The suicidal Conservative govt. of Stephen Harper

When the Conservatives are walloped in the 2015 election, I hope all you disappointed Conservative voters will remember that the reason for the party's demise will be the party itself.

It's extremely hard to ignore, even for those diehard Harper lovers, that the man has become so embroiled with some strange notions which have made him blind and deaf to what the rest of us can see and hear. The Conservative govt's foray into Libya was a big mistake, even bigger was the support for Syrian rebels .... and now the fiasco in Ukraine? Do you think voters can ignore all these humongous foreign policy errors?

I wish Jim Flaherty was alive, maybe he might have drummed some sense into this ex-superstar. 

Joan Bryden of AP at CTVNews: 
.....Harper gov't ignores advice on Ukraine election observation missions.

For the third time in four years, the Harper government has sent a large, Canada-only mission to observe an election in Ukraine, despite a report that concluded it would be cheaper, more credible and more effective to join a multilateral international mission.
Some 338 observers are part of Canada's current independent mission in Ukraine; they are fanned out across the troubled country to assess the integrity of Sunday's presidential election process.
Another 162 Canadians are also monitoring the election as part of a multilateral mission co-ordinated by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), whose missions are considered the gold standard by veteran election observers.

Canada also sent large, independent delegations to observe Ukraine's parliamentary elections in 2012 and its presidential election in 2010, in addition to participation in OSCE missions.
Yet, after the first Canada-only mission in 2004, an evaluation report prepared for the government concluded the large scale of that bilateral venture "should not be considered as a precedent but only as a 'last resort option' for future Canadian observer missions."
"The use of multilateral missions for Canadian short term election observers should continue to be considered as the first deployment option," said the report, obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.
Among other things, the report found the cost of going it alone was nearly double the cost of taking part in an OSCE mission: $9,335 per observer for the eight-day 2004 mission, versus $4,981 per observer for a 10-day OSCE mission in Ukraine earlier the same year.........

...........On the downside, the Canadian delegation had little election monitoring experience and Canadians of Ukrainian heritage were sometimes perceived "to be less than neutral."
Indeed, a survey of observers uncovered some concerns about "partisan behaviour" by some mission members, particularly Ukrainian Canadians who were perceived as favouring the pro-western presidential candidate in the 2004 election, Viktor Yuschenko......

.........."If there had been marked interference during voting and vote-counting, it was suggested that it may have been more difficult to defend the mission as non-partisan."
By contrast, the report said the OSCE has a "respected track record of elections observation" and its "multinational composition contributes to greater perceived neutrality."..........