Via Adam Daifallah;

Young Liberals have for decades been criticized for engaging in some of the worst dirty tricks when it comes to leadership races. Chief among the complaints has been the creation of phony campus clubs that exist only on paper.
In 2003, more than 150 campus clubs were accredited by the YLC, the vast majority of which sent Martin supporters to the convention. Diamond said the current executive thoroughly reviewed all the clubs and whittled the number of legitimate clubs down to 53.

Steve Janke’s baby is back in the news – Peter O’Neil from the Vancouver Sun;

The Paul Martin government, bracing last fall for Justice John Gomery’s scathing sponsorship scandal report and a possible snap election, played down opposition questions suggesting the emergence of another potentially explosive federal ethics controversy.
The questions related to media coverage of an obscure government employee named Frank Brazeau, suspended after contracting irregularities were uncovered by auditors for KPMG – an international accounting company – including contracts improperly let to the family company of Quebec Liberal MP David Smith.
The documents, and subsequent interviews, show the issues linked to Brazeau triggered two police investigations since 2004, $655,000 worth of forensic reviews by KPMG Canada, and a number of disciplinary actions against federal bureaucrats -including three firings.

Janke joins the long list of critics questioning Bernard Shapiro’s competency – if not his credibility;

Now remember how the Ethics Commissioner decided that David Smith had never acted unethically? Moreover, that during his “investigation”, the Ethics Commissioner did not uncover the fact that David Smith and Frank Brazeau were cousins?
I knew they were cousins. I reported it on this blog. I also sent an email to the Ethics Commissioner after the investigation was announced, though apparently that was ignored.
But apparently, this was not news. If the Ethics Commissioner had accessed the KPMG investigation into Abotech as part of his investigation, he would have known this:

Among the contracts looked at by KPMG were 15 – valued at a total of $1 million – that went to the family company of Liberal MP Smith.
Public Works wasn’t aware until the KPMG probes that Brazeau and Smith are cousins who grew up together in the same small Outaouais town of Maniwaki, and that Brazeau was secretary of Smith’s Liberal riding association from December 2004 to August 2005, according to department spokesperson Pierre Teotonio.

Nice work, Steve – be sure to read the whole thing. (Interesting entry pertaining to one Elisabeth Nadeau in the comments section, too.)

Saw a promo at supper news – the Reloscam story is finally making it to air on the CTV National Whistleblower segment this evening.
Read the background at Conservative Life from Jan.1, 2006.
Update – read the comments for more Having watched this, my respect for Kathy Tomlinson just fell a notch. As Craig Smith points out – this story was in the can for 4 weeks , With the potential to be as big or bigger than Sponsorship, CTV instead chose to hold it during the election. Why?
That means there plenty of time to corner the Public Works minister of the day, Scott Brison. Yet, his name was never mentioned in the piece. Instead, CTV showed footage of the new PW minister walking through a lobby and told us officials hadn’t briefed him yet.
CTV’s Online version.

is getting over $400,000 plus pension benefits, as the arbitrator has determined his resignation was involuntary.
Via Peter Warren who notes that the same government officials who “don’t work weekends” managed to issue a press release at 1 pm on a Saturday afternoon.
Such is the cost of silence. Dingwall was the Public Works minister who directed Chuck Guite be put in charge of advertising spending, and that rules separating the awarding of contracts and subsequent payment be set aside – creating an environment in which the fraudulent invoices submitted by Adscam players could escape normal checks and balances.

But of course it’s legal for an outgoing Liberal MP to shred documents.
Just who do you think was writing the laws this past decade or so?

Continue reading →

And some people still think we were joking when we called them the Libranos; (link fixed)

It was only when we got to Windsor for the convention that I realized just how much the Martinites had invested in the campaign — literally. With the money I’d scraped together, I’d rented a couple of cheap yellow school buses to transport my supporters. My opponent’s voters turned up in a fleet of Greyhounds. The bulk of them rounded up from a couple of high schools, they had everything — food, board, delegate fees, liquor — paid for. Some of the kids were informed they wouldn’t get a ride back to Toronto if they didn’t vote the right way.
Not surprisingly, I lost. But I’d come close enough to winning that the Martinites were convinced I had another leadership campaign running the show. And from that point, they made a concerted effort to ensure I had a minimal role in the party.

