Play With Fire, Get Burned

By now, we are all aware of the leaking of the Auditor General's report on G8/G20 spending. We of course have the blowhards on both sides crying foul.

The lefties are convinced this report is a damning picture of what the Harper government is about and just another scandal proving so. Not that they ever needed proof of this; they've swallowed every faux scandal that has been thrown out since Harper took power, practically all of which proved to be false.

The righties are saying this report is completely worthless. As a draft report, it is not the final findings of the Auditor General and thus cannot be taken at face value. Mind you, even the Auditor General Sheila Fraser herself has cautioned the public against accepting this report and should wait until the real report is presented in Parliament.

Now, this whole brouhaha doesn't change my opinion of who to vote for. The timing and means of this release (along with the AG's warnings) tells me this is at best dirty politics by the Opposition and at worst outrightly criminal. That kind of move just affirms my opinion of Ignatieff as nothing more than an opportunist and Layton as the pompous hypocrite he is. After all, while the Contempt of Parliament finding by the Opposition causing this election is questionable, the releasing of an AG report outside of Parliament is by legislation a reason for a charge of Contempt.

But the truth of the matter is actually much more simple: if you play with fire, you're going to get burned.

Many Canadians -- including a slew of bloggers in the Blogging Tories blogroll -- were unimpressed at the scope of spending for the G8/G20 summit. The largesse was unfathomable and quite simply reckless. If you don't think so, just look at how many Blogging Tories are screaming from their roofs over Michael Ignatieff and Jack Layton's spending promises.

As any true fiscal conservative knows, the bigger the government initiative, the greater chance for waste and/or error. And also the bigger the chance for pork-belly spending. Whether or not this erroneously leaked report -- I won't call it the AG's report since it was not released by and is not being endorsed by her -- turns out to be a true representation of her findings, the simple fact is that this is simply a matter of the chickens coming home to roost.

Maybe Harper should use this as a lesson and take a long look in the mirror asking himself what he really believes in regarding government spending.

But I -- and I'm sure many people who warned about the G8/G20 spending -- also can't help but say... I told you so.