Breaking: Mounties Raid Tory HQ

url is too long sidescroll in thread and tat.

from the article:

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The RCMP has raided Conservative party headquarters in Ottawa on Tuesday at the request of Elections Canada.

An Elections Canada spokesman said elections commissioner William Corbett requested the assistance of the Mounties to execute a search warrant, but he wouldn't say why.

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A Quick Reaction Force (QRF) might have been a better choice. Those Conservatives are capable of anything and they are certainly a threat to National Security.

Let's hope they didn't use violent means of resistance to prevent the lawful raid. I would just [b]hate[/b] to hear about the Mounties having to use deadly force to against the dastardly Conservative criminals, who are, of course, innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

The Horsemen already have enough public criticism lately, and a nest of Conservative snakes snuffed out ... why that would be just too horrible for words. It would erode public confidence in an institution already shaken with controversy.

The government should probably resign and call an election. Unless that was the intention of provoking the raid in the first place. In the latter case, the government should just resign and do the decent thing to allow another party to form a government after such a horrible Conservative disgrace.

Question Period should be good for some laughs today. I predict some rather obvious absences on the government benches. There's a lot of shredding to do!

A [i]National Post[/i] pundit remarked on the CBC that the Liberals would save the videos taken in the building that houses the Conservative HQ for the next election, whenever it comes, to show video evidence of Conservative electoral shenanigans ... to which his colleague retorted that, on the contrary, she expected the evidence to be up on YouTube by the end of the day.

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Originally posted by Agent 204:
[b]
Maybe this will enable the Liberals to recover their nerve enough to precipitate one...[/b]

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I doubt it's a matter of nerve, but rather a matter of the Liberals being broke.

The case Elections Canada is pursuing was discussed extensilvely [url=http://www.rabble.ca/babble/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=006761&p=...

I have followed this closely, and this is the clearest summarization of the Elections Canada case/concern that I have ever seen:

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On Parliament Hill, the issue is known as the In-and-Out Scheme because of the way funds for advertising flowed between the national campaign and the local campaigns.

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And the Cons are fond of pointing out that In and Out arrangements are common. Which is both true and deliberately misleading because:

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But the legal issue at hand has less to do with how the funds flowed and more to do with the legal definition of a local ad versus a national ad.

Federal taxpayers pick up part of the tab for spending by local candidates on ads that support a local campaign. But last year, Elections Canada ruled that more than $1 million worth of advertising purchased by 67 local Conservative candidates across the country was not in support of their local campaigns and was, in fact, in support of the national campaign. For example, the local campaign to elect Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon in his Ottawa-area riding of Pontiac appeared to underwrite television ads that ran in his name in the Quebec City market, nearly 500 kilometres away.

As a result of the Elections Canada ruling, local candidates were not eligible for federal rebates. But more importantly, the Elections Canada ruling essentially put the Conservative national campaign over the national advertising spending limit by more than a million dollars, a potentially serious breach of Canadian election finance laws.

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[url=http://www.canada.com/topics/news/politics/story.html?id=5bb19397-1e7c-4... search of Tory HQ could help Liberals[/url]

Different reporter, but CanWest has been the most persistent in pursuing the story.

this is the first time I've seen or heard mention of the specific case that involves Cannon's riding campaign. So they at least continued with some investigation after new material on this this stopped being even back page news.

[ 15 April 2008: Message edited by: KenS ]

Half decent summary by the Globe and Mail:

[url=http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080416.TORIESLAYER16/... closer look at the 'in and out' scheme[/url]

Its interesting in itself that now finally the media sits down to actually explain the thing. They knew as much about it before, but they wait until something definitive "happens" before they referr to as more than an [unexplained] bunch of accusations.

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Originally posted by KenS:
[b]Its interesting in itself that now finally the media sits down to actually explain the thing. They knew as much about it before, but they wait until something definitive "happens" before they referr to as more than an [unexplained] bunch of accusations.[/b]

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They are still missing one angle,[url=http://www.cbc.ca/video/popup.html?http://www.cbc.ca/mrl3/8752/politics/... explained last night on Don Newman's Politics by Nova Scotia Liberal MP Robert Thibault:[/url]

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The money would go from the national office to a local candidate to be used to do advertising in most cases in a third party's riding. In the case of Lawrence Cannon it was in the region of Quebec. In the case of the Conservative candidate for Beausejour it was in the Dartmouth - Halifax area that the money was used.

