May 4, 2009
"....these memberships were turned in by the Lingenfelter camp": UPDATED
Update: "When the presumptive party leader does it, that means it's not illegal!" *
It was an "overzealous" volunteer campaigner for NDP leadership candidate Dwain Lingenfelter who signed up hundreds of party members without ensuring they actually wanted the memberships, Lingenfelter says.
The former deputy premier, who's considered the front-runner in the race to replace Lorne Calvert, had to do some explaining Monday as the party continued to investigate 1,100 membership applications.
That would be a "volunteer" with the authority to cut a cheque for $11,000.
The party said the Lingenfelter campaign had paid for all of the applications, some of which came from the Waterhen Lake and Flying Dust First Nations near Meadow Lake.
Saskatchewan politics just got a little more fun. Heh.
Original post continues below...
NDP LEADERSHIP SCANDAL ERUPTS!
Party insider: "My contacts say that over 1000 memberships were sold in the Meadow Lake area, many with the same phone number and address, all turned in by one of the campaigns for leadership."
Irregularities alleged on Flying Dust and Waterhen reserves...
Acknowledgement here - "OK, so we got caught, but what does not kill us makes us stronger!"
... developing
Posted by Kate at May 4, 2009 7:20 PMPolitical corruption amongst the Lefties? I'm shocked, simply shocked I tell you!
Posted by: The Phantom at May 3, 2009 9:49 AMSocialists . . . picking up in Native Abuse where the Churches and Residential Schools left off.
Posted by: Fred at May 3, 2009 9:52 AMYup. Shocking.
Posted by: A storm is coming at May 3, 2009 9:54 AMI believe it was Stalin that said that "it is not how you vote that is important, but how one counts the vote".
The left sure lives up to it's past.
Makes me wonder about Vancouver if it was really 97%?
Brad Wall still have SDA on his sh!t list for racist remarks about Indians?
Posted by: Roy Romanow's Ghost at May 3, 2009 10:11 AMThis is just classic (for the irony challenged):
Compare that response to what would figure to have happened if a similar internal party issue had been raised when it comes to, say, the Harper Cons. From them, the default responses would be an angry denial to start with, followed by an attempt to point at some unrelated issue in another party or to smear whoever raised the issue, with the possibility of temporarily punishing a lower-level operative kept in mind as an absolute last resort. And at no point would getting at the facts behind the matter be seen as a priority.
Well, JCL, you have made many assumptions there.
None of which are based on any facts at all.
And none of which have anything to do with the apparent poor judgement of some workers in the NDP Party.
"...the apparent poor judgement of some workers in the NDP Party."
Your kidding, right?
NDP and poor judgement belong together like liberano and criminal.
Posted by: FREE at May 3, 2009 10:48 AMThey were just imitating their hero Obama's ACORN's methods. After all, nothing the messiah and his cohorts do is wrong, just ask the MSM.
Posted by: Alan at May 3, 2009 10:51 AM"The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything." Joseph Stalin."
Lenin, aka ulianov/lberia, was better, succincster, brevity incarnate:
"One man with a gun can control 100 without one.
Vladimir Lenin"
(brainyquote)
your police car light is way better than the one Drudge uses
Posted by: Rick at May 3, 2009 11:02 AMI'm no fan of the NDP, and it sure is fun to have yet another thing to skewer them about, but realistically, this kind of crap can and does happen to every political party.
Any volunteer organisation attracts a few nuts, and political parties seem to attract more than their fair share. Somebody walks in to your campaign office and volunteers to help, and you have no way to guarantee that person is not a loon or a crook of some kind. Next thing you know, you're on the front page of the paper for something you would never dream of doing or saying yourself.
Who cares? Obama is running the world now.
Posted by: Momar at May 3, 2009 11:35 AM"Brad Wall still have SDA on his sh!t list for racist remarks about Indians?"
That's last year's outright fabrication. At the moment, I'm a paid shill for the Sask Party and have been "gotten to" by the Liberal Party of Canada. Try to keep up, ok?
Posted by: Kate at May 3, 2009 11:50 AMSounds like some good old fashioned community organizin'. Any TV raffles involved?
NDP, Liberal, same type of sleaze.
Posted by: Soccermom at May 3, 2009 12:00 PMWhat has "gotten to by the Liberal Party of Canada" mean?
Posted by: Momar at May 3, 2009 12:02 PM"gotten to", but not necessarily "made"... right out of the Godfather. er, The Librano.
haha.
I wonder if they intend to translate the 1000 bogus memberships into bogus votes by using that same touch-tone-phone number.
Posted by: glasnost at May 3, 2009 12:27 PMLee: JCL was just quoting from the NDP person's blog. JCL correctly points out the irony of accusing the Conservatives of attempting to shift attention away from their own mistakes by focusing on something irrelevant. I noted the same irony myself when I followed Kate's link.
Posted by: LindaL at May 3, 2009 12:43 PMNewsflash: Jack Layton leadership in peril. Liberal Party of Canada very concerned.
Posted by: Shamrock at May 3, 2009 12:48 PMASS (ACORN, Saskatchewan Section)
Is anybody surprised?
