What Phil Gets Paid By The Taxpayers To Do

Some of us wonder what Phil gets paid a healthy six-figure income (plus pension!) to do.  Here's how one of Canada's best-known political journalists recently summed it up on Twitter:

(If you're curious, here's the link to Phil's whole speech.)

"SO31s" refers to Standing Order 31.  In Parliament, sometimes an MP wants to mention a prominent member of their community, or a local sports team that has made the MP's riding proud.  The S.O.31 allows the MP to make a short speech about these topics in Parliament.

Phil McColeman, however, has chosen to use his S.O.31 for the same tired rhetoric churned out by his party on a daily basis.  Phil, this is why people are tired of politics.  Even David Akin found it ridiculous, as evidenced by his clearly sarcastic tweet.

So this is what Phil spends his time doing while the taxpayer pays him six figures a year.  This is pretty embarassing for anybody who lives in Brant.  We here at this non-partisan blog are simply disgusted.

Phil may eventually decide to grow up and stop this nonsense.  But not likely because he's been doing this type of thing for years.  More likely, it is time for Brant to Dump Phil!!

Phil and the Unphair Elections Act

Phil McColeman prides himself on having helped develop the Laurier Brant campus (even taking credit for work that his government didn't do).  So why does Phil support a bill that would make it difficult or impossible for students in Brantford to vote?

The bill is the so-called "Fair Elections Act".  The opposition parties in Parliament have dubbed it the "Unfair Elections Act", and for good reason.  The bill does a lot of really bad things for Canadian democracy, such as getting rid of vouching at polling stations.  This doesn't sound that bad, but think about this: how many students who live in Brant to attend university or college, but aren't registered with Elections Canada to vote in Brant?  A lot of these students don't have ID that proves their current address.  So in the next election, they won't be able to vote.

Let's think about that for a second.  Why would Conservatives like Phil want to make it harder for students to vote (in addition to poor people and marginalized groups)?  Maybe it's because these people don't normally vote Conservative.  This might sound like a conspiracy theory, but consider the following quote from Andrew Coyne, a proudly conservative journalist:

In normal times, under a normal government, the Fair Elections Act would have been withdrawn by now, or at least be in serious trouble. The past few weeks have seen the bill denounced as a threat to democracy by the chief electoral officer, the former chief electoral officer, several provincial elections officials, academic experts domestic and foreign, and newspaper editorials across the country.  Thursday they were joined by Harry Neufeld, the former chief electoral officer of British Columbia and the author of an inquiry into irregularities in the 2011 election.

What is Phil's response to the "Fair Elections Act"?  My guess is he's still sitting on the backbench clapping away every time the Conservative members resort to cover-ups, misrepresentations and outright lies when defending the Unfair Elections Act.

Phil is a weak MP who does not care about the institution of democracy.  In 2015, let's show that we care about democracy by voting to Dump Phil!

Rob Ford / Phil McColeman comparison

There's been a lot of news lately about Rob Ford, and we here at Dump Phil thought it would be a worthy exercise to compare the world-famous mayor with our own Member of Parliament.  So here goes:

Rob Ford	Phil McColeman
Man	Man
Mayor of the City of Toronto	Member of Parliament for Brant
conservative	Conservative
Former labelmaker	Former construction guy
Likes Stephen Harper	Worships Stephen Harper
Does not wear glasses	Wears glasses
Has smoked crack cocaine	Criticizes the Liberals for considering regulating marijuana
#1 priority = subways	#1 priority = land claims
Lives in the Golden Horseshoe	Lives in Greater Golden Horseshoe
Has made some progress on subways	Has made no progress on land claims
“Tough on crime”	“Tough on crime”
Leader of Ford Nation	Not well-liked by First Nations
Lied about not doing drugs	Lied about his government’s involvement with Laurier Brant
Politically closed-minded	Politically closed-minded
Wears exciting neckties	Wears boring neckties

In conclusion, we'll let you draw your own conclusions!

Phil Silent on Scandal

Do you hear that?

...

... that's the sound of silence.

Phil McColeman's silence, to be precise.

Canada is in the midst of a political scandal that goes to the highest levels of government.  Specifically, to the Prime Minister's Office, you know the guys who whip Phil and other MPs into behaving like trained seals with the promise of some obscure committee chair appointment.

Yet Phil McColeman is silent.

