“I ain’t the heavy, it’s my brother…”
Facing new allegations she mistreated nannies, Dhalla, in a statement released to the Star through a lawyer, said she has “no knowledge of the details regarding the live-in caregivers for her family” and had “no involvement in the selection, interviewing, hiring, supervising, sponsoring or any financial transactions whatsoever with a live-in caregiver for my family.”
[…]
In the interview, Ruby Dhalla said nannies at the home work for her family, not her.
She said she spends four days a week in Ottawa. Gordo and Tongson said Dhalla arrived at the home every Thursday and left for Ottawa on Monday. They said she occupies the biggest suite in the four-bedroom house.
Dhalla said all queries should be directed to her brother.
(Youtube)
More – Ruby and the Slumdogs
WAIT! There’s more!
If these assholes can admit stealing 100 million dollars from tax payers (under oath) and none of them go to jail, Ruby can do what ever the hell she wants to a couple of slumdog cleaners with “no rights”.
She’ll walk just like the Adscammers.
“If my kid throws a rock through a window, should I go to jail?”
Damn right you should. You are responsible for your children.
For a member of parleament who is supposed to keep abreast of events and things of importance to Canadians and those of her constituancy, she seems to be totally ignorant (suddenly) of the running of her household. Sounds like stuck on stupid, set you free.
SYF
It’s politics.
I wake everyday a conservative; but, sometimes I have to be a Conservative as well. Your haughty argument is valid, and noted, but the point you’re conveniently ignoring is that this is a political opportunity.(c)onservatism is an ideology, but politics is the game. You take the lay-up when you can! This isn’t high school it’s Canadian politics, and we shouldn’t worry about running up the score on these retards.
rich:
Having trouble rising above tribalism?
set you free – Ruby Dhalla’s involvement was in her hiring of them. There are conflicting statements.
The ‘nannies’, who were not caregivers in any sense of the term, claim that they were hired by, interviewed by – Ruby. Not her brother; not her mother.
According to the Star story, Mason, executive director of Intercede, said that she has notes and telephone records to prove that she contacted Dhalla in Ottawa demanding that she return the documents to Tongson. She also informed her that Tongson is working illegally because she doesn’t have her govt documents. Yet, despite being told this, Ruby Dhalla continued to have her employed in her household. Dhalla denies having spoken to Mason.
Taniguchi, who placed the two ‘nannies’, has also said that she dealt primarily with Ruby Dhalla.
Tongson, the second ‘nanny’ says that she was interviewed and hired by Ruby, who gave her a ‘test’, of cooking a noodle dish.
So, from the statements of the two nannies, the service Intercede, and the placement agency, Ruby Dhalla seems directly involved in hiring these women, who did not have legal documents to work and who were not doing the work for which they were hired, i.e., as care-givers.
I was curious what Dhalla’s fellow Liberal elitist friend had to say about all of this. Nothing new today but she has updated this entry with the following:
UP IN THE CORNER OFFICE DATE: I see the goderators have closed comments on this post, in keeping with the lack of comments on today’s stories about Dhalla on the main web page. I had nothing to do with this decision. I assume it was done to avoid hate and libel. Judging from some of the comments left here but not approved, i am not surprised.
I have to wonder if my comment there falls into the “hate & libel category:
What a strangely worded piece. Ms. Zerbisias, you state that you’re not excusing the alleged actions of Dhalla. Then you immediately provide provide a moral equivalency, portraying female MPs as victims compared to their male equivalents.
First you viciously attack Michelle Malkin, a successful Filipino-American. Now you go out of your way to suggest an excuse for Ruby Dhalla’s actions. You might not mind employing Filipino women but you surely don’t view them as possibly being your equals.
ET:
I’m sure some of those facts will all come out at next week’s Parliamentary Committee.
If she was in fact out of town for all but three days, the only thing Ruby may be guilty of trusting her brother to look after the passport issue and her brother did not do the job he was asked to.
