Mr. Speaker, what is clear is the Conservatives want to use taxpayer money to keep them in power.
In fact, Peter Aucoin, professor emeritus at Dalhousie University and expert on government advertising, said, “Expecting public servants to manage government communications that has a partisan spin to it is a misuse of public power”. It is an abuse. It has even been called “a form of political corruption”.
Senior bureaucrats told them not to do it. Every Canadian knows the Conservatives are treating taxpayers' money like a personal slush fund. In a difficult economy, with thousands of Canadians fighting to make ends meet, can they really look taxpayers in the eyes and justify this gross abuse?