To nobody’s surprise, the MSM has all but ignored the Fraser Institute report (mentioned here a few days ago) on the extent of the Liberal Party of Canada abuse of the government purse for their own electoral benefit.
Stephen Taylor has been doing their job for us. Perhaps some enterprising young reporter will take the initiative and steal his work. One can only hope.

Particularly striking were donations made to the Liberal Party of Canada by the RCMP and by the Privy Council Office.
For the “privilege” of protecting the Prime Minister and other members of his campaign team during the 2000 campaign, the RCMP paid the Liberal Party $112,000 for seats accompanying the PM.
The Fraser Institute reports:
“It is an apparent conflict of interest for government agencies, especially those engaged in law enforcement, to pay a governing political party for services rendered during an election. This financial entanglement can impair perceptions of independence and due process that are essential to the proper functioning of those agencies.” — Fraser Institute report, July 2005
One would expect that the taxpayer would pay for the services of the RCMP to protect the Prime Minister. However, it is counter-intuitive that the RCMP (ie. the taxpayer) would pay a private organization (ie. the Liberal party) for work done by the federal law enforcement agency.
The Privy Council Office paid $44,000 to the Liberal Party for similar “services”.

Be sure to bookmark Stephentaylor.ca if you haven’t already – he has a habit of pulling together data in ways that the G&M and CBC would prefer you not see.
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Question: How long should a mother breastfeed?

A mother and her baby should breastfeed for as long as they wish to breastfeed. Canada Health currently recommends that “breastfeeding continue for at least 12 months, and thereafter for as long as mutually desired.” * As solids are introduced, usually around the middle of the first year, your baby will shift his primary source of nutrition from your milk to other foods. The exception to this rule is the Liberal Party campaign manager, who should continue on mother’s breast milk until old enough to be moved to the public tit.

Another drug bust tied to Liberal Party operatives in British Columbia. This time it’s Ecstacy.

Ravinderjit Kaur Puar, who is also known as Ravinderjit Kaur Shergill, was captured on tape saying she was involved in the sale of ecstasy and marijuana and also said she did not want any “heat” because both she and her father are politicians, according to U.S. court documents.
“We don’t drop our weed off here. We take it all the way to California,” Puar was also quoted in the documents as saying.
Puar ran unsuccessfully earlier this year for the NDP nomination in Vancouver-Kensington, which was won by David Chudnovsky, who went on to win in the May provincial election.
She was also elected as a Liberal party delegate for Paul Martin’s leadership team in the fall of 2003, but did not end up attending the convention.
Puar’s father, Kalwant Singh Puar, is on the executive of Vancouver’s Ross Street Sikh temple. He has been a high-profile supporter of federal Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh.

83 kilos of cocaine found on a Martin owned Canada Steamship Lines vessel, drug related arrests in BC of Liberal fundraisers and organizers (the Basi Boys) associated with Paul Martin’s leadership campaign, and the curious testimony of Miriam Bedard at the Commons committee hearings into Adscam.
Perhaps it’s time the federal Liberals were asked to recuse themselves from further debate on marijuana decriminalization. Conflict of interest, and all that.

A Fraser Institute release; Accounting for Gomery: The Money Links Between the Federal Government, Political Parties, and Private Interests;

The people identified in various reports and Gomery inquiry testimony fall into two groups: politicians and bureaucrats (government insiders) and political party members and business people (government outsiders). This report finds that they collectively donated at least 40 times more to the Liberal party than to all of the other main political parties combined from 1993 to 2003. In other words, over 98 percent of these donations were made to the Liberal party.
The numbers of people and amounts of money involved in the Gomery inquiry are also much larger than previously known.
For example, only 71 organizations and individuals were identified in the original 2003 Auditor General’s sponsorship and advertising report, while this study identifies at least 565.
This report also finds that these insiders and outsiders privately donated at least $3.9 million to the Liberal party and received at least $7.4 million in private payments from the Liberal party from 1993 to 2003. The official Gomery inquiry forensic report, by comparison, found only $2.5 million in Liberal party donations.

The complete publication is here.

