Another Liberal talking point gets TRASHED

Oh, so Ignatieff is claiming that Harper tried to form a "coalition" back in 2004, is he? Let's hear the truth from their own mouths instead, shall we?



Let's turn our attention back to those heady days back in September of 2004, shall we? Then Prime Minister Paul Martin had struck the Gomery Commission, who's mandate was to look into allegations of corruption relating to the Liberal Party of Canada in Quebec. By September of 2004, explosive testimony had already been heard, and there was fear that Martin may seek to force an election before Justice John Gomery had a chance to complete and issue his first report. The Opposition Leaders discussed the situation, and decided together not to form a coalition, but to ensure that Prime Minister Paul Martin could not engage in any underhanded manoeuvres to force a new election prior to Gomery's Phase I report being tabled. The Opposition leaders, then being Harper, Layton and Duccepe, were simply ensuring that the Liberals could not sweep the AdScam scandal under the rug, and that the Canadian public would be able to see the full report before any election.

That's right... there was no coalition. Just an insurance policy to prevent Martin and the Liberals from sweeping their corruption under the rug.

But I guess we ought to thank Mr. Ignatieff for reminding us of about what was going down in the Liberal Party back in 2004... scandal, corruption, kick-backs, money in brown paper bags, and if I recall correctly, the Liberal Party of Canada handing the Canadian taxpayer a cheque for $1.14 MILLION DOLLARS... a fraction of the missing money that AdScam stole from us. Where did the rest of it go? We still don't know.

Any ideas on that Iggy? Oh, right, never mind... you weren't around back then.

(Side Note: Mr. Duccepe called Mr. Harper a liar this week... suppose he's going to apologize, now that his own statement has come to light? Yea, I don't think so either...)

AdScam back in the news, no election this year

No way are Iffy's Liberals going to pull the plug now, with the RCMP bringing forward new allegations in relationship to well connected Liberals and the Sponsorship Scandal.

MSM catches on to Liberal's "Secret Donation" scandal

The Ottawa Sun is reporting on the latest Liberal fund raising scandal, where they were encouraging and advising their members on how they could donate funds to the Party "anonymously".

As reported here yesterday, Liberal Adam Smith sent out an e-mail to hundreds, potentially thousands of supporters, instructing them on how they can skirt around Elections Canada's donation reporting guidelines, without have their identity disclosed to Elections Canada, or to the Canadian public via the donation disclosure database.

The more things change, the more things stay the same. Liberals and "anonymous" donations... will they never learn?

Liberals encouraging "secret" donations?

What's this? And the Liberals accuse US of trying to keep things secret. This little "PS" was enclosed at the end of a fund raising e-mail they recently sent out... ironically, immediately after they accuse US of being "deceitful".

Adam Smith
National Director, National Liberal Fund
Liberal Party of Canada

PS. Political donations under $200 annually are reported to Elections Canada anonymously.

To contact the Liberal Party of Canada, please reply to this email. Our mailing address: 81 Metcalfe street, suite 400 Ottawa ON K1P 6M8.

Excuse me? Advising their membership on how to "hide" their donations from Elections Canada? What's next, BROWN PAPER BAGS???

UPDATE: CBC's Kady O'Malley points out that the Liberal's Adam Smith may not be quite as clever as he thinks he is...

So the Liberals still want to talk cheques?

I find it interesting that the Liberals keep wanting to talk about this cheque "scandal". Okay guys... LET'S TALK CHEQUES...

Thing is, I don't seem to recall ever seeing them holding a public cheque presentation ceremony with this one...


UPDATE: Just so there's no confusion, and to ensure the Libs don't try and sue me or something... it's called "Photoshop" folks!

I'm thinking no summer election

After reading that the former Director of the Quebec Liberals has plead guilty, and that he's going to start naming names, I'm thinking that we're not having a summer election.

Blowing the whistle?

A judge ordered a pre-sentencing report for early September. The Crown wants Corbeil to do jail time but Corbeil's lawyer says he should stay out of jail because he never made a penny from the fraudulent transactions.

However, Corbeil says he will reveal who profited from the scam, suggesting more names will come out in connection with the scandal that helped to bring down Paul Martin's minority Liberal government in 2006.

Also interesting in that article is the suggestion that these charges were NOT in relation to the Sponsorship Scandal... which could imply a whole new can of worms is about to get opened up into the inner corrpution of the Liberal Party of Canada. Pass the beer and popcord.

And after reading about Jim "Teflon" Flaherty, and Lisa "They're not my briefs" Raitt, and that most Canadians don't think EI is worth fighting an election over, I'm thinking more and more that the trigger won't be pulled over the next couple of weeks.