How times have changed…. “There are certain jobs, it seems, that no one, but no one, wants to have…”
More on McKenna, from Coyne.
In the comments – “Orchard delivering the leadership to Belinda on the last ballot to stave off Scott”. I’d pay good money to see that!

The strange goings on in Federal government contracting continue. In followup to last week’s post (read it if you haven’t already), my source sends this update;

Sequle: Well on the morning of 25 Janaury 2006, bidders sent an inquiry to their PWGSC Contract Authority – remember our bid validity expired today – and received a fax later this afternoon stating that Societ� Gamma (a private Ottawa firm) had been awarded $3.6 million to provide translation services for Treasury Board Secretariat. Apparently PWGSC still cannot discuss this matter with bidders and of course no one knows if this is an additional contract or if Lexi-tech International (owned by JD Irving) still gets to keep the original $3.6 million they were awarded in late December 2005. What to do, what to do?
And since this is a sequel, anyone having access to MERX should go to the Contract Awards link and view how many contracts were awarded on 23 January 2006 – The Immigration and Refugee Board posted contract awards for several translation contracts on that date (impeccable timing, ey wot?) – and this after the Project Authority at IRB had promised bidders on a weekly basis starting with the first week of December that results would be posted before Christmas. Then she didn’t respond to e-mails or phone calls either. And on election day, VOILA – results released.
Whatever are these people trying to hide? And are public servants allowed to lie or is that common human failing only something us common folk are held accountable for? Just asking. And of course documentation, mounds of it actually, exists for anyone who can help disseminate this.
Think of all the other millions of dollars awarded on 23 Janaury – this is just the tip of the heap of dead fish..

This is something the incoming government has to take a hard look at. If there is evidence that contracts were pushed through on behalf of favoured companies in anticipation of a government defeat, resignations and firings are in order.
On the other hand, perhaps this suggestion may work as well.

I guess we know what the $1.13 billion Order In Council was for;

Just as we get set to vote tomorrow, $250 energy rebate cheques are being sent to criminals behind bars, who already got to cast their vote in the comfort of their cells, heated by our tax dollars.
“Linda, this makes me sick,” sniffed a correctional officer, who was on the line complaining he had just distributed cheques from Canada Revenue Agency (formerly Revenue Canada) to four inmates at a provincial detention centre, located north of Toronto.
One inmate had been at the detention centre fighting deportation since December 2004, after he was transferred from a federal prison where he had served his sentence.
He has 23 convictions, including armed robbery and drug offences.
This officer, who’s worked for Ontario’s ministry of correctional services for 16 years and asked not to be named for fear of being disciplined for speaking out, went on: “I’m delivering money to criminals that’s been stolen from me and other hard-working taxpayers in Canada.”

I haven’t seen a rebate cheque, nor have I heard of any going out in Saskatchewan.
Maybe they’re just targeting key ridings…

Yesterday, it was the disappearance of Paul Martin and the word “Liberal” from campaign literature and signage, a development that I joked was soon to be followed by dropping the colour red in favour of blue.

Man, when you can’t run with the colour red in Etobicoke Centre….

Ezra Levant;

I just received a note that Paul Martin went “bonkers” at a speech in Brampton today: “hoarse, shouting, chanting Belinda Stronach’s name, shouting back and forth with some wacko supporter in the audience.”

(I can’t run video on this computer, but I believe Toronto CHUM station Pulse24 has some video – don’t know if it includes the best parts. )
Oh, and while you’re at the Shotgun, here’s a nice juicy one – they’ve gotten hold of Alphonso Gagliano’s criminal record check. A teaser;

Commissioner Norman Inkster suggests that Gagliano be fingerprinted to prove or disprove the worst of his findings.