Excluding those Canadians donating to the Conservatives, that is.
We really need a translation service to better understand the messages that flow out of Ottawa/Toronto media. When they announce, for example, that their polling shows that “Canadians don’t want an election”, it’s useful to know that in their little incestuous fishbowl, the only real Canadian is a Liberal.
CBC;

The newly merged federal Conservative party raised more than twice as much in private contributions last year as the Liberal party, which may have been hurt by the unfolding sponsorship scandal or by a failure to recruit enough grassroots donors.
The major parties’ 2004 financial returns were made available on Monday after a June 30 filing deadline.
The totals:
Conservatives $10.9 million.
Liberals $5.2 million.
New Democrats $5.19 million.
Bloc Qu�b�cois $897,000.

At this rate, Paul Martin’s going to have to hurry up and hold himself another leadership campaign.

In the faux furor (which reminds me more than a little of the Rove “contraversy” last week) over Stephen Harper’s comments about the legitimacy of the SSM bill being passed by a Liberal-Bloc coalition, this little propoganda piece that was circulating in Ontario just a couple of weeks ago is timely reading.

Stephen Harper confirmed that he is willing to collaborate with the separatist Bloc Qu�b�cois to drag Canadians back to the polls before justice Gomery has finished hearing witnesses and issued his final report.
He has said that “Canadian’s don’t need to form the kind of judgments that Mr. Justice Gomery is going to form.” If he is referring to matters of guilt or innocence those are judgments in which Ontarians, and Canadians, are very much interested.
It wasn’t too long ago that Stephen Harper was falsely telling Canadians that the Liberals would find a way to prevent the Commission from carrying out its mandate and that it was absolutely essential that Justice Gomery be allowed to complete his work before an election was called.
Now he is the one putting national unity at risk, once again proving that, in his mind, political opportunism trumps the best interests of Ontarians.
We believe that Stephen Harper’s comments and actions are indeed counterproductive, and should offend every Ontarian who wants Justice Gomery to complete the job entrusted to him.
As our first act in office, on December 12th, 2003, this government cancelled the sponsorship program. We made sure that those implicated were removed from their positions as crown corporation executives. The Government has also filed a lawsuit against 19 defendants, including several communications companies and their directors to recover $41 million. And of course, it was this Liberal government that appointed Justice Gomery.

Does the frequent use of the word “government” here suggest that this was a taxpayer funded ad for the LIberals?

Continue reading →

*

“I very, very much wanted to be here, but … in a minority Parliament — when you take a look at the discussions we just had over the budget bills and other such legislation — it was absolutely impossible to be here,” Martin said. “This is the first possible opportunity that I had to be here.”

Candace became very very interested in whether that was actually the case….

June 7, 2005 – High River declares a state of local emergency, hundreds evacuated.
June 8, 2005 – Calgary readies for possible flooding. PMPM has a cabinet meeting in Ottawa.
June 9, 2005 – The river peaked at High River. PMPM did nothing noteworthy according to his site.
June 10, 2005 – Stephen Harper views flood damage (yes, it’s his home city, so what? He’s running the Opposition in a minority gov’t so has just as lame an excuse if he wanted one.) Notice I had to link to a blog – I guess either this wasn’t considered “news” by anybody, including the Conservative Party of Canada. And they wonder why people don’t see the ‘kinder, gentler’ side of him? PMPM reaffirmed his commitment to fixing healthcare in Canada. And he had to do that in Ontario because that IS Canada. Maybe he was relaxing after an exhausting week of running a minority government. Maybe his jet needed servicing.
June 11/12, 2005 – PMPM did nothing noteworthy again, according to his news tab.
June 13, 2005 – PMPM repeats his commitment to fixing healtcare, still in Ontario.
June 14, 2005 – PMPM buys more time in office (still in Ontario).
June 15, 2005 – PMPM has another cabinet meeting in Ottawa.
June 16, 2005 – High River braces for another onslaught of rain. PMPM hangs out with a major political leader of a really important country and makes very very important plans for the weekend.
June 17, 2005 – PMPM buys more votes in Ontario
June 18, 2005 – High River begins lifting evacuation orders, in time for Calgary to get hit
June 19, 2005 – PMPM hangs at an Ontario resort with European PMs

Read the rest.

