the Senate to make it "elected, equal, and effective" (the "Triple-E Senate"). However, party leader Stephen Harper advised the Governor General to appoint the unelected Michael Fortier to both the Senate and to the Cabinet on 6 February 2006, the day his minority government took office. On 22 December 2008 Prime Minister Harper asked the Governor General to fill all eighteen Senate seats that had been vacant at the time. It was earlier reported in The Toronto Star that this action was "to kill any chance of a Liberal-NDP coalition government filling the vacancies next year". The party introduced a bill in the parliament to have fixed dates for elections and, with the support of the Liberal Party, passed it. However, Ned Franks, a Canadian parliamentary expert, maintains that the Prime Minister still has the right to advise the Governor-General to dissolve the parliament early and drop the writs for an election. Transparency and accountability In 2006, the Conservatives campaigned strongly against Liberal abuses in the Sponsorship scandal and vowed to introduce several accountability measures that would hold even a majority government to account. These included a Parliamentary Budget Office whose first head Kevin Page found himself often sharply at odds with Harper government policy and issued several reports scathing of Conservative practices, even sometimes being described as the "sharpest thorn in Harper's side". Major media commentators often use Page's reports as a starting point for general criticisms of Harper's budgetary and transparency practices including comedic rants. While other accountability officers have been similarly ignored or critical, the influence and neutrality of the persons who were appointed, and the general public trust of their opinions, seems to be an indication of success on long-term transparency. The office is likely to continue under future administrations and be quite difficult to eliminate or ignore. By contrast, agency discipline and appointments to the Canadian Senate have tended to reflect a more cynical view that parties in power tend to forget transparency and accountability promises made when out of power. Domestic issues In its founding documents, the Conservative Party avowed principles of lower taxes, smaller government, more decentralization of federal government powers to the provinces, modeled after the Meech Lake Accord, traditional religious and cultural values and has in practice strongly supported Oil Sands and other controversial energy projects. The Party has also both avowed and introduced legislation to reduce some gun controls and