Tom Brodbeck summarizes; “Wow”
The NDP’s dirty election scheme to falsify expense returns to line party coffers with taxpayer dough during the 1999 provincial election must have been pretty bad if a senior NDP cabinet minister demanded a letter from his party clearing him of any involvement in it.
Finance Minister Greg Selinger dropped a bombshell yesterday admitting he asked his party for a letter in 2003 confirming he had nothing to do with a scheme that saw the NDP fudge election returns to boost taxpayer rebates to the party.
“As I understand it, it had been a practice that had been going on for an extended period of time,” said Selinger.
[…] the former official agent for a winning NDP candidate says the 1999 expense return details were altered by someone in the party headquarters without his knowledge.
Jim Treller, who was on the winning team in Rossmere against incumbent Conservative Vic Toews, says that it was unfair for Toews to be prosecuted while he and his candidate, Harry Schellenberg, were not.
[…]
“We were charging for expenses we didn’t have”, Treller said, but the catch-22 for him and the other agents was that the party pocketed the money, yet could not be charged under the Act– only the agents and the candidates could.
In total, $76,000 in subsidies for seconded union workers was taken by the NDP head office under the scheme. The NDP paid the union, which by donating the exact amounts of the wages, ensured there was no actual cost to the campaign. The official returns were prepared by the central campaign committee based on the calculations of local riding officials. The party placed the completed 16 page document in front of agents to sign before filing with Elections Manitoba.
As Treller explained to the 15 media present, since the total amounts for expenses didn’t change, no one would have noticed that the places the numbers had been put on the forms had been switched.
The first question that Election Manitoba needs to answer is why it instructed its legal counsel to prosecute only the Manitoba PC candidates and not any of the NDP candidates with election financing offences?
Second, if Elections Manitoba thought it was important to send a message with respect to my case — which everyone including the judge hearing the case acknowledges was not a deliberate act — why did Elections Manitoba believe that candidates for another political party not be required to proceed through a public process when it was a deliberate act on their part.
It is clear that my legal counsel and the judge in my case were not told that others in another political party also breached the relevant law but that they were not being charged in respect of much more serious and deliberate matters.
For some reason Elections Manitoba very deliberately chose one course of action when it came to minor technical offences which Manitoba PC candidates took responsibility for and quite another course of action when it came to deliberate and planned actions by the officials and/or candidates of another political party.
Looks like Gary Doer picked a good week to be out of town.
h/t Mike
As usual, when it comes to getting into power, on the left, the ends justify the means. The NDP is it’s own ACORN.
The unions and the NDP, sucking the public teat for all their worth. Socialist ba$tards.
Besides the -40 and wind in winter, the mosquitos that darken the summer skies and the gawd awful peoples republic insurance racket, mr Doer and his gang of thieves (alledged?) are the main reason I’d never move back to Manitoba, in spite of the fancy TV commercials.
Since all money is ipso facto, the collective property of cadres, workers, and peasants, there is no contradiction when others are punished for being in illegal possession of it …..
In my view this far surpasses the scandal of “in and out” This is criminal — “in and out” questionable at best, but I suspect MSM won’t take not of that.
Business as usual in the degenerate sphere of modern partisan politics.
Any crime can be justified when seeking power.
The NDP in Saskatchewan are notorious for doing this: having union members work on campaigns, paying htem, then having them sign over the ‘wages’ back to the party. They are lucky that the SaskParty is not as petty, mean and unfair as the dippers, otherwise there would be prosecutions arising.
Nobody can lie like a Liberal or steal like a Socialist.
I just love watching a scandal unfold. Especially when the – pure as driven snow – socialists get their closets opened.
typical politician, asks for an inquiry when criminal charges are the only appropriate action. The backdoor method of saving chronys without appearing to do so.
First the crocus disaster now this scandal. Winnipeg voters need to wake up and smell the rat (Gary Doer). Anywhere else in canada they would have been punted a while ago, but Wpg is so entrenched anti conservative views I have a feeling this won’t even topple them.
Slime covered politics of the socialist’s variety, simple servant covering simple servant.
Those Manitoba rats must be the offspring of British rats.
not another crooked party. oh no, i am shocked, dismayed, amazed, appalled,offended, sure am . if canadians had a collective brain they would kick these bastards in the ass and go to jail for assult. while in jail they could learn better ways to take care of the crooks. what a screwed up people we are.
Why am I niether fazed nor surprised that the leftards lie, cheat, steal and maipulate the injustice system?