After weeks of “All Grewal, All Day”, the vindications are starting to trickle in. Last week he was absolved by both the RCMP and Transport Canada in the Air Canada faux scandal – today the ethics commissioner has cleared him of wrongdoing in asking his consituants to post bonds of up to $100,000 in exchange for his help in obtaining temporary visas.

OTTAWA (CP) – Parliament’s ethics commissioner recommends that no sanctions be imposed on a Tory MP involved in an immigration controversy.
He says Gurmant Grewal committed an error in judgment – but an honest one – when he demanded paid bonds from families of foreigners seeking to visit Canada. The B.C. MP admits he asked for signed guarantees of up to $100,000 if visitors did not leave the country when their visas expired.
But Ethics Commissioner Bernard Shapiro says Grewal never accepted any payment, and never intended to pocket the money. Shapiro says the practice placed the Tory MP in an apparent conflict of interest, but that his mistake happened in good faith.

Now, perhaps CTV will turn their attention to the conduct – and the identities – of senior Liberals who leaked details of the Grewal “investigation” to the media during the height of the Liberal government’s confidence crisis in May.
On second thought – maybe the Libranos will just make good on their threats to deport him.
Kevin Libin at the Shotgun weighs in and follows up with a response from Grewal.

Glenda at Just Between Us Girls fills in the gaps re: the taxi drivers who have been protesting at Pearson International. CTV;

Frustrations ran high Monday afternoon, as approximately 100 drivers staged their first day of pickets on highways around the airport. Some would-be travellers were so frustrated by the 90-minute delays, they abandoned cars to lug their bags to the terminal on foot.
The drivers are angry about the way the Greater Toronto Airports Authority grants new limousine licences.
The drivers don’t want independent drivers to be excluded from applying for the licences needed to take passengers from Pearson. They say the new licences should be awarded on the basis of driver seniority.
Taxi drivers with a regular Toronto-area licence can take customers to the airport, but risk a $100 fine if they take fares back to the city.

MPP Bob Runciman (in the Ontario Legislature);

This seems to be a very unfortunate trademark of this government, because, as I pointed out in debate in this House last week, this government did exactly the same sort of thing with respect to transportation legislation. The limousine drivers based in Mississauga, under legislation brought in by the Minister of Transportation, are now the only people who have the right to pick up passengers at Pearson airport. If a taxicab driver in the city of Toronto drops someone off, he can no longer pick up anybody at Pearson, but a limousine coming into Toronto can pick up people in Toronto. So why did they do that? Right in the middle of that legislation, the limousine drivers had a fundraiser for the Liberal Party of Ontario and gave them a $200,000 cheque.

Angry extracts some numbers from the Sgro Report;

Buried on page 19 of the Sgro Report is a description of how Temporary Residency Permits were used to buy votes during the election campaign.
The bottom line:

128 permits issued during the 5 weeks of the 2004 federal campaign

43, or 33%, were issued in the final week of the campaign

76, or 59%, of the TRPs were supported by an MP

of these 76 TRPs , 24, or 31%, were supported by Judy Sgro herself

19, or 80%, of Judy Sgro’s TRPs were issued in the last 24 hours of the campaign

another 50, or 66%, of the MP-supported TRPs issued during the election went to Liberal MPs

only 2, or 3%, of the MP-supported TRPs issued during the election went to Conservative MPs

This post has a bonus quiz!

(If your answer was “dig”, you were wrong)

Why did the Greater Toronto Airports Authority donate $1000 to Paul Martin’s Liberal leadership campaign?

