Shouldn't We Expect Something Close to the Truth

The question we should be asking ourselves as Canadians is,  when at least a couple of government minister, have been shown to consistently lie through their teeth, is that news?


To me, honesty in government is a  fundamental requirement, but to our media it doesn't seem to be very important news at all. Now to their credit, the news outlet with the most to lose by attacking government, the CBC, did uncover this story but so far at least I don't see any other outlet picking it up.

Well are his lips moving?

You will recall that Max Bernier - most of us remember Max, not because of his good work but because of his ex-girlfriend and the secret documents he left at her apartment - was quoted ad nausim that when he was Industry Minister he received thousands of e-mails every day complaining about the long form census. Now to me, that did sound a bit over the top, even for Max but, if you can't believe the Minister of the Crown, who can you believe after all?


Using access to information legislation the CBC uncovered an e-mail from a senior StatsCan official which said in response to a question about the number of e-mails recieved by government about the issue "We got the standard 20 to 30 a year."


These days of course,  the misguided charge is being led by Tony Clement - a minister I will freely admit I really don't like - who claims the government received far too many complaints from citizens who said the mandatory long-form census is intrusive and they don't want to feel forced to file. Clement feels that forcing Canadians to fill out the long form   under threat of jail and fines is “a terrible degradation of the social contract between the governors and the governed.” He too claims that scores and scores of Canadian citizens have contacted him about it. Again evidence uncovered suggests that Tony, not unlike many of Harpers gang of hooligans makes it up as he goes along.


Now I know that it is considered unparliamentary for one MP to call another MP a liar but should we not at the very lease expect the response from ministers to legitimate questions to least resemble the truth.