leave my signature on them. NOT EVER. That is fraud.

And then, as I understand from the media, again with relative consistency, Bev Oda lied. She said that she "didn't know who made the change". Later, she said the she "ordered" the change. Now maybe, just maybe, when she said she didn't know who made the change she meant that she didn't know what exact human made the change. Then, she may think she is not technically lying, since she may have ordered it but didn't see who actually executed the order. Sorry, but this, my friends, is lying, Lying, lying, lying...

Stephen Harper is reputed to be a bit of a micromanager. But hey, I've never met him. It's easy to vilify someone in power. Once again, I give him the benefit of the doubt as often as I can. Being Prime Minister may have some perq's, but I bet there's an awful lot about the job that sucks.

But, no, Stephen Harper supports the fraudulent lying Bev Oda. Assuming, giving him the benefit of the doubt, that he didn't order Bev Oda to lie in the first place.

I'm not overly fond of the Liberals, but I'm not voting for an overtly fraudulent and lying party of politicians. I mean, more fraudulent and lying than most. Even when they're caught.