Breaking from continuing coverage of Stephen Harper is scary and needs to be replaced by a proper Liberal!! we take you to this item courtesy of China e-Lobby (See the original post for active links);

Canada is beginning to recognize the depth of Communist China’s espionage in the Great White North. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) mostly rehashed the accounts of Chen Yonglin and Hao Fengjun regarding Communist overseas spy networks, but added that Hao “says Canada has more spies operating in it than any other country.” Jillian Ye, a resident of Scarborough, Ontario, certainly believes that, after seeing one of the documents Hao smuggled out with him “detailed Ye’s plans to start a communications company” (Epoch Times). No fewer than four members of the opposition Conservative Party, including foreign affairs critic Stockwell Day, deputy leader Peter MacKay (Hansard) Jason Kenney (Hansard) and Helena Guergis (Hansard), pressed the governing Liberals on this issue in Parliament. Meanwhile, the editors of the British Columbian Asian-Pacific Post demanded to know why the Canadian firm Nortel is helping the cadres’ crackdown on cyberdissidents.

From Hansard (via Newsbeat 1)

Mr. Stockwell Day (Okanagan–Coquihalla, CPC): Mr. Speaker, a few months ago, when we raised the possibility of Chinese espionage in Canada, the government did not seem concerned in the least. Now a second Chinese defector is claiming that there is an operational network on Canadian soil.
Has the government called on Chinese officials here in Canada to get a full explanation, yes or no?
Hon. Pierre Pettigrew (Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, we are always in touch with Chinese officials in the capital. We discuss a number of issues relating to the respect for human rights and the right of Canadian citizens to express themselves in the way they want. This is a free country. We will always insist that people are free to do so in this country. This is what we have been expressing to the Chinese officials. [emphasis mine]
Mr. Stockwell Day (Okanagan–Coquihalla, CPC): There was no answer there, Mr. Speaker.

Well, actually – yes, there was. You just have to listen more closely, Stock.
UPDATE
Some amazing things turn up on the net….

National Post

Gomery is annoyed that the Martin government had a secret exchange of letters with Chretien’s lawyers acknowledging that even as the former prime minister dropped his court case alleging Gomery’s bias against him, he could make the same accusations later after the release of the judge’s findings.
Gomery didn’t know about the letter. He read about it in the papers. And he’s furious. The Martin government professes to support him, but it looks as if it was undermining him.
The May 30 letter was signed by federal government lawyer Brian Saunders, but as far as the Gomery Commission is concerned, it was approved by the Clerk of the Privy Council, Alex Himelfarb. Mere government lawyers, acting on their own, don’t make deals on behalf of one prime minister with another.
By coincidence, or not, May 30 was the same day Chretien’s lawyers withdrew his case, removing a very inconvenient obstacle from the Martin government’s path to political recovery.
“Secret deal between Martin and Chretien” went the banner headline in La Presse on Monday, as it broke the story that has dominated Question Period all week. “The newspaper added a telling overline: “Ex Prime Minister has the green light to re-attack Judge Gomery’s credibility.”

The Libranos are busy behind the scenes ridding themselves of pesky Information CommissionerJohn Reid to ensure that unfortunate events like the uncovering of Adscam are never repeated.
Mr. Tom Lukiwski (Regina–Lumsden–Lake Centre, CPC), June 14, 2005;

We on the access to information committee recognize that. When I say “we”, I mean all opposition members on the committee voted in favour of extending the appointment of Mr. Reid for another year. The only members of the committee who opposed the motion to extend Mr. Reid’s appointment were the members of the Liberal Party of Canada.
It is fascinating to me, when a former Liberal cabinet minister, someone who served for six consecutive elections and for close to 20 years in this place with great distinction, that members of his own party would be the only ones on the access to information committee to oppose his extension for one year.
We all have to ask ourselves why the Liberal members of the committee oppose such an extension. It cannot be because of his qualifications. He has served this Parliament well for seven years. It cannot be because of lack of experience. He probably has more experience as a parliamentary officer than anyone else. In addition, he has extensive experience in the field of access to information. His lack of experience just does not hold true. It has to be something else.
The only thing I can think of is that Mr. Reid has categorically stated that what he would like to see in new access to information legislation would be the increased level of information that would be available to all Canadians upon request.
Mr. Reid has stated that if his vision of a new act comes into being, we could probably safely say that incidents, such as the sponsorship scandal, would not have happened in the first place. Individuals, whether they be members of this place, members of the media or individual Canadians, would have the ability to receive information from government departments that would have triggered the fact that the sponsorship scandal was in full bloom.

