'Linda, this makes me sick'
Insider reveals Liberal government is mailing $250 energy rebate cheques to prison inmates
By Linda Leatherdale
Who says crime doesn't pay?
Just ask Ottawa's crooked politicians, who've defrauded us of our tax dollars with no fear of ever going to jail.
And now they're sending our tax dollars to jailbirds.
Read on and try not to burst an artery.
Just as we get set to vote tomorrow, $250 energy rebate cheques are being sent to criminals behind bars, who already got to cast their vote in the comfort of their cells, heated by our tax dollars.
"Linda, this makes me sick," sniffed a correctional officer, who was on the line complaining he had just distributed cheques from Canada Revenue Agency (formerly Revenue Canada) to four inmates at a provincial detention centre, located north of Toronto.
One inmate had been at the detention centre fighting deportation since December 2004, after he was transferred from a federal prison where he had served his sentence.
He has 23 convictions, including armed robbery and drug offences.
This officer, who's worked for Ontario's ministry of correctional services for 16 years and asked not to be named for fear of being disciplined for speaking out, went on: "I'm delivering money to criminals that's been stolen from me and other hard-working taxpayers in Canada."
This isn't the first time, he said. In 2001, in another lamebrained Liberal scheme to help Canadians deal with skyrocketing home heating costs, many inmates received rebate cheques of $125 to $250.
It was part of the botched $1.4-billion rebate program, whereby only $250 million went to low-income Canadians struggling with home heating costs.
According to Canada's auditor general, most of the rest of the money went to dead people, inmates and Canadians who don't pay any heating bills at all.
Now the Liberals are doing it again.
Prime Minister Paul Martin refused to listen to taxpayers, who joined in the Sun's gas tax revolt demanding relief from skyrocketing energy prices by axing the high taxes at the gas pumps, especially the GST -- which is a tax on tax.
The GST alone has netted Martin's coffers a windfall of millions in extra tax revenues.
So last fall I went to Ottawa to deliver thousands of gas tax protection coupons and demand fairness.
Martin refused to accept them, so Conservative Leader Stephen Harper, who's promising to cut the 7% GST by 2% on all goods and services, took them.
At the same time, Martin and his taxman, Ralph Goodale, announced they were again delivering their flawed rebate program, this time at cost of $2.4 billion. And now criminals are again getting cheques.
The Liberals also voted to pump up their own gas allowances by 10%, with an MP now getting $500 for every 1,000 km he or she drives.
"Many of my colleagues who work here are struggling with high gasoline prices, home heating costs and electricity bills. Yet, MPs and criminals are getting relief, and not us," complained the disgruntled officer.
He also was upset that after alerting tax officials at CRA that government cheques were being sent to a post office address that belongs to a prison, he was told nothing could be done.
"Can you believe Revenue Canada told me they have no system in place to cross reference where the cheques are going?" he said.
Meanwhile, the mighty hand of Ottawa's tax auditors are quick to come after hard-working, middle-class families. For example, the disgruntled officer said he was audited after claiming moving expenses to take a job north of Toronto.
As well, a colleague he works with is being forced to pay back $86 in a GST credit given to his late mother-in-law, who passed away last year.
Bottom line is it's not just energy rebate cheques making their way into our prisons. Inmates commonly receive GST credits, worker's compensation, tax refunds, and welfare cheques, though welfare has been clamped down on, the correctional officer said.
And, as reported in this space, many a telemarketing scam and other frauds are carried out from inside prison walls.
Yet our correctional officers are powerless to blow the whistle.
My insider explained, "If I call up and say an inmate is committing fraud, I have violated the oath of secrecy I took as a peace officer."
So where's the whistle blower legislation to protect him?
Tomorrow is the day to have your say. Get out there and vote.
In the words of this correctional officer: "I work to July to hand over all my money to the taxman, and today I gave convicted criminals a rebate cheque. It's all wrong. It's time we stood up and said enough is enough."
Source
CKA Elite 