As usual, the socialists feel they are entitled to other peoples’ money.
Politicians and political parties of all stripes are regularly caught with their hands in the cookie jar. The big scandal to me is the bias of Elections Manitoba for only prosecuting the Conservatives. This reeks of corruption on the scale of the Human Rights Commissions where only Christian Conservatives can be criminals and all other are free to hate at their leisure.
Someone hire me so I can leave this hell-hole of a province. Manitoba sucks.
So are we going to have the same transparency on repayment of these funds as we did in the Quebec sponsorship fraud.
Why, exactly, did I move back here again?
And Elections Manitoba — our independent body that oversees the integrity of elections in this province — turned a blind eye to it all these years?
Indepenent? In Manitoba the Chief Electoral Officer is appointed by Lieutenant Governor in Council – ie Cabinet.
http://www.elections.ca/loi/com2001/comp2001_overview/adm_e.shtml
I know many great people in Manitoba.
The problem is, too many of them read the Free Press.
Twenty years ago I refused to walk to the end of the lane for the FP – even when they continued delivery for weeks after cancellation.
Is Frances Russel still around ? I remember when she stole/took pictures of Finance Minister Michael Wilson’s papers. Similar story to CTV and Minister Raitt. Did these scummy Journalists never hear of people returning lost wallets to the owner ? In tact ! Without publicity !
Frances Russell; I haven’t heard that name for years, but it still sends a chill up my spine. It appears that she is still pretending to be a journo/writer. (of severely biased lunacy)
Fred wrote: Nobody can lie like a Liberal or steal like a Socialist.
Think you might have the slogan for a bumper sticker there. (:
Unfortunately the Canadian lexicon doesn’t really include the proper word to describe what the NDP did here- it’s called “racketeering”. There is a proper Canadian word for what Elections Manitoba did. That’s plain old corruption. Beyond that, even though the money taken by the NDP was returned, it was obtained through fraudulent means, and thus is a criminal matter regardless of whether or not there is an inquiry. If charges aren’t laid, then the RCMP isn’t doing it’s job. This is no different than writing a cheque on someone else’s account and without their knowledge, using it for your own personal gain, and then putting the money back when no one’s looking. It’s still a criminal act.
Glasnost: “Frances Russell; I haven’t heard that name for years, but it still sends a chill up my spine. It appears that she is still pretending to be a journo/writer. (of severely biased lunacy).”
An angry, bitter, distorted woman. Why the Free Press continues to give space to this Liberal/liberal shill is beyond me. Not even a pretence of objectivity. And of course a lot of people here think she’s the cat’s ass.
Doer the shake-down artist has been coated with teflon for years, for reasons I don’t understand. We’ll see if this scandal — and it really is a scandal — will start the corrosion.
Brent: Why not consider Saskatoon or Regina. There is a huge labour shortage here in certian sectors … especially blue collar.
After months of heated denials, the federal Conservative party has quietly admitted it failed to publicly disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of donations.
That means at least three party members — including Prime Minister Stephen Harper — donated more than the legal limit last year.
Last Thursday, the party filed a revised financial report for 2005 with Elections Canada, acknowledging that it did not report delegate fees collected for its national convention that year as donations, contrary to political financing laws.
In the revised report, the Conservatives have “reclassified revenue related to the 2005 convention,” disclosing an additional $539,915 in previously unreported donations, an extra $913,710 in “other revenue,” and an additional $1.45 million in “other expenses.”
The report does not explain what constitutes “other revenue” or “other expenses.”
Moreover, the party reports almost $700,000 in previously undisclosed transfers from riding associations, presumably accounting for ridings that helped subsidize the cost of attending the Montreal policy convention for their delegates.
Having been forced to count convention fees as donations, the report indicates the Conservative party then discovered three delegates — including Harper — had exceeded their $5,400 annual limit for political contributions. As a result, the party refunded $456 each to Harper and the other two delegates.
The party has also been forced to send belated 2005 tax receipts to the roughly 3,000 delegates who attended the convention, with instructions on the complicated process required to retroactively claim the tax credit.
“The Conservative Party of Canada does not believe that delegate fees paid to cover the basic costs of a convention should be subsidized by taxpayers through the political tax credit system,” says a letter accompanying the receipts.
“However, we have recently been advised that Elections Canada takes the position that the amount of a convention fee paid by a delegate, less the value of certain ‘tangible benefits’ received such as meals, are to be treated as a political contribution by that delegate.”