Via Newsbeat 1, where there’s a lengthier exerpt and link to Hansard.

A curious item in Business Executive from an address by mafia expert Antonio Nicaso to the Canadian Club in Hamilton;

Nicaso said there is no political commitment to fight organized crime in Canada.
“When I arrived in Canada, it was like arriving in a candy store, because they were all here,” said Nicaso, who has written several books on the subject and is best known for publishing for the first time the ‘Mafia’s Code.’
Nicaso said Canadians are too concerned with avoiding the cost of a long trial. So the criminals plead guilty and spend three, four or five years in jail. Meanwhile, they’re plotting their next crime.
“Even if we spend $1 million, it’s better to put traffickers away for 40 years,” he said.
“In 1991 there was no currency law here. It was harder to import cheese than cash. It was a country that attracted criminals.”
[…]
And Nicaso said Sam Bronfman was one of the major competitors to Canada’s most notorious bootlegger, Rocco Perri, who supplied booze to Joseph Kennedy. […] Just after the Temperance Act was passed, Perri, who was a construction worker and very poor, became a multi-millionaire. […] Nicaso said Perri created an empire with the help of police officers, lawyers, judges and government officials.
“They all wanted to have a portion of the profits,” he said.
“It’s the same with the sponsorship scandal,” he continued. “Nothing has changed.”
In 1939 Perri was charged with corruption and RCMP officers were ready to testify against him, but Nicaso said Perri hired a brilliant lawyer, Paul Martin, father of the current Prime Minister, and was acquitted.

Via Bourque.

Check out the latest scandal brewing in Oztario. Does it, um, seem familiar?

TORONTO — An angry Premier Dalton McGuinty lashed out against the tactics of his political rivals Monday after a Conservative staffer took surreptitious photographs of a Liberal cabinet minister in an attempt to catch him in a conflict of interest.

The Opposition Conservatives captured Transport Minister Harinder Takhar on film visiting a company he owned but had placed in a blind trust, an apparent violation of the legislature’s conflict-of-interest rules.

McGuinty accused Conservative Leader John Tory of “stalking” Takhar.

“He has members of his staff go out with telephoto lenses (and) lie in wait for my ministers to take pictures of them and their activities,” the premier complained in the legislature.

He compared the photograph to the recent scandal in Ottawa involving secret tape recordings of conversations between federal Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh, Conservative MP Gurmant Grewal and Tim Murphy, Prime Minister Paul Martin’s chief of staff.

“I’d ask (Tory) as well to inform us whether or not he’s recording any conversations.”

Newsflash: Jean Lapierre says that the Liberals plan to hose down Quebec with even more of your money. Say, wasn’t this what got them in trouble last time?

As you read this, your government representatives are busily trying to push through debt relief for poorer nations at the G8 conference. In the meantime, retailers like Sears Canada continue to nail the poorer members of our nation with 23.15% (and higher) interest rates on their borrowing.

That’s kind of a double insult. You’re so heavily taxed that you have to put that new refrigerator on your credit card, and in the meantime your taxes are being given away to someone in another country. Oh, and the monster Annual Percentage Rates on your credit cards are just icing on the cake.

Whatever happened to charity beginning at home?

(Not that I want the government to start regulating credit card rates, it’s just hard not to notice how little the Libs care for the plight of the poor they have helped create in their own country.)

Buy it if you can, deport it if you can’t:

OTTAWA (AFP) – Three weeks after implicating Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin’s chief of staff and a senior member of his cabinet in an alleged vote-buying scandal, an opposition lawmaker is now facing possible deportation.

Immigration officials refused to divulge Friday whether they are investigating Conservative MP Gurmant Grewal for allegedly faking a business transaction to fulfill his obligations as an investor immigrant when he moved to Canada from Liberia in Western Africa in 1991.

But spokesperson Greg Scott said: “If there is evidence that somebody obtained their citizenship through fraudulent grounds, false representation, knowingly concealing material circumstances, it is something the department takes very seriously.” — Yahoo News

No further comment necessary.