Via private email;

One would think that after the Gomery Report and during an election campaign, the governing Liberals would take extra care that all contracts awarded to the public are transparent and the awarding process is without reproach. In mid-2005, the Treasury Board Secretariat posted a call for tenders on the MERX for translation services (value of five million CAD) with a closing date of 19 Sept. 05. Bidders followed up monthly with the Contract Authority at PWGSC and were told (in writing) that the evaluation was ongoing and they would be contacted as soon as a winner was selected (two bidders were going to be chosen in this process – a primary and a backup). Imagine the surprise when bidders returned from Christmas vacation and read in the 2 and 9 January 2006 editions of the Ottawa Business Journal that the contracts had been awarded, with 3.6 million going to Lexitech International (headquartered in New Brunswick and owned by the Irving family) and another 1 million going to Les Traductions Tessier, a private Ottawa firm.
When queried, the response provided in writing by PWGSC on 11 January 2006 was the evaluation process was not over and bidders were thanked for their cooperation.
On 16 January 2006, bidders received a fax asking to extend the validity of their bid until 25 January 2006. Odd, however that bidders were asked to extend the validity of their bids for only 9 days and that it conveniently fell 2 days after the election. Normally extensions to bid validity are done in increments of 30 days – never 9 days. Further investigation on the MERX revealed that lo and behold the contracts had indeed been awarded on 21 December 2005 (a couple of days before Christmas when Ottawa is a ghost town – impeccable timing, eh wot?) and published on the MERX under Solicitation No. 24062-040011/A on 22 and 28 December 2005, again when most people were off and wouldn’t notice … Concerns brought to the attention of the Contract Authority were ignored and the Contract Authority was very cautious with the wording they used, stating that they could not discuss the situation and that a decision would be made by the end of next week. When pressed for more information the Contract Authority repeated that they could not offer any more details nor talk about it.
You don’t suppose someone in the Governing Party is afraid us dimwitted Canadians might put two and two together and smell a dead animal? After all, was the contract awarded or not awarded? Why wait until next week? There have been no cancellations issued on the MERX for these contracts.

Merx
I have no way to verify this – perhaps readers familiar with government contracing practices can provide more. My source does have documentation, if anyone in media is interested in following up on this.
Screenshot

$1.13 billion in secret pre-election spending?

Whereas the President of the Treasury Board reports that there is no appropriation for the payment of the sums mentioned in the annexed schedule, amounting in the aggregate to? $1,130,433,505, and the appropriate Ministers have reported that the payment of these sums is urgently required for the public good;
�
And whereas Parliament is not in session and there is no other appropriation pursuant to which the payment of these sums may be made;
�
Therefore, Her Excellency the Governor General in Council, on the recommendation of the President of the Treasury Board, pursuant to subsection�30(1) of the Financial Administration Act, hereby directs the preparation of a special warrant to be signed by the Governor General authorizing the payment, effective December�22,�2005, of the sums mentioned in the annexed schedule, amounting in the aggregate to $1,130,433,505, to be made out of the
Consolidated Revenue Fund.
SPECIAL WARRANT
�
Pursuant to Order in Council P.C. 2005?2337�of December�20,�2005, the President of the Treasury Board is hereby authorized to pay out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund, effective December�22,�2005, the amount of $1,130,433,505 for the purposes set out in the annexed schedule.

Christmas gifts!

It’s going to be a long week. Time for a little fun and one final turn at the Librano election sign generator. (meaning, if there’s another election in 18 months I’m just going to go out and kill something.)

Go here to make your own but please download your sign and host on your own space if you want to put it on the net.
Please do not write code that regenerates your sign on my bandwidth.

CBC: Encouraged by reports of strong support for his party in Canadian penitentiaries (where inmates voted on Friday), Paul Martin expresses solidarity with prisoners who painted red letter L’s on their heads to demonstrate their Liberal Party preference.

Angry has an unusual memo regarding constitutional advice given Anne McLellan – which she ignored.
The Globe and Mail discovers Tongsun Park, Maurice Strong, and the oil-for-food scandal. They don’t, however, discover Paul Martin’s connections to the Cordex Petroleum Inc. named. From the National Post, April 2005;

Mr. Park has apparently admitted that he invested US$1-million in a Canadian company associated with the son of a UN official. Mr. Strong himself immediately came forward and declared that he was the official, and that the company was Cordex Petroleums. Intriguingly, other investors in the company included CSL Group Inc., the holding company controlled by Paul Martin (which was at that time being managed in trust). Cordex’s directors included Bill Hopper, the ousted former head of Petro-Canada, the state oil company of which Mr. Strong was the founding chairman and CEO.