Not really clear about the nannies immigration status and the purpose of having an employer helping with an upgrade, but I’m sure there’s some kind of process that takes a certain amount of time.
I do know for a fact that when I apply for a passport, it takes more than a week to get the actual document.
All I know for sure is somebody’s credibility is going to take a huge hit next week.
Just trying to establish the facts, ma’am.
“Goodbye Ruby Dhallsday…
…P’iggys going to miss you”
Good one there, cal2 at 4:11 PM
Except I don’t think P’iggy really will miss her; he can’t wait to get her out of the media spotlight.
I was just making a little wager yesterday , dhallas to dhimwits, she tries to blame another family member for this.
@set you free,
Would you be so willing to give a Conservative the benefit of the doubT?
Whether or not she committed anything illegal is not really for us to judge, but with how (supposedly) sensitive she was to the issues associated with women and immigrants it strains credibility that this abuse happened under her nose in her own house without her knowing about it.
Seems to me that Ruby has really missed her calling. Maybe her buddy Judy Sgro could put her in touch with a reputable agency.
You know, all that chiropractic training might be useful for the pole work.
Apropos of nothing and everything, I can tell you stories of Filipinas being employed by Indians in Canada, straight from the victim’s mouths..
From having one girl admitted to a psych hospital after the employer knocked her up, to the truly bizarre and not fully understood goings on in Mississauga last year when a girl was found murdered, there are many stories to be investigated.
..and can somebody please explain how being ‘investigated’ by the Ethics committee has anything to do with this case?
Surely it has nothing to do with governance?
NoOne:
There’s too much Soviet-style guilt by association line of argument here for my liking.
I’m not into collective guilt, whether it be on global warming, er, climate change … or on this issue, where Ruby is found guilty in the court of public opinion for what may turn out be the actions, or inactions, of her family while she was out of town.
Guilt by association is unbecoming for those who purport to hold conservative values.
Yet, judging by the tone of some of the posts here today, lack of dignity is no longer a monopoly of the left.
I guess sticking to the facts isn’t quite as much fun as being part of a lynch mob.
I don’t see how it is “Guilt by association” …
If it was simply that her brother and/or mother took advantage of these women I might see your point. The fact is that she is a advocate for women and immigrants and these women were taken advantage of by her brother and/or mother (and she herself has been implicated) under her nose in her own house …
To put it into perspective, wouldn’t you see a problem with someone who was very hard on drugs not noticing that their brother (who was living in their house) was doing and selling drugs from their kitchen when they were in the house?
set you free – your assumptions are that Ms Dhalla was, essentially, never there. She was ‘out of town’.
But, apparently, she is in Ottawa from Mon-Thurs and returns to her home on Thurs. Every week.
Plus, according to the testimony of the two ‘caregivers’, Intercede and the placement agency, they all dealt with Ms Dhalla directly.
I, myself, am only going on the data as presented by the Toronto Star. It’s the only data any of us have.
Therefore, I don’t see how you can overlook the testimony of the two caregivers, Intercede and the placement agency.
Those agencies that were hired to clean offices or shovel snow probably had other clients also. They would have to have employee records, dates of service. What if those nannies names show up on them.
As for the boarding passes, what time were they for, and could she not have taken said documentation prior to leaving for the airport.
The lawyer had a lot of paper of receipts supposedly signed or written by the nannies. Were they forced to sign, were they threatened with deportation, or what. He had no documentation to back said receipts up. The receipt book would have carbon copies, and receipts before and after. Lets see that book.
Let’s see bank records proving cheques were issued, let’s see the cancelled cheques. If paid in cash, let’s see bank records showing withdrawal of said cash. He caused more questions to be asked than he answered.
Just because he talks loud, fast and throws out stmts does not make them true.
Watching Dhalla’s lawyer and, apparently, “sometime boyfriend” go ballistic at her press conference would seem to suggest that Ruby’s in big trouble and Howard Livett’s livid.
Even the so-called “political (press) pundits” on CBC’s Politics said it didn’t look good on either Dhalla or Levitt that he hardly let her speak and that he seemed to be blowing a gasket.
