What happened to Bob? The tale of two values!

Bob Mills - MP for Red Deer Alberta - who came from the Reform Party - then to the Alliance Party - and finally to the Conservative Party of Canada - followed thew same path as his leader Stephen Harper. The same views on democracy - transparency - and apparently political lobbyists.

Back in 1997 Mills had his knickers in a knot when 2 ex-Liberal MP's Paul Zed and Doug Young formed a company called Summa Strategies - an Ottawa lobby group. He was speaking in the House of Commons - as recorded by Hansard - about foreign policy.

Conservative MP Mills had this to say:

Basically this shows a real lack of foreign affairs initiative and policy by this government. It makes you wonder who is in charge of the foreign affairs department when a company, Summa Strategies, directed by ex-Liberal MPs Doug Young and Paul Zed, can in fact put forward a deal like this at such a critical time.

Shortly after the 1997 election these two gentlemen set up Summa Strategies as an Ottawa lobbying group. Obviously they are now taking great advantage of their contacts within the government. Mr. Young is acting for Canadian National Railways, a crown corporation he helped to privatize when he was minister of transport. No wonder Canadians are so skeptical of government and ex-ministers when they are involved in this sort of lobbying activities.

We need to tighten up these arrangements dramatically. Just imagine proposing to deal with a government like that of Saddam Hussein. While all the time arguing that this was a humanitarian deal for trucks and a number of items which were not listed, they went further to invite the foreign affairs minister, Tariq Aziz, to visit Canada, to visit the Prime Minister of New Brunswick, for which he claimed he had an invitation.

We in this House get tired of the government standing up, beating its chest and saying how wonderful it is. It talks about standing up to Saddam Hussein, yet we let this billion dollar deal to go ahead. Maybe the UN will scuttle it. We talk about how great we are in saving the world with land mines, meanwhile we are selling nuclear plants to India, Romania, China, Turkey and Korea, to name a few.

We talk about how we have solved all the financial problems, when in reality we have a $600 billion debt. We talk about a Zaire mission which we championed because the Prime Minister saw it on television. Then we found out that the day before the President of the United States called and suggested that that is what Canada should do.

We get tired of this sort of double standard and double talk. I question who is in charge over there? Doug Young, Paul Zed and Summa Strategies or the foreign affairs minister.

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Now let me ask the same question of Bob Mills today. Who is in charge over there the Prime Minister - the government - or Summa Strategies - now that conservative strategist Tim Powers is a VP of the company?

Where is all your concern now? Isn't it ironic that Tim who comes from the Alliance ilk (Grant Hill's Campaign for Alliance leadership) is now not only agreeing with the lobbyist mentality but has become one - and for Summa no less.