Not quite dead yet

Just in time to end off the week... and just in case some Liberals had gotten a little to giddy about this week's events...

Former top Liberal organizer charged with fraud
Last Updated: Friday, April 18, 2008 | 11:45 AM ET
CBC News

The former executive director of the Liberal party's Quebec wing has been arrested and charged with defrauding his party.

Benoit Corbeil has been charged with influence peddling, fraud and conspiracy against the party and the federal government between 1997 and 2000.

h/t to Darryl

Comparison and Contrast

It's interesting how the Schriber affair is playing out, eh? Stop and think about it for a moment... this isn't about the Liberals showing Canadians how good they are... it's about Liberals saying "Look at the Conservatives! They're just as bad as we are!" Wow... umm, that's real inspiring guys. Talk about gutter politics.

So then, let's take everyone down memory lane and a real look at this issue for a moment...

Schiber Affair: $300,000 wound up on one individuals pockets (as to the legality of it, that's still before the courts... but let's just assume for a moment that it was somehow illegal)

Sponsorship: $1.14 million of traceable money illegally and ADMITTEDLY wound up in Liberal Party coffers... how much more in brown envelopes, we'll never know for sure


Schriber Affair: $300,000 of someone else's money was allegedly taken

Sponsorship: An ADMITTED $1.14 million of OUR MONEY ended up, not allegedly but admittedly, in Liberal Party coffers... and very likely a whole lot more than that

So, to sum this up... this whole thing is about $300,000 of Mr. Schriber's money, whereas Sponsorship was about AT LEAST $1.14 million of OUR money... got it?

Another thing to remember... this committee is spending our money, YOUR MONEY, trying to figure out where exactly Mr. Schriber's money went, and when it went. How many MILLIONS worth of time is going to be spent via the committee, and how many MILLIONS MORE will the subsequent Inquiry cost us?

Yep... once again, the Liberal Party of Canada has succeeded in costing the taxpayers millions upon millions of dollars for their own political and partisan purposes.

And they're not even in Government at the moment... could you imagine the mess they'd be making if they were back in the drivers seat of our finances?

Yikes... no thanks.

Chretien seeking to quash the Gomery Report

Jean Chretien's lawyers filed a memorandum in federal court late Friday afternoon, seeking to quash the Gomery Report's findings that Chretien was in some way responsible.

Archive your copies now, before they're gone forever!

Lawyers for Chretien filed a memorandum in federal court late Friday afternoon in the latest step in their court battle to quash Gomery's report that placed part of the blame for the scandal on the former prime minister and his office.

"In the case of this Public Inquiry, the Honourable John Gomery (the "Commissioner") was seduced by the media and the limelight to such an extent that the judicial instinct for fairness, objectivity and restraint which (Chretien) was entitled to expect of him gave way to a preoccupation on his part with focusing media (and public) attention upon himself, a course of conduct which preordained unfavourable findings," said the court filing.

Gagliano and Pelletier are also seeking to quash Gomery's report. The matter goes before the federal court in February in Montreal.

Iggy: "Puffin should be Liberal symbol"

With statements like this, part of me still wishes he had won the Liberal leadership...

Excrement-hiding bird championed as Liberal symbol
Updated Thu. Aug. 30 2007 1:18 PM ET
Canadian Press

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. -- The beaver is one of Canada's national symbols and now a senior Liberal wants to make the puffin the symbol of the country's self-proclaimed natural governing party.

Liberal deputy leader Michael Ignatieff says the industrious little seabird -- with its black and white plumage, distinctive striped beak and orange feet -- is a "noble" creature that exemplifies Liberal values.

"It's a noble bird because it has good family values. They stay together for 30 years," Ignatieff said Thursday outside a Liberal caucus retreat in the Newfoundland capital.

"They lay one egg (each year). They put their excrement in one place. They hide their excrement. ... They flap their wings very hard and they work like hell.

"This seems to me a symbol for what our party should be."

Ignatieff was charmed by the birds during what was supposed to be a whale-watching tour for Liberal caucus members Tuesday. The MPs and senators saw no whales but did get a close up view of a colony of puffins nesting on a rocky offshore island.

A bird that tries to hide it's poop... yup, sounds like the Liberal Party to me! LOL! The quote from CTV... "With the Liberals hoping voters will forget the Sponsorship scandal, the last thing that Liberals need is a symbol that's known for hiding it's mess."

If you don't believe it, enjoy the video!

Please, please, PLEASE, somebody get a capture of this and put it up on YouTube before CTV archives it, or the Liberals try to get a court injunction to get it pulled offline, like they do with most of these kinds of things!