My take? There’s a big fire where this smoke is coming from. Dhalla’s watching her gravy train heading for a fiery crash. She’s had it good, thinking that “multiculturalism” means that Canadians accept the way she and her family have always done things and, even if we don’t, that because she’s from a visible minority, she’s above criticism.
She’s finding out that that’s not the case. As for the Conservatives being the Big Bad Wolf, huffing and puffing to blow her house down, give me a break! There are so many Liberals in the picture, there’s no room for the CPC!
‘Any chance, as others have suggested, that Bob Rae/Power Corp had precipitated this scandal? What’s Bob Rae been up to? Why has he been so docile while Iggy was crowned leader? Given that it’s the Liberal cheerleaders in the MSM who have blown the whistle on Nannygate, one wonders what’s actually going on?
It’s way too easy to posit a Conservative Conspiracy. There’s something more happening here.
OH, there is more to see here, alright!
One point is key, besides Ruby’s mother being quite robust, and able to travel on the taxpayers’ dime, as her daughter’s ‘designated traveller’.
The program that the caregivers were brought to The Dhalla’s home under, makes the point that ” (A job offer for a housecleaner, for example, is not acceptable under the Program.)”.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/630825
“Ruby Dhalla’s mother requires a live-in caregiver but that doesn’t appear to have stopped her from travelling the world with her Liberal MP daughter.
And according to the rules for hiring foreign live-in caregivers, she doesn’t have to be house bound or incapacitated to qualify for the federal program.
In fact, there are no medical criteria at all.”
And we see that travel was not a problem, when you read the full content of this article.
“Dhalla, 35, has declared her mother, Tavinder, as her “designated traveller,” according to House of Commons records.
A designated traveller is entitled to use some or all of an MP’s 64 annual travel points, which allow them to fly free in Canada or abroad.”
A person need not be incapacitated in order to hire a foreign live-in caregiver.
According to the Citizenship and Immigration Canada website, there are only three very simple criteria. Employers must:
– “Have sufficient income to pay a live-in caregiver.”
– “Provide acceptable accommodation in your home.”
– “Make a job offer that has primary caregiving duties for a child or an elderly or disabled person. (A job offer for a housecleaner, for example, is not acceptable under the Program.)”
Once you get elected it`s all about me, and we keep returning these self serving idiots to the public trough. Goodbye Ruby and the rest of your ilk!
Veteran ace reporter Kady sums up Ruby’s pesser:
“My favourite part was when he got in first one, and then a series of fights with a series of reporters over the substance of the very first question, refused to let his client speak, attacked the media – both in general, and specifically the “one outlet” that has been especially naughty, got into a debate with yet another reporter over whether he should let his client speak, and was finally beaten to the microphone *by* said client when she realized what a disaster it was turning out to be, whereupon he did his best to interrupt *her*, and eventually bid everyone a good day.
Worst. Lawyer-dominated presser. Ever.”
http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/05/08/her-side/
…-
Here’s a link to a scribble by Ruby’s mouthpiece:
“What separates good from bad
How to pick a lawyer who can win your case
Howard Levitt, Financial Post”
http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=880442
batb
Plausible….at least more plausible then the CPC and Torstar teaming up to sink the good ship Princess Ruby and by extension Professor Puffin.
Liberal knives are long knives.
As an aside, I am really enjoying the likes of Rosemary Thompson of CTV and Margot Somethingoranother on CBC squirming uncomfortably as they attempt to minimize this story and cast vague dispersions in the direction of the CPC.
Of course the disappearance of Iggy Puff and Katsmeat is a bonus that we can all enjoy….unless their both working on new books…Kicking Nanny Ass in Canadian Politics and True Patriot Tough Love….
*sigh*
Syncro
When ya go the heavy duty Lawyering up route right out of the gate, it sure makes people think you have something to hide. In her case lots to hide.
Getting the lawyer in to obfuscate, made tangential arguments and generally confuse things is what Tony Soprana would.