Attempt to amend act fails in Commons
The party’s letter notes that Harper’s minority government last month attempted to amend the Canada Elections Act to ensure that convention fees in future would not count as donations. But the proposed amendment was shot down by the three opposition parties.
Harper spokesman Dimitris Soudas said that while the Conservative party continues to believe convention fees shouldn’t be subsidized by taxpayers, it “has indicated from the beginning that it will comply with any requirements” imposed by Elections Canada, and it has filed the revised financial report “to reflect this decision.”
But while the Tories imply that counting delegate fees as donations is a recent development, Elections Canada has said that’s been the case for decades.
The Canadian Alliance, Reform and Progressive Conservative parties — the precursors to the Conservative party — all considered convention fees donations.
Opposition parties say the Conservatives are guilty of either gross ignorance or deliberately flouting the law.
“The reality is it sounds like they broke a lot of laws and they’re going to have to be answering for that, no doubt about it,” said Liberal MP Mark Holland, who added that the Tories are probably hoping nobody notices their admission over the holidays.
Holland said the financial report also leaves some important questions unanswered.
For instance, it doesn’t mention the fact that the registration form for the convention invited outside observers — generally lobbyists and representatives of professional groups — to use their corporate credit cards to pay the $750 observer fee.
The Liberal party maintains such payments constitute corporate donations, which are strictly prohibited.
Moreover, Holland said the Liberals have identified roughly 200 Tories — not just the three disclosed in the revised report — who likely exceeded their annual donation limit after paying the convention fee. The regular fee was $600, though discounts were available to some.
Investigation of fees underway
Both the Liberals and NDP last summer asked Canada’s elections commissioner to investigate the Tories’ handling of the 2005 convention fees, alleging that the governing party violated the law.
A ruling on those complaints is expected early in the new year, though the fact that the Tories have now admitted their error and moved to correct the record could soften the blow.
Elections Canada posted the revised financial report on its website Friday. But an official said that doesn’t mean the independent watchdog, which is still sifting through the new information, endorses the contents.
The controversy first arose by accident early last summer when Treasury Board President John Baird, the Tories’ point man on cleaning up government, appeared before a Senate committee to defend the government’s vaunted ethics legislation, the Federal Accountability Act.
At the time, the government was hoping to enact the new legislation, which includes reducing the annual political donation limit to $1,000 from $5,400, during the fall.
Liberals feared the act would mean anyone who had given more than $5 to the Liberals during 2006 would be unable to pay the $995 fee to attend their Dec. 2 leadership convention without exceeding the new donation limit.
Treasury Board president drew attention to fees
In the process of dismissing Liberal concerns, Baird insisted that convention fees did not count as donations and blurted out that the Tories did not report the fees to their 2005 convention as political contributions or issue any tax receipts for them.
When the Canadian Press first reported Baird’s comments and the apparent breach of the law, Tory officials angrily insisted they’d “fully complied” with the law and that delegate fees could only be considered donations if the convention turned a profit.
The Tories persisted in this argument even after Elections Canada officials made it clear that profit had nothing to do with it and that the Tory interpretation of the law was incorrect.
“I can fax you scads of material on this. This is the way it’s been done for time immemorial,” Conservative party legal counsel, Paul Lepsoe, told CP last summer.
Holland said much of the Tories’ mishandling of their 2005 convention fees appears to be the product of “complete ignorance” of the law.
“To me, that’s just as scary [as deliberately breaking the law]. I mean, we have a Treasury Board president who doesn’t even understand the laws he’s attempting to rewrite. I mean, it’s astounding. It’s breathtaking.”
© The Canadian Press, 2006
Yeah…they’re all crooked…time for REAL reform! Let’s start with eliminating legislated taxpayer support for Party Campaigns…at ALL levels! Let them fundraise on their own! But, I guess, in order to make THAT change, the Parties would have to vote for it???? Uh-huh…time for a revolution…can I say that without the word police chasing me down as a revolutionary terrorist???
Thanks for the link, Kate. Folks can now listen to the entire audio interview with Mr. Treller, and his description of how nervous Selinger was at the meeting where the cover-up was hatched.
http://tgcts.blogspot.com/2009/06/audio-of-ndp-whistleblower-now-online.html
coff-coff
and here I wuz wondering were the leftard moral-equivalence argument was
you lefties never quite get IT. First off it is not nearly the same, other than it’s wrong. Secondly us rite winger will not support these wrong doings, nor obfuscate in an attempt to diminish wrong doings. Now, the socialists stole OUR money, the CP donated their own money, too much of it, git the difference????