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Another missing angle is the bombshell that dropped in Calgary where it appears oil industry money and "research" accounts embarked on potentially illegal third party campaigning:

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A radio ad campaign that attacked the former Liberal government's climate change policies and participation in the international Kyoto Protocol during the 2006 election campaign was funded through "research" accounts at the University of Calgary, a newly released audit has concluded.

The internal university audit revealed the accounts, which received money from a fund at a community charity organization, collected more than $500,000 in donations.

The money was spent to promote the activities of the Friends of Science, a Calgary-based group of academics and former oil industry insiders that questions scientific evidence about whether human activity is causing global warming.

Several sections of the audit, released to Canwest News Service under the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act, were blacked out by the university on the grounds that they may "harm an ongoing law enforcement investigation."

According to the audit, the radio ads only ran in five markets of Ontario: Peterborough, Ottawa, Kitchener-Waterloo, London and Thunder Bay.

The ads "were paid for from the accounts," and "may be considered third-party advertising under the Elections Act," said the audit.

The Friends of Science pledged in its own newsletters before the election to have "a major impact" on the vote, and it boasted that its campaign to change public policy "was working," after Prime Minister Stephen Harper's minority Conservative government was elected.

According to the audit, the researcher who set up the trust accounts at the university said the ads were meant to promote an educational video "and not to promote an issue during an election but happened to coincide with the election.

"He further indicated that he has served as an expert witness in third-party advertising actions and would likely have not aired the ads during an election period had they been assessed from that perspective."

The audit also revealed that some of the money was used to pay lobbyists and staff of the Friends of Science.

"These payments should be further assessed to determine whether the activities of the consultants were political," said the audit.

Federal Liberals have questioned whether the Conservative party was aware of the ad campaign, following revelations by Canwest News Service that a volunteer Tory spokesperson during the 2006 election campaign, Morten Paulsen, was also on a paid contract to do communications work for the Friends of Science.

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[url=http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=e0870922-5cb8-4ed...'Research' at U of C paid for attack ads[/url]

Here's a follow up story that is definitely worth a read:

[url=http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=b95761e6-5dbe-44c... denies links to radio ad campaign[/url]

The cons response so far (from the article):

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"Blah, blah, blah," Mr. Baird said in the Commons. "The member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. McGuinty) puts on his tinfoil hat and develops these great theories."

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This could have serious legs.

[ 16 April 2008: Message edited by: a lonely worker ]

I think its going to take quite a while for this one to have legs.

It would be early stages of Elections Canada looking at this. It always takes them time.

...and they're kind of busy right now. [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]

This story only goes to show that both of the mainline parties -- libs and cons are undemocratic.

Libs appoint candidates without any thought to the local riding and the wishes of the riding

cons well take a look [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]

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Originally posted by remind:
[b] oh man could it ever....oh, heywood??????[/b]

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Hmm...what?

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Should have been posted by KenS:
[b] [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]
HeywoodFloyd (Calgary, Alta): "Cook? COOK! Where's my lunch. WHERES MY HASSENPFEFFER? Erm. I mean.......I don't have any information of what that's about. I don't know anything about it. You'll have to ask somebody that knows."
[/b]

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Defense through lame comedy? It could work, Heywood. Certainly works for the Dems in the US.

Well it is not just the cons getting served searched. Now the Libs have a bad day

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RCMP in Montreal have arrested Benoit Corbeil, the former general
manager of the federal Liberal party's Quebec wing and a major figure
in the sponsorship affair. He has been charged with influence peddling,
fraud and conspiracy against the party and the federal government
between 1997 and 2000, the key years in the scandal that led to
theGomery inquiry.

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From cbc.ca

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Originally posted by KenS:
[b]I think its going to take quite a while for this one to have legs.

It would be early stages of Elections Canada looking at this. It always takes them time.

...and they're kind of busy right now. [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img] [/b]

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Perhaps, but given that they would have known that Andrew Mayeda was about to publish the story in the Canwest papers, perhaps they felt they had to move quickly to secure the evidence for later review. The U of C did refer their audit to Elections Canada and the CRA for further investigation...

So the Harper Crew has gone completely loopy and desperate in their attempt to steer the story. [This particular story is good for describing the desperation, mostly in the latter part of the story.]

