It has been the unwritten mission statement of the Conservative Party of Canada under Stephen Harper that ‘THE END JUSTIFIES THE MEANS.’

Whether it be attack ads, in-and-out financing, robo-calls, excessive election expenses, exaggerations, statements at variance with the truth, lists used in voter-suppression, stone-walling, firing, denying, lawsuits, and distraction. The party members supported it because they believed in the end goals.

Now the members themselves feel victimized by the same tactics targeted at the opposition members and the general public at large. First it was the abortion issue, and then it was freedom of speech by Conservative MPs, Senate-gate, the PMO, and then the prime minister himself. The recent Caucus speech by the prime minister was their supposed salvation, the answer, the clearing-of-the-deck, and the final solution but it was a realization that they were now just another set of pawns to be used in the game of politics and that they were the political caste that they were campaigning against.

The Conservatives have been vilified for pushing things until they killed the goose that laid the golden egg.

Ten percenters, attack ads, election expenses (eg. Labrador), robo-calls, etc. but now the goose called the Conservative base may now be mortally wounded, will the base continue to finance a government that is involved in cover-ups and clamp-downs on important conservative issues?

I live in Alberta where it was once considered treasonous to disparage the Conservatives. Now thanks to actions of our Conservative prime minister and our Conservative premier, the word ‘conservative’ has become so toxic that one feels the need for a Haz-Mat suit to use it in conversation. The provincial Conservatives are running to the Wildrose while the federal conservatives are wondering around feeling gob-smacked looking for an avenue of escape.

The federal conservatives once believed they were members of a team with an altruistic goal, but now feel that they were just tools used by a few to obtain and maintain power for the benefit of the few.

By paying lip service to the hopes and aspirations and the deep beliefs of the members they obtained the goal, and by using dubious moves and by distancing themselves from and suppressing voices of the grassroots conservative base they hope to maintain their power.

Conservatives may have hesitantly supported the actions of suppression, condemnation, exaggerations, untruths, attacks, but are now awakening to fact that they may have been the victim of these same actions and they do not like it.

We have been told all our lives: “What goes around, comes around” and “You reap what you sow” and the Conservative base forgot these sayings but are now feeling them and are beginning to see that the end does not justify the means. Thank you.

Garfield Marks

Red Deer