You have to wonder: Does Phil represent the people of Brant, or does Phil represent the PMO?  The PMO tried to cover up the fact that Senator Mike Duffy claimed ineligible expenses from the Canadian taxpayers.  Stephen Harper's right-hand man paid $90,000, and the Conservative Party of Canada paid another $13,500 in taxpayer-subsidized funds.  These payments allowed Duffy to "repay" his ineligible expenses, and a Senate committee led by Conservatives whitewashed an investigative report on Duffy's expenses.  This coverup was all done to protect the Conservative brand and Mike Duffy, who was a leading Conservative fundraiser.

Yet Phil McColeman is silent.

Phil must know that there are two possibilities with respect to the Senate scandal:

1. Stephen Harper is lying.  This is substantiated by the fact that Harper's story keeps changing.
2. Stephen Harper deliberately ignored the truth.  But willful blindness or recklessness is no defence to a crime.  Harper created the PMO, and he must take responsibility for its wrong and possibly criminal acts.

Yet Phil McColeman is silent.

Phil McColeman, Seal of Approval

Conservative MP Brent Rathgeber recently quit the Conservative caucus because he was tired of behaving like a "trained seal".

Rathgeber said that he was tired of reading statements in the House of Commons that were prepared by PMO staffers half his age. He quit the Conservative caucus so that he could properly represent his constituents in the riding of Edmonton-St. Albert, instead of being a backbencher representing 22-year-old staffers in the Prime Minister's Office.

Some Conservative MPs immediately made statements that they are NOT "trained seals" (which, I'm sure, totally reassured their constituents).

So how does Phil McColeman shape up?

Phil McColeman is the most obedient seal in the entire Conservative caucus!

Let's summarize some of his recent statements in the House of Commons:

• A partisan attack on the NDP;
• Another partisan attack on the NDP;
• A brief statement about how awesome the Economic Action Plan is (you know, the same program for which the Conservatives spend tens of millions of taxpayer dollars on ads featuring a distinctly Conservative blue hue); and
• A defence of the temporary foreign worker program, for which the Conservatives have come under fire lately.

And he's just as obedient on Twitter:

@mary_ogrady @randysroberts you are absolutely correct Mary. The CBC`s misled Canadians with this story. There is no secret fund.
— Phil McColeman (@Phil4Brant) June 7, 2013

That means that over one million more Canadians are working today than during the bottom of the global recession!
— Phil McColeman (@Phil4Brant) June 7, 2013

Excellent speech delivered by @pmharper at this morning's caucus meeting facebook.com/phil.mccoleman…
— Phil McColeman (@Phil4Brant) May 21, 2013

And the usual retweets (click on the images to enlarge):

Here are some recent headlines from Phil's website:

• Economic Action Plan 2013 continues focus on jobs, growth and long-term prosperity
• PM announces judicial appointments for British Columbia, Ontario and Saskatchewan
• PM to participate in G-8 Lough Erne Summit and visit the United Kingdom, France and Ireland

Phil McColeman is nothing but a TRAINED SEAL OF APPROVAL for everything Prime Minister Stephen Harper does. The PMO has trained him well.

 

Dump Phil Fan Art

From a fan (of this blog, not of Phil):

Dump Phil McColeman

(click photo to enlarge)

Will Phil waste YOUR tax dollars on attack ads?

Wow... we've been quiet on this blog for a while!  That's in part because Phil McColeman has been quiet too.

For example, Phil was quiet when some of his Conservative colleagues spoke out against being muzzled by Prime Minister Harper in the House of Commons.  Did Phil join them?  Absolutely not!  Phil is still repeating the same old drivel that is, in all likelihood, written by 22-year-old staffers in the PMO (e.g. see this speech, and this speech, and this speech.... etc. ad nauseam).  In this blog, we have already compared Phil's efficacy as a Member of Parliament to that of a fire hydrant.  For the time being, it appears that neither the fire hydrant nor the Honourable Member for Brant has any intention of changing its inanimate ways.

But on to more exciting matters.  Prime Minister Harper recently announced that you, the hard-working, taxpaying, country-loving citizen, are going to be paying 100% of the costs of a new Conservative Party initiative: attack ads targeting Justin Trudeau.

Your tax dollars at work

Now, we here at this non-partisan blog remember a time when the Conservatives preached respect for the taxpayer, and we applauded that line.  Several Conservative MPs apparently still respect the taxpayer, and have spoken out against using taxpayer dollars to pay for these attack ads.  These MPs are refusing to mail the taxpayer-funded attack ads to their constituents.

The issue facing Phil today is: will he stand with his principled colleagues and refuse to mail out these taxpayer-funded attack ads?  Or is he going to continue to play the part of the fire hydrant, the muzzled MP, and obey the Prime Minister?