I apologize to America

I heard this on CBC Radio 2 this morning:

Kenney fundraising letter breaks rules: NDP; Staffer resigns over document outlining campaign to target ethnic voters *

And read this on the Globe and Mail's website this afternoon:


Disgraced integrity czar’s $500,000 severance deal includes gag order**
and I would have to conclude that Canada likely has the same issues that America has, at least in terms of the functionality of their elected government - some good ones and some not so good ones.  While I haven't heard of anyone stuffing money in their bra yet, I'm sure it is just a matter of time, right? Right? Or are they just not that fun here? 


Oh, no, Canada. 




*It's a goody - an aide used parliamentary letterhead (seriously?!) to ask for donations and outlined their campaign to target certain ethnicities in the GTA (greater Toronto area) in the anticipation of an election being called soon.  I don't get this whole "we can call an election whenever" stuff, but apparently you can here, so they feel like they should have the money to be ready. I wonder how much a federal Canadian election costs? (From what I could find, like 300M? compared to 5.3B in the US? But I can't really tell what that means, since Harper is technically kind of like the Speaker, and if he loses his seat he loses the Prime Minister position, so the only female PM only held her position for about 6 months before losing her home seat. I need to talk to my neighbor and get back to y'all.  This doesn't even touch on the fact that technically the Queen is still in charge here.)


**Double goody - Her title is the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner, and the article goes on to read "Although she was the person in charge of fielding complaints from federal whistleblowers – an office that demands an arm’s length relationship with the government," she exchanges e-mails with accused government officials, harasses her staff, and only investigates around 8 of the 200 some complaints during her time in office, for which she receives a parting payment of $500,000 and a promise not to tell anything.