Sleight of hand

I will never understand the Conservative government of Canada. I'd come to this conclusion a while ago, but every once in a while, I'm reminded of this. For example, this interview with James Moore.

It's not that he's saying the CBC needs to expect to lose 5% of its funding from the government. That's the right of the government to determine, and if they feel that the CBC should be included in the parlimentary review, that is fair. Instead, it's that two months ago, after their majority victory Moore said that the government "will maintain or increase support for the CBC."

Why does the government feel a need to do this sort of stuff? All Moore had to do in May is point to the budget tabled in March, and say we're using this as our economic platform for this year, and we have our review of expenses going forward. While there might be complaining about the potential of cuts, it would passed over once the cuts did not appear in this budget. Instead, Moore chose to appear as though he wasn't telling the truth previously by blatantly going against what he said two months earlier.

As an added bonus, he claims his statements in May were based on the 2008 election platform which leads to the following questions:

• 1. Did Moore know what was in the 2011 Conservative election platform in May?


• 2. If Moore did know what was in the 2011 Conservative election platform, why did he respond to the CBC funding question by referring to the 2008 platform after the 2011 election?


• 3. What possible relevance does the 2008 platform have to the results of the 2011 election and CBC funding?

I want to believe the Conservatives are competent managers. I truly do think that they are going to make changes based on their beliefs, but are not going to make extreme changes to the country. But these sorts of actions make me think that they aren't satisfied by just winning a majority - they want to screw around and humiliate the institutions that they do not like.

I can't say that's something that I want to see my government do.

(h/t: Tod Maffin)