Hey isn’t that the same crooked Manitoba NDP govt that wants to keep the crooked CWB in Winnipeg?
Why am I not surprised?
NDP criminals in Manitoba, just like their buddies here in Saskatchewan, Lingenfelter criminals all NDP all the time
Even when the NDP is caught stone f-ing cold, hand in the cookie jar to the shoulder, still the trolls try it on.
Cough f-ing cough my @SS. Guess what buddy, your party is corrupt in its ideology, its methodology and its morality. Crooked, dirty b@st@rds the lot of you.
We need -less- government, not more scummy creeps skimming dough wherever they can scrape up a pinch of gold dust.
All parties should be playing by the same rules. Claiming expenses that are not legitimate is ripping off the taxpayer. Whether it’s the in and out scheme or the NDP’s scheme, they’re both designed ( and both were obviously planned and orchestrated ) to gain unfair advantage against their opponent, circumvent election laws and rip off the taxpayer.
So the gist of the post as I read it reveals the double standard and laziness of the media in dragging Toews name thru the mud, while ignoring the investigation of the NDP…
and the ahem-coffer comes along and quotes an article by the Canadian Press…
Was that supposed to mean something coff-coffer?
GYM …you said it…the lefties will never get it.
At one the CCF in Saskatchewan were called the “Saskatchewan Mafia” because of all of their crooked dealings. They were most infamous for “suggesting” to liquor suppliers that it would be in “their best interest” to help keep the CCF in power, through donations to the party, thus making it possible for the CCF to continue to put their products on the shelves of Saskatchewan Liquor stores. Of course if you didn’t make a donation, your products were no longer sold in Saskatchewan. Tommy Douglas argued that what they did wasn’t really illegal, and I guess it wasn’t, but it was dirty and underhanded.
Here is a passage from the book “Tommy Douglas; The Road to Jerusalem” (Tommy Douglas and the CCF believed they were on a mission from God to build the new Jerusalem in Saskatchewan, thus the name of the book): “In July 1960,(Clarence) Fines deposited a $1500 gift from an agent of the Alberta Distillers into account number 3100 at the Toronto General Trust branch in Regina. It was one of his last acts before retiring from politics. (in reality he left his wife and ran off with his secretary – and a big bag of tax payer money – to Bermuda and later to Florida) ‘If at any time in the future you have any problems concerning this account,’ Fines wrote to the trust company office, ‘please be good enough to discuss them with Mr. Douglas.'”
The CCF/NDP have always skirted around the law, but this time I think they have gone too far.
MJ: “Why the Free Press continues to give space to this Liberal/liberal shill is beyond me. ”
Way beyond liberal, MJ. This bitter old hag is a raging lunatic marxist who never saw a tax she didn’t like or a government social program she couldn’t support enthusiastically.
What many of you may not realize is that the previous Conservative Gov’t under Filmon is in court defending their previous lying under oath and the destruction of documents. The case hasn’t been settled yet ( it’s been on-going for 10 years now ) but it will eventually come. I wouldn’t get too high and mighty about the morality of the Conservative party.
cough-cough- You’re not seriously trying to tell us that you think the “offenses” of the Conservatives are comparable to those of the Manitoba NDP, or the Libranos and AdScam? Your assertion, if taken seriously, is that someone who unrepentantly drives 15/kmh over the speed limit should be lumped in with someone who holds up the 7-11 with a pellet gun. Sorry, that’s like saying a boat and a duck are alike because they both float.
“You’re not seriously trying to tell us that you think the “offenses” of the Conservatives are comparable to those of the Manitoba NDP, or the Libranos and AdScam?”
Not the same as Adscam by far. The in and out scheme by the Federal Conservatives is the same as the NDP scheme. The reasons are the same. To get taxpayer subsidies for expenses their not entitled to. They did the same thing. Made false declarations. The Conservatives moved money in and out to try and hide it ( that’s called money laundering ) and the NDP falsified expenses. The result and intent is the same.
Also, I don’t understand why some put down the Winnipeg Free Press. The only other city paper is the Sun. If they didn’t have the Sun Girl they wouldn’t sell any papers. I work for one of the largest companies in Manitoba ( not gov’t ) and all the execs and Management read the Globe and Mail, the Winnipeg Free Press and the National Post. In that order. No serious business subscribes to the Sun. It’s a tabloid.
