Crooked in Canada

Do Conservative MPs and staff not realize that they are in the midst of a federal election campaign, that every word that comes out of their mouths is picked up by every Tom, Dick and Harry in the media and in the crowd?

Maybe its just me, but its beginning to look to me that during this election campaign some Conservative MPs and loyal staffers don’t really seem to give a f**k if they hurt somebody’s feelings while reeling off campaign rhetoric about this, that and whatever else they want to talk about on the election campaign trail.

There’s the families of those victims whose deaths have been caused by what is quickly becoming a “tainted meat scandal” that everybody in the government opposition is quick to blame on Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz who managed to come up with a couple of rather distasteful jokes, including one that was directed to his ministerial counterpart on the East Coast, during a conference call to discuss the listeriosis outbreak.

Ritz was forced to apologize for his off-the-cuff remarks, but that didn’t stop Darlene Lannigan who works for the transport minister and PM Stephen Harper’s Quebec lieutenant from making what could be, I repeat could be, considered racist comments about Algonquin Indians in western Quebec.

MP Lawrence Cannon’s personal assistant, while she might not have intended to offend anybody, has been forced to apologize after saying to Norman Matchewan a member of the Algonquins of Barriere Lake community that her boss would meet with Barriere Lake Algonquins “if you behave and are sober,” and then when on to make remarks about incest on the reserve.

While I don’t condone Lannigan’s comments during an election campaign, I think she was merely reminding Matchewan of the problems his particular Algonquin community is living through and facing when it comes to problems on the reserve that is located 300 kilometres northwest of Ottawa.

The timing of her “telling it like it is” comments is off. She shouldn’t be making such comments during an election campaign.

And for the record, if I was an Algonquin Indian living in a community where alcoholism and incest was a problem I would not be offended by Lannigan’s remarks, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be embarrassed for my community when somebody was calling it like it is when it comes to the problems of alcohol and incest in any community, native or not.

Word to the wise in the Conservative Party, “Choose your words very carefully and use a little tact. Remember, you aren’t irreverent, forthright and straightforward bloggers like me and many others in the blogosphere who are running for government office or employed by a government minister.”

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