Whatever else happens, her political career is toast.
There will be many, many other ambitious lower level Liberals very happy over her demise. There will be many glasses raised in toast to the end of her cutie-pie career. Takes more than a smile, a figure and the ability to spout out the Liberal talking points box to get to the top.
But she will be a very bitter loser. Wanna bet Iggy won’t let her within 50ft if a camera is around ?
Set you free:
I’m somewhat in agreement with you when you say that it’s hard to say at this point just how involved Dhalla was in this situation, but I wonder about something: you said “Dhalla’s lawyer alleged it was Neill who took the passports.”
Maybe he did, but consider the following:
1. In Dhalla’s laundry-list of a serial denial in which she distances herself from her family she professes no knowledge of the details of “selection, interviewing, hiring, supervising, sponsoring, or any financial transactions.” Curiously absent from such a detailed denial is the matter of the passports.
2. A woman named Agatha Mason, from the agency Intercede, said she phoned Dhalla — i.e. not Dhalla’s mother or brother — to demand that the passports be returned within 24 hours or the police would be called. Now, it’s entirely possible, I suppose, that Ruby Dhalla was called in order to tell her to tell one of her family members to return the passports, but if Dhalla’s mother or brother was the caregivers’ employer(s), why wouldn’t Mason contact them instead?
3. Most tellingly, perhaps, consider this seemingly redirecting/moot statement on the part of her lawyer, as covered in the Star: “Clutching documents, Levitt claimed to have evidence that refuted several of the nannies’ allegations. Magdalene Gordo worked for Dhalla for 11 days and not three weeks so Dhalla could not have held her passport for two weeks, he said.”
Note that *he’s* making an issue the matter of how long the passports were held. It seems to me that if Dhalla didn’t take the passports her lawyer would have said so in clear terms, as one of the first orders of business; his decision to instead dispute the length of time they were — apparently — held seems telling.
If it really is a Conservative conspiracy then the next step is to make sure Ms. Dhalla remains the incumbent MP.
Politically she is grievously damaged goods and nothing would help the CP more than to see her contesting the riding and seeing Iggy coming to her riding to help out or ignoring her candidacy and then maintaining that the LP is solid and unified (just like it was solid and unified in its support of the budget). Either way it is the perfect outcome for the CP.
Iggy needs to get out in front of this soon and remove her or things will get much, much worse for him and the LP.
The “Dithers” label has not been retired and can be applied to Iggy if he lets it happen.
It’s a gift of manna from heaven for the Conservatives, if they can portray (with just cause) a stalwart ‘champion’ of the immigrant community as having feet of clay.
I will wager the Conservative party just garnered thousands of votes from the Phil. and lower caste indian communities.
While CTV’s Power Play did 4 segments on the Dhalla Nanny Scandal over the last 2 days (leading off both shows with the Dhalla scandal), Newman ignored it all day yesterday and all day today, except for a measily 5 minute segment at the end of today’s braaaawdcast, in which Don Martin said that it’s appalling that the Conservatives are piling on and prejudging the issue before all the facts are in… you know, like martin himself did on the Cadman affair? Briden added that this could all blow up in the Conservatives’ faces.
2 hours of Newman and a mere 5 minutes devoted to this matter. Pathetic! I wonder when he and the Liberals are going to announce that he’s a candidate for them in the next election and in which riding.
BB
very well said
and there ain’t no
“CLEAN THE FAMILY BUSINESS”
as a qualifier
If everything that Ruby Dhalla or her mouthpiece- I mean, lawyer- said is true, then turn over the evidence to the police and the labour board. Otherwise the press conference just sounds like a “pity-me” party.
I think an embassy appointment would take the heat off Ms. Dhalla.
This is an interesting development. Winnipeg has a very large Filipino population. I wonder how the Libs are polling in those ridings these days.
Hmmmmmmmm?
now thats more like it
CBCpravda swinging for the fence.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/05/08/dhalla-caregiver.html
CBCpravda All Lieberals AlL the effing Time
FIRE.THEM.ALL
from ignoring it for 2 weeks to jumping on the Sarah Palin Dhalla bandwagon.