[url=http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080421.TORIES21/TPSto... call a few reporters to secret meeting, then run away.[/url]

...on the same theme [from the CanWest story linked below]...

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Party officials did not respond to requests for comment from Canwest News Service.

Doug Finley, the party's political operations director, Ryan Sparrow, its spokesman, and some party lawyers gave the warrant and supporting affidavits to selected media outlets along with a briefing on the matter.

Canwest News Service, The Canadian Press, Maclean's magazine and the English and French language news services of CBC were among those news organizations that were not invited to those briefings.

Indeed, reporters from those organizations were asked to leave the downtown Ottawa hotel where representatives from The Toronto Star, La Presse, and CTV were being briefed by Finley, Sparrow and others. Other media organizations may also have received a private briefing.

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All the documents related to the warrant are to be realeased today. In the goofy fiasco the Cons tried to run yesterday they gave some of those documents to the select media, and of course everyone else got them too. Even those documents selectively released by the Harper Crew are already pretty damning.

This story for example: [url=http://www.canada.com/topics/news/politics/story.html?id=e95c016d-1d36-4... doubts surfaced about 'in-and-out' financing of ads[/url].

This Hill Times story has a lot of good background on the process. It was obviously written before the information from the warrant that came out Sunday, which shows even the government is giving up on the fiction that the raid/warrants have anything to to do with the Conservative Party suing Elections Canada. [url=http://thehilltimes.ca/html/index.php?display=story&full_path=2008/april... trying to determine if charges should be laid, says NDP Comartin [/url]

The story with the quote above only has a couple of facts not covered elsewhere, but if you want to read everything.... [url=http://www.canada.com/topics/news/politics/story.html?id=a04bb4aa-b3be-4... warrant cites 'false and misleading statements' on Conservative ads[/url].

Good to see Harper Crew is intent on making it worse for themselves. [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]

In fact they are being such idiots, that despite the Liberal Adscam resurfacing in court, Dion and his little brain trust may just feel thay have to go for it after all. [But I still think they'll continue to just sit there in the corner.]

[ 21 April 2008: Message edited by: KenS ]

"Canwest News Service, The Canadian Press, Maclean's magazine and the English and French language news services of CBC were among those news organizations that were not invited to those briefings."

The Cons are either 'the gang that couldn't shoot straight" or the 'Keystone Kops'. I'm not sure which epithet is more fitting. [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]

Don't you love it when you hear a Conservative politician when caught doing something illegal who says "I/We did nothing wrong!"

Of course they say that.

To corrupt people, corrupt practises aren't wrong!

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Originally posted by Boom Boom:
[b]I hope this was recorded on videotape. Look at the rats fleeing the sinking ship! [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img] [/b]

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Oh, it was recorded alright, I watched it on the late CTV news here last evening. First, they were in 1 hotel, then they moved it to another hotel.

And at the 2nd hotel, the press were pounding on the door, asking why they were not allowed in, they were told because they were not invited. Shortly after, all 3 gentlemen were shown fleeing down the stairs and out a back door.

Kinda reminded me of Conrad Black's escapades. I visioned them on cell phones or blackberries with Harper texting; "what do we do now?"

It is simply ridiculous, can't wait to see the next polls.

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Originally posted by Artster:
[b]Amazingly enough, they seem to have missed the message from the Adscam affair - Canadians do find it rather offensive to see a political party break the law with utter impunity. Same old, same old.[/b]

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I don,t know that its breaking the law that gets canadians worked up as much as theft or misappropriation of taxpayers money. We shall see what the fallout from this raid will be...

CBC said the total documentation for the search warrant amounted to 700 pages; as of 9am this morning, they had received only 70, with the rest to come later.

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Originally posted by KenS:
[b]I heard that. I'm wondering how many pages in the pdf's in that I linked to above.[/b]

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part 1: 52 pages
part 2: 20 pages

Oh ya, that $60.10 added amount, in a new year, was sure to throw campaign financing investigators off the trail. [img]rolleyes.gif" border="0[/img]

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Originally posted by Noah_Scape:
BTW -
Mexico, The USA, and Canada now have leaders from conservative governments that won close elections, and that want to amalgamate the three nations, and they happen to be meeting in New Orleans today!

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AKA the "Three Stooges" summit. [img]tongue.gif" border="0[/img]