Somebody has taken some lessons from Obama. Check the checks to ACORN. Follow the money.
Posted by: Yoop at May 3, 2009 12:57 PMCanada has their very own branch of ACORN. Ugh.
Posted by: JEnn at May 3, 2009 1:38 PM"Jack Layton leadership in peril. Liberal Party of Canada very concerned."
IMO - a half decent, new NDP leader could rejuvenate that party big time !
Posted by: ron in kelowna at May 3, 2009 3:25 PMCompare this scandal to the events in Manitoba in the mid-90's, when the Conservatives figured they might benefit from a split vote in one riding, and so encouraged an independent candidate to run and donated to his campaign. No laws broken, no rules broken, nothing dishonest or improper, and no harm done - they lost the seat anyway. But it has been pushed as a "scandal" for ten years, and the CBC recently justified its existence by boasting of how it had publicized this story to hell and gone.
Posted by: ebt at May 3, 2009 4:20 PMShhh, everybody... we want the voters to go from the Liberals to the NDP, not the other way around!
If we bash the NDP, the Liberals will look, well, less corrupt relatively, and leftists will flock to the Liberals, ending vote-splitting and taking seats away from the incumbent party, who's not going to do the insane, far-left crap the Liberals have just the other day decided to do if they ever win power again.
Shh! Bash the Liberals... and boost the NDP.
Mike Harris did it, and it worked. So... shh!
Posted by: Canadian Sentinel at May 3, 2009 5:16 PMRemember... lump the Liberals and NDP... and Bloc together. That worked quite well when they did it to themselves just a few months ago, remember?
Talking point: LIbs + NDP + Bloc = One Party.
Posted by: Canadian Sentinel at May 3, 2009 5:19 PMThank you, LindaL.
I will confess to some laziness today, it is the Sabbath after all.
My apologies JCL.
Oh that left-wing corruption. If there's one thing those people know how to do well it's corruption, fraud, stealing, lying ...
Posted by: Werner at May 3, 2009 7:31 PMRon said "IMO - a half decent, new NDP leader could rejuvenate that party big time".
No. They need to stand for something other than government unions and special interests. I think their last chance to actually do something and become a party again was a decade ago which is too bad as I think they could have been a nice piece of the puzzle in Canadian politics. Had they kept up their original mandate of helping the underdog they would still be a vibrant force today. Unfortunately the decided that all white men were evil except for the white men that run the NDP and that all visible minorities and women were poor victims. Plus they abandoned their Christian roots and decided that the Jihadists were the good guys and Christians are evil personified.
They don't believe in the class struggle anymore or in the Christian concept of helping the poor and vulnerable which is what made them a great party at one point. Now they only believe in race and gender issues. Watch the Coren show and listen to the NDP guest they have on and they make their contempt of the average working guy obvious.
Posted by: gord at May 3, 2009 8:12 PMThe NDP & Acorn. Growing a new future of corruption together.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/ACORN-Canada/37528535569
Posted by: Revnant Dream at May 3, 2009 8:40 PMLooks like ACORN is spending that Four Billion US for more than Foreclosure Busting and Philly Cheesesteaks and the NDP are quick learners.
Posted by: Snowbunnie at May 3, 2009 11:38 PMhay ya hay ya hay ya hay ya etc etc etc.
Posted by: old white guy at May 4, 2009 3:45 PMNo doubt, I guess... the NDP of Sask. is corrupt.
Looking like Librano$...
Posted by: Canadian Sentinel at May 4, 2009 7:34 PMWho cares what those scheming idiots do, who cares whether they live, die, shit their pants or steel third?
Posted by: Western Canadian at May 4, 2009 8:01 PMThese things are only a problem with the NDP if some other party does them.
Move along now - nothing to see here.
Posted by: a different bob at May 4, 2009 10:49 PMFunny ..... I've participated in several campaigns and not one of them had ANY volunteers who were NOT vetted. None of them had ANY incidents of impropriety .... NOT even Alleged Impropriety.
The ONLY crap that went on was perpetrated by NDP supporters and LIberal sycophants.
Ahhh, Saskatchewan politics. Could never happen in B.C. Hah!
Posted by: gobidesert at May 5, 2009 12:36 AMHeh hehh heh....
TOO stupid to live.
Politicians who still think, in this day of internet access they can still get away with this silliness.
Joe Volpe sidelining in the backroom?
Fire. Them. All.
Shhh, everybody... we want the voters to go from the Liberals to the NDP, not the other way around! ~ Canadian Sentinel
Not a good plan in Saskatchewan.
Link as part of his own campaign team should have known. He should resign or he should fire his management team and start anew. Someone has to fall on the sword!
Posted by: Single Malt Whisky at May 5, 2009 11:31 AMI'll be sure to watch CBC tonight to not see anything about it.
Posted by: grok at May 5, 2009 4:38 PMIn Chicago, organized crime buying political influence is a tradition that goes back to the Al Capone days.
Only here there is no Elliot Ness and the Untouchables, and no one is going to appoint one. The only 'untouchables' here are on the dark side.
Next step, control a number of polling stations and ......
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