(and if you don't like the spin on the story, you can blame CTV!)

A well deserved hat tip goes to Warren on this one... glad he's on my daily reading list, or I'd have missed this one!


UPDATE: I'm sorry, spending five minutes in Microsoft Paint was just too much to resist...



LEGAL NOTICE: The above logo is not authorized by the Liberal Party of Canada... but I think it's darn funny, so there!

Fallout from Ontario "Colle-gate"

UPDATE: The BEST line so far... "The flip thing to say is, as a colleague suggested, that Mr. McGuinty has finally lived up to his promise to phase out 'Colle' by 2007." (from Murray Campbell, via the Globe & Mail)

I figured that this Ontario version of the Liberal "Sponsorship Scandal" would just get some passing media attention, and then just go away, like all the other negative stories about Premier McGuinty's Liberals... looks like I was way wrong on that one. Cudos to the MSM on this one.

CBC Toronto's "Metro Morning" actually did a call-in segment on their radio program this morning, and I was quite surprised at the response... there's actualy quite a bit of anger over this, based on the number of calls recieved.

Here's a quick overview of the stories from the various media sources...

Ont. citizenship minister quits in wake of auditor's report
(and in their "Related Links" section: Liberals quash request for 'Colle-gate' probe)

Minister takes the fall as Ontario A-G blasts multicultural grants

Minister resigns over 'slush fund'

Perhaps one of the most damaging headlines from the Toronto Star, of all places: Why did premier wait so long? (in reference to Mr. McGunity's firing of Minister Colle)

Auditor General's report finds flaws in provincial funding for cultural groups

Ont. Auditor General Report Says Grant Process 'Not Transparent'

How's this for bad optics? "In the coming weeks, you will hear a lot from opposition politicians about the cricket association that asked for $150,000 after it was invited to apply for funding and the next day received $1-million. It had so much money that it spent $20,000 to throw a celebratory dinner (at which Mr. McGuinty spoke) and then socked away $500,000 in five-year, investment certificates.

Parents of autistic children or those running bake sales to buy school textbooks will scratch their heads. And thanks to Mr. McGuinty's faulty political instincts, they won't have time to forget before they head to the polls."

Interesting thing though... seems the crickets are chirping on this one over at CTV. I spent a few minutes checking under each section they could have possibly filed the story under, and it didn't make it anywhere on their website this morning... now I wonder why that is... just wondering...

UPDATE: Jason, Jason, Jason... your hero Mr. McGuinty already tried the denial route, and look how well that turned out. This will not go away so long as the denials continue. (then again, nor will it go away should admissions be made... so I guess you should just carry on...)

Joanne commented here that the crickets are chirping over on the Libbloggers too... with the exception of Big City Lib... cudos to him for a pretty unbiased posting, covering both the "good news" and "bad news" aspects for the Ontario Liberal Party. One question that I do have though... the Auditor may have looked into donations made by the groups that got grants, but has anyone looked closely at the members of those groups who have ties to the Ontario Liberal Party? That's where I think the majority of the "links" are showing up.

The more things change...

...the more they stay the same.

What? A federal Ontario Liberal accused of stealing? What? An attempt by another senior federal Ontario Liberal to cover it up... on the condition the police were kept out of the matter?

Nah... it couldn't be true... we've been told that the Liberal Party of Canada has cleaned up their act, so this must be just a wild rumor put out by those nasty Blogging Tories.

On the bright side... it seems that some of them have indeed turned over a new leaf... it was the Liberal EDA executive that called in the cops, after rejecting the cover-up offer from David Pretlove, the interim executive director of the Ontario wing of the Liberal Party of Canada. (I'd say that his "interim" term just ended...)

Sponsorship LIVES

The Liberals would like us to think that the Sponsonship Scandal is old news... RIGHT...

RCMP search house of sponsorship player Corriveau
Last Updated: Wednesday, July 4, 2007 | 11:01 AM ET
CBC News

RCMP investigators conducted a search Wednesday at the Montreal-area home of former Liberal organizer Jacques Corriveau, a witness at the inquiry into the federal sponsorship scandal.

Investigators entered Corriveau's house in the South Shore town of St-Bruno-de-Montarville looking for papers and digital data, said spokesman Cpl. Sylvain l'Heureux.

"They’re looking mainly at finding certain documents, computers and data," he told CBC News.

"It's a search conducted in the course of our investigation, but there are no arrests planned for today."

Corriveau was one of several Liberal insiders called to testify at the 2004-2005 Gomery Commission.