You know, much has been made of Dhalla’s being a woman and a “minority”.
But not enough is being made of the fact that she’s a wealthy elitist who appears to look down on and mistreat the less fortunate (if indeed the three women are telling the truth, not that there’s any reason to doubt them).
Dhalla exudes an air of arrogance and conceit. Much like Whatshername, the booby girl who went out with Maxime Bernier after having gone out with bike gangsters?
Oh, and she’s also a Liberal. A Librano. It only provides damaging optics for the Liberals, in that everyone in the party will now be perceived as being a wealthy elitist who only claims to be “caring and compassionate” towards the less fortunate. Apparently the “caring and compassion” slogan is just something to win big-city NDP swing votes.
And the “leader” is hiding somewhere, perhaps under a couch, like some scaredy cat when Mommy vacuums the carpet.
Don Martin = Liberal Elitist Poster Boy
Two telling quotes in his article:
“Ruby Dhalla is the Liberal MP at the epicentre of an incredibly nasty smear campaign as she moves to fight allegations by a pair of Philippine nannies who accuse her of making them work too hard doing menial tasks beyond their job description.”
“Something doesn’t smell right in having two former nannies step forward a year after they left the Dhalla family’s employment to suddenly complain about conditions that don’t seem unusually onerous for immigrant workers.”
Let the last part of that second quote ring around in your head for awhile. I hope that his article is forwarded to every Filipino in Canada. What a truly pathetic bastard!
Agatha Mason & Intercede are clients of Canada’s socialist State.
She draws her salary from Canadian taxpayers’ tax money.
Mason’s comments are invalid.
Every time she speaks she is speaking on our dime. She is biased and irrelevant.
She would be well advised to stop, cease, and desist from making public statements.
From her organization’s website:
“We are funded by Canada Immigration and Citizenship Immigrant Settlement and Adaptation Program (CIC-ISAP).”
http://www.intercedetoronto.org/Annual_Report_April_2007_To_March_2008
Without the CBC’s help I would never have known about this plot by those dasterdly Filipino’s.
Makes the Jihad threat look tiny in preportion.
Ruby should be allowed to follow her culture . After all hers has caste systems.
JMO
P’Iggy is hiding because the cat got his tongue.
Quite likely, before this weekend’s over, those nannies will be a few bucks richer and, next week, this will all fizzle away. I know the Liberals.
OOOOIggy. Look and read; see Spot run.
Iggy, you better get out front on Ruby; don’t be leading from the rear.
This is getting tres serieux, Iggy.
Your pals are turning agin you.
But, Iggy, there is a way out: tell Ruby to lodge a complaint at Canada’s HRC tribunals. Won’t cost you a penny; you can make some easy $$$$ also.
…-
“Ruby Dhalla and the ethics commissioner: looks like a dead end
Ruby Dhalla and her lawyer suggest new layers of complexity and even conspiracy in the story of allegations about caregivers her family employed. But don’t hold your breath waiting for the federal Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner to step in to settle the matter.
At her news conference today, Dhalla’s lawyer again referred to her request for the commissioner to review the allegations against her. It certainly sounds like the sort of thing that would make sense. The problem is that MPs took steps last year to make sure the commissioner doesn’t have any clear mandate to look into this sort of affair.
The commissioner, Mary Dawson, has the power to hold inquiries into cases where MPs might have used public office to benefit their private interests. But the emphasis is squarely on conflict of interest—not the general ethical tone or, for that matter, the legality of an MP’s behaviour.
The Conflict of Interest Code for Members of the House of Commons details how an MP is prohibited from using public office to “further his or her private interests.” There’s no conflict of this sort suggested in any of the claims about how the Dhalla family’s former caregivers were treated.
Dawson’s office would only confirm to me that she is considering Dhalla’s request, and wouldn’t offer any help interpreting of how the code might—or might not—apply in this case. So I called Duff Conacher, the tireless head of Democracy Watch, who knows more about the conflict code than anybody else I know.