Revisiting 2004, and the Public Eye’s look at former Liberal candidate David Lobay’s donations & billings.
And the Surley Beaver has a story on a virtual university?;

September 1999, a virtual university was founded in Fredericton, New Brunswick to grant �E-MBA�s.� The university was given $600,000 in taxpayers money – $375,000 from Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and $225,000 from Human Resources Development Canada. This private, for-profit university was and is a subsidiary of Learnsoft Corporation. Sometime later, Mike Gaffney sold his shares in Learnsoft for – you guessed it – $600,000.

Update: Also noticing – the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
It’s getting pretty bad when you need to do your Librano news in multiple quick link posts….

Potent Pew is reporting there’s another version of the Liberal Red Book on an unlinked page.
Heh. Google.
(Update: It’s an earlier version.)

Via Maz2 in the comments;

Date Posted: 09:36:38 01/10/06 Tue
Wait for Duceppe to confront Martin on
Making Quebec a Nation
On Option Canada file where gov’t broke the law
Name the names of the candidates who got the dirty money
Be prepared to see Martin collapse on stage -it is going to be a hoot.

I might watch the debate after all.
Update – well, real life does interfere around here. I’ve been out of computer range most of the day, but I see the comments are filling up with content from the debate in French.
The Liberals have already pulled an attack ad that smeared the Canadian Armed Forces. If anyone knows where a copy can be found, let me know.
Update – CTV has it – look for it at “Liberal attack ad about Harper and military presence�0:30” link.
Bourque describes the Duffy vs Duffy moment everyone is chattering about in the comments;

After it was learned that the Liberal Party pulled one of the 12 ads they released Tuesday – the one saying Harper would put soldiers in cities, CTV cable news guy Mike Duffy blew up at Martin Liberal spokesperson John Duffy during a live post-debate broadcast. “We will not be intimidated!”, barked Mike, as he rebutted the Liberal Duffy’s attempt to block broadcast of the despicable ad, one that, earlier in the evening, Liberal leader Paul Martin shrugged off as part of the game in a post-debate scrum in Montreal

The file is a bit large, and it’s taking down hosting sites, so several mirrors are already up. I’ve included a few that are listed in the comments of the “Flanders Fields” post.
If you have highspeed, it’s a clip, that along with the original ad, has the potential to “go viral”.
Try here,
here,
, or here for starters. a whole thread of them at Free Dominion. One of them should work.
I get the suspicion the Liberals have written off this part of Saskatchewan. The ratio of Liberal ads to those of the NDP and Conesrvatives seems quite low. Speaking of which – driving around Saskatoon both yesterday and today, I’ve yet to see my first Liberal lawn sign. Or billboard. I’m not saying there aren’t any. But there weren’t any on the main thoroughfares I took – though I actually saw two for Christian Heritage!
Also – a reader reminds me, what was Martin trying to pull by turning his back on Duceppe during the debates, in full view of the cameras? I saw it played on CTV news, I’m told he did it twice. Is that supposed to be subliminal or something? Looked contrived to me, and I only saw it once.
I’ve copied a transcript of the Duffy VS Duffy moment in the extended entry.

Continue reading →

Reader “Anterior” asks;

Hate to jump in here off topic but can anyone tell me if Allyce Herle, running for the Libs in Sask. is related to [Earnscliffe partner and Liberal campaign tactician�]�David Herle. Just wondering.

The answer, I believe, is yes.. sister!
(In the pursuit of general good taste and discretion, I hereby refrain from using the usual metaphorical adjective “incestuous” as it traditionallly applies to the topic of Saskatchewan politics.)
Search Herle on SDA.
Followup: I’m told that when she resigned from her job with the City of Regina she sued the city and was awarded $91,000.00

“Vote Liberal or the kid gets it.”

(This message has been authorized by the registered agent for the Federal Liberal Party of Canada)
Update: gif version here.

In the Montreal Gazette, the story of documents left beside a dumpster;

Questions about the money given to Option Canada before the 1995 sovereignty referendum have been floating around for 10 years, since Gazette reporter Claude Arpin broke the story of the group’s existence and funding. Although the original amount given to Option Canada has been reported as $4.8 million, a press release announcing Monday’s launch says the new book will show it was actually $5.2 million that was spent.
“At last we know where all the money went, almost down to the penny, and it will be in the book,” Lester said.

Also, Pettigrew finds himself sucked into the controversy. ( Bourque developing….)
Also: Google translation – Claude Dauphin’s bio.