Tuesday, February 06, 2007

We haven't forgotten you Wajid

In all of last week's excitement over dastardly attack ads it seemed some interesting developments in the ongoing Wajid Khaaaan! affair slipped by with minimal notice. Surely Steve-o wasn't trying to distract us from other matters? Of course not.

Won't testify


We heard last week that our Mr. Khan, once so eager to share the results of his totally non-partisan $13,000 Great Middle Eastern Adventure, has declined an invitation to appear before the House of Commons foreign affairs committee to share his wisdom and insight with the Canadian people (h/t Cowboys):

There is no precedence of an advisor to a Prime Minister appearing in front of a committee. This was requested by the Prime Minister and I reported back to him, and that's the point. I'm not going to make a circus of the finding.”

Actually it was Khan that offered his services to Harper while he was still a Liberal MP, in the spirit of non-partisanship but hey, the talking points have changed, and we've always been at war with Eurasia.

Do not pass go, do collect $200


More interesting than Khan's sudden shyness though was the latest revelation surrounding Raminder Gill's appointment as a citizenship judge. You'll recall of course that Gill was Khan's Conservative opponent in Mississauga-Streetsville in the last election. And between Khan's taking the special advisor gig in August and his “sudden” crossing of the floor to the Cons in January, Gill was appointed a citizenship judge by Immigration Minister Monte Solberg, seemingly freeing the Con nomination for a future Khan floorcrossing. It pays to plan ahead, after all.

Last week's revelation (h/t Michelle) makes this whole Khan affair even more odious, if that's possible. But it was revealed Solberg and the Cons bypassed the three-month screening process put in place for citizenship judges in order to fast track the Gill appointment. It seems they wanted Gill in there in a hurry. After all, it would have been awfully inconvenient if the appointment had been official three months later...right around when Khan crossed the floor.

Ironically, the screening process, which includes interviews and reference checks, was put in place by the previous Liberal government to try to remove some of the patronage from the appointments process and ensure qualified people are appointed.

Remember the Conservatives decrying Liberal patronage appointments and promising to clean-up the appointments process? Between this and their sneaky pre-holiday patronage orgy it would seem they're actually doing the opposite, bypassing the checks and balances the Liberals already had in place to get Conservative loyalists in place even faster.

Yet another example of the Harper Conservatives proving their principles apply to everybody but them. That's Canada's New Government(TM).

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7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great catch, you threes. There is an amazing versimiltude between Harpor, corrupt acts and changing the channel. He'd have been a perfect foil for a Karnac the magician skit.
Yet the MsM is currently holding their hands up and pulling their hair out about Gerard Kennedy -- he wants to run in a riding that a woman wanted! Lions and tigers and bears...

http://canadianrosebud.blogspot.com

Richard Noronha said...

As a constituent of Mississauga Streetsville we haven't forgotten about this guy either.
Visit WWW.BETRAYEDBYWAJIDKHAN.CA

Anonymous said...

"More interesting than Khan's sudden shyness though was the latest revelation surrounding Raminder Gill's appointment as a citizenship judge. "

And the million dollar question is:

Who did Paul Martin appoint to the same post?

Heres a hint. He's one of the advisers who did nothing and who gave up his seat for a "star candidate".

Scotian said...

Anonymous:

Ah the classic “but the Libbys did it too/first" defence. The problem for the CPC with that defence was their last election campaign was predicated on *NOT* doing things the old Libby way instead being more ethical, honest, and accountable. Well actions speak louder than words and the CPC actions like the ones surrounding Khan and Gill show they are less accountable, less honest, and less ethical than the government they replaced. Khan con is just the latest proof of this.

Anonymous said...

"Ah the classic “but the Libbys did it too/first" defence. The problem for the CPC with that defence was their last election campaign was predicated on *NOT* doing things the old Libby way instead being more ethical, honest, and accountable. Well actions speak louder than words and the CPC actions like the ones surrounding Khan and Gill show they are less accountable, less honest, and less ethical than the government they replaced. Khan con is just the latest proof of this."

When it comes time for a judicial inquiry into how Conservatives stole millions in taxpayer money, then i agree they have lowered themselves to the Liberals level.

Until that time, ethically challenged yes, but nowhere near the low bar Libs set.

I know many MP's are lawyers. Maybe government lawyers have told Harper he's following a legal precedent set by Chretien/Martin.

Scotian said...

Anonymous:

I will be sure to let all those Canadians that saw 20 billion of their savings evaporate thanks to Harper promising what he should have known at the time was a promise he could not keep on Income Trusts that you think that is nowhere near as serious a problem than the Libs at most stealing 1% of that figure. I will remember that despite that Harper is a proven liar (covered up the Grewal fraud by claiming no CPCer did anything wrong when evidence confirms someone while in CPC hands edited the recordings released May 31 05, claimed no involvement "whatsoever" in the expulsion of Turner despite his own CoS attending the caucus when this occurred, just to list a couple of recent examples since both are less than two years old) he is more honest and ethical than the Liberals according to an anonymous person that is a clear CPC cheerleader from their statements here.

In any event you whether deliberately or because you are too stupid to understand English missed the main point, that the CPC campaigned on and won an election on promising to be different and better than the Liberals, so every time they cite Liberal precedent for their actions they prove they are at best no better. Nice try though at defending the indefensible, something I see a lot of from CPCers like you.

Anonymous said...

Intersting comparison scotian.

Comparing a federal decision on taxation to an illegal scam that the Liberal party benefited from.

So here in Ontario premier McGuinty broke an election promise that cost taxpayers billions in his "health tax". I wouldn't compare that to adscam either.

Get a life.