Let’s keep it silent
Dear Editor,
I am writing to you concerning Greg Weston’s article of yesterday entitled “Let’s keep this secret”. It would appear from your account of the lack of disclosure in Ottawa concerning the RCMP’s activities and the lack of disclosure on the Afghan file, that you are actually of the view that we should keep this secret. That can be the only explanation why this article failed to make reference to the most egregious example of the utter lack of transparency and accountability this nation has ever witnessed, and that is the 18 pages of blacked out documents that were released under the Access to Information Act to analysts Gordon Tait of Calgary. Gord’s request was a simple one as he was merely seeking the analysis that justified the existence of tax leakage that was the ostensible reason for Stephen Harper and the Conservatove party to break their highly flouted and vote getting promise of the last election to “never tax income trusts” or to “raid seniors’ nest eggs”
As we all know, they did tax income trusts and in so doing raided seniors nest eggs to the tune of $35 billion and the loss of an essential investment choice. Harper’s justification took the form of 18 pages of blacked out documents. Assuming for a moment that you owned income trusts or that you decided to invest in this market on the sole strength of Harper’s promise would you feel that 18 pages of blacked out documents would be sufficient justification? Wouldn’t the fact that the government is now ham-handedly asking for these blacked out documents to be returned, make you mildly suspicious about what may be underlying all of this clandestine activity surrounding the breaking of promises? Please see attached the documents in question.
Therefore I do want to point out that your concluding comment of “Harper is right about one thing — ministers don’t decorate docs with white-out.”, both of you are right since Canada’s New Government, as it is fond of calling itself, makes exclusive use of black-out rather than white-out. It appears that they order it by the cargo load while others accept this form of accountability and transparency by the boat load.
I look forward to reading about your coverage of this version of “let’s keep it quiet”, lest we keep it quiet for too long.
Brent Fullard
