Fudging the truth, a few favourable exaggerations to boost one’s point of view, are accepted tactics in politics.

But rarely do such tactics stretch into outright fabrication, as they did with the local promotion of the Conservatives’ Economic Action Plan.

Ottawa, to its credit, has dished out a boatload of your tax dollars to try to counteract the recession.

The government’s putting up signs where ever it can identify such projects to show what good guys they are.

Then for good measure, it stuck two of those signs at the new Pitt River Bridge, even though money for that was announced years before the creation of Economic Action Plan.

Of course, people appreciate the new bridge and the $90-million of their money (largely to allow the seventh, eastbound truck-only lane) to make the bridge a reality.

Or course, the project was a shot in the arm during the recent recession.

But it was not created by Economic Action Plan.

The Conservatives know this.

They just think no one else does.

And they’re right.

Who can keep track of tax money dished out when it’s announced three or four times?

(The B.C. Liberals have used the Pitt River Bridge so many times as an election prop, they’ve likely worn a path way in the bridge deck already.)

The Conservatives rightly bank that John Doe Voter can’t make the distinction.

They’ll just make outrageous misstatements and trust that when it comes to election time, all voters will remember is the new bridge.

That’s a callous, cynical strategy that demeans Canadian politics and only raises the question – if the government is lying openly about this, what else is it not telling the public?

–The News