Conacher confirmed that there’s no obvious way for Dawson to take up Dhalla’s plea for an impartial inquiry into the matter. He points out an interesting wrinkle, though: up until last spring, when MPs changed the rules, Dawson just might have had leeway to examine a case like this one.
Here’s why.”
http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/05/08/ruby-dhalla-and-the-ethics-commissioner-looks-like-a-dead-end/
“Every time she speaks she is speaking on our dime. She is biased and irrelevant.”
You are talking about Ruby, right ?
Has anybody ever heard of Joyce Murray? Apparently she is a LPC MP from BC who was thrown in front of the bus on Power Play tonight. Defending Ruby has fallen to the backbenchers because “the leader” is otherwise engaged.
Iggy is obviously busy stacking stool.
Syncro
Robert W.
What I love is how Don Martin emphasizes in his column that all there is against Dhalla are allegations while immediately following with: “Ruby Dhalla is the Liberal MP at the epicentre of an incredibly nasty smear campaign…”
Most responsible journalists (or at least the smart ones who try to conceal their own political/party bias as best they can) would have inserted “what some say” or “what critics say” just before referring to it as an “incredibility nasty smear campaign.”
The fact that that’s excluded from his musings, especially right after he paints her as a victim in his next breath, proves him to be especially moronic.
Iggy spoke today and said what any normal human being would have said.
Everybody has the right to defend themselves.
The lynch mob may think otherwise, until their neck is in the noose. First they came for Ruby, now they come for me.
Next time a troll comes here and starts smearing and namd-calling remember you have the right to stand up for yourself.
If you just whine about how you’re losing, then you’ve defined yourself as a loser as in the irellevant ‘if it would have been a Conservative’ line which totally defines a self-pitying loser.
If you’d like to continue being a victim, may as well join the NDP and Liberals right now. They’re much better at it.
Jim, I expanded upon my thoughts of Martin here. What an absolute piece of work!
As I said there, the class system is alive and well in Canada, at least in the minds of Liberal elites like Martin!
P’Iggy is hiding because the cat got his tongue.
Posted by: Bernie at May 8, 2009 8:14 PM
Yep, and Warren ate the cat.
Wasn’t it John A MacDonald who said “Those Liberals make me Sikh”?
The left always seems to draw conclusions and make laws from the most far fetched stretches of the imagination you could think of. They abuse statistics and make conclusions based on feelings instead of facts. But when one of their own is caught they demand forensic exacting proof.
Just a quick thank you to Kate for linking to my blog. Greatly appreciated.
So now we see what the liberals are up to when they aren’t trying to steal Jesus off the cross.
“As an aside, I am really enjoying the likes of Rosemary Thompson of CTV and Margot Somethingoranother on CBC squirming uncomfortably as they attempt to minimize this story and cast vague dispersions in the direction of the CPC” – Syncrodox @ 6:57PM
In one McDiarmid’s pieces on Newsworld, she stated that Dhalla was the “first” female Sikh MP elected to the HoC and, as a result, is an inspiration and a trailblazer for Sikh women everywhere, when in fact Nina Grewal was elected to parliament at the same time Dhalla was. But Nina is a Conservative so she’s automatically disqualified in Margot’s world.
Was this mere oversight on McDiarmid’s part that can be chalked up to not having the facts, or is it yet another instance of bias by omission by yet another CBC reporter, attempting to paint Liberals in the best possible light, especially when they’re embroiled in scandal? Like with so many Liberal shills in the MSM, it’s often by omissions of information that their bias is – ironically enough – exposed.
I look forward to when Margot is forced to point out after the next election that Nina Grewal is the only female Sikh woman in Canadian history to have 3-peated. At least then she’ll have her facts straight.
I may have to change the expressions I use.
Instead of saying ‘beat him like a rented mule’ I may have to substitute ‘beat him like Ruby beats her nannies’.