The Winnipeg Sun has more content than the Freep. The Freep is a broadsheet, but is devoid of much to read. Pages and pages of ads.
“The Winnipeg Sun has more content than the Freep. ”
If you’re interested in sports and the Sun Girl. I read all of them every day. The Sun takes me less time to go thru than the others. If you’re interested in serious news stories and business it doesn’t have that much. Quite often major stories aren’t even printed.
Les —
“The in and out scheme by the Federal Conservatives is the same as the NDP scheme. The reasons are the same. To get taxpayer subsidies for expenses their not entitled to.” — Isn’t this one still before the courts? If yes, then we don’t know if they were entitled to the subsidies or not.
I think the Conservative’s position on this is reasonable, particularly since what they did had been done for years, though they may or may not win the case. Moreover, one of their points is that while Conservatives are being nabbed on this, other parties doing the same thing were not. Hmm, that’s beginning to sound like a familiar tune.
“I think the Conservative’s position on this is reasonable, particularly since what they did had been done for years, though they may or may not win the case. Moreover, one of their points is that while Conservatives are being nabbed on this, other parties doing the same thing were not. Hmm, that’s beginning to sound like a familiar tune. ”
Elections Canada has proof that the Conservative party doctored the receipts for advertising at their headquarters. In fact, they have admitted it. And no, the other parties didn’t do this. In fact, the previous Conservative/reform/alliance party didn’t do this.
I have voted NDP, Reform, Conservative and Liberal over the years. Both Federally and Provincially.
Don’t even pretend that somehow Conservative wrong doing is more morally correct than any other party. What really disgusts me is a Federal party that doesn’t even have a majority or hasn’t even been in power that long and is showing signs of corruption from the very beginning. It’s not like they’ve been in power with a majority for years and power has corrupted them. They were corrupted from the beginning. You know why? The leader, Harper, has never held any significant position in his life except political. He was a mail room employee at an oil company his father worked for a brief stint and the rest of his life has been cut-throat politics.
I was a candidate in the 1999 election for the upstart “Manitoba Party”. My campaign expenses ran in the range of $600. Unknown to me, for 18 months after the election my former official agent received threatening phone calls from so called Elections Manitoba “investigators” concerning my expense statement. Shortly after she told me about the harassment I received a call from some “investigator” calling me from his home phone. The disputed amount was 80 cents. The fairly loud shouting match that ensued was the last I ever heard about the matter. I guess it was just a bit of Dipper intimidation for anyone considering any future participation in the electoral process.
Free thinker. I have no knowledge of the phone calls you received ( and have no idea what would be the point after the election for an unknown party ) but that was the year that the Conservatives were defeated. I do know that the Conservatives were corrupt at that point and needed to be replaced. Whether that was with the Liberals or NDP that was up to the electorate. Some Conservatives made decisions that elected them to permanent positions to boards at high rates of pay, another skipped the country to avoid prosecution, and a lawsuit is still ongoing due to basically lying. All so they could fill their pockets with taxpayer dough.
Because of this, I will never vote Conservative on a provincial level, at least as long as any of the old Conservatives are running. I will keep an eye on this new allegation against the NDP so I might change my mind.
I never voted for the Conservatives Federally with Harper because I know his background. I did vote for the Reform party.
BTW, Mulroney was one of the best Conservative PM that Canada ever had. Harper directs his staff to avoid him and directs them not to talk to him. He even tries to cancel Mulroney’s Conservative membership even though he is the only Conservative PM to get 2 majorities in Canadian history. What kind of man would do that?
Les – the Crouton ‘reformed’ the election donation rules after the convention that you are speaking of ..CPC uses it’s own money, Liberano’s/Dippers steal from the taxpayers, I have lived in Dipper ruled provinces and I have lived in Conservative governed provinces – life is way better in the latter.
You should go over to ‘Angry in the Great White North’ website; Steve covered the issue of the so called ‘in and out’ scheme thoroughly, using facts not innuendo. It is all in the archives.
Seeing as we have so many Manitoba NDPer’s on this thread, maybe a few of you can try and tell the rest of us why the NDP justice department sealed the file for seven years on the merder investigation into Mark Stobbe, a loyal NDP? It seems extremely odd that a murder case would be sealed for seven years, the only purpose would appear to be to protect the prime suspect, a loyal member of the NDP, from prosecution.
Any of you NDPer’s want to answer to this? No? That’s what I would expect from you cowards.