Programming note: I will be joined here on the blog with Preston Manning tomorrow (Feb 13) at 1pm EST (11am MST) to talk about how conservatives should approach the global economic crisis.

Join us here tomorrow to put your questions to Mr. Manning and participate in the discussion.  The townhall will be live video with questions submitted via an embedded chat window on this blog.

I hope you can join us then.  Please spread the word.

From the Wall Street Journal this morning,

About half-way through President Obama’s press conference Monday night, he had an unscripted question of his own. “All, Chuck Todd,” the President said, referring to NBC’s White House correspondent. “Where’s Chuck?” He had the same strange question about Fox News’s Major Garrett: “Where’s Major?”

The problem wasn’t the lighting in the East Room. The President was running down a list of reporters preselected to ask questions. The White House had decided in advance who would be allowed to question the President and who was left out.

Presidents are free to conduct press conferences however they like, but the decision to preselect questioners is an odd one, especially for a White House famously pledged to openness. We doubt that President Bush, who was notorious for being parsimonious with follow-ups, would have gotten away with prescreening his interlocutors. Mr. Obama can more than handle his own, so our guess is that this is an attempt to discipline reporters who aren’t White House favorites.

Few accounts of Monday night’s event even mentioned the curious fact that the White House had picked its speakers in advance. We hope that omission wasn’t out of fear of being left off the list the next time.

One wonders why President Bush, or as a matter of fact why Prime Minister Stephen Harper were unable to get away with “prescreening” reporters, making them sign up for a list, and running their own press conferences.

Our intrepid Washington reporters, some of which recently held tenure in our own Parliamentary Press Gallery holding the Prime Minister to a higher standard, will surely get to the bottom of this kid-glove treatment of President Obama.

Our friend Warren Kinsella of the red team, calls me out as a hypocrite for blogging about Michael Ignatieff’s $0 record of donation to the Liberal Party of Canada in 2008, whereas Warren points out Elections Canada lists me as giving $0 to the CPC in 2008.

There are a couple of quick points I should make about this:
- I actually didn’t do this. I didn’t call out Ignatieff for his lack of donations to the Liberal Party. So I am being called a hypocrite for something I didn’t do!
- I did in fact donate to the Conservative Party in 2008. Warren, you don’t appreciate that cheques for less than $200 are not publicly disclosed by Elections Canada. I suppose that Warren thinks that folks that write cheques for less than $200 aren’t “putting their money where their mouth is”. I suppose Warren might say that only those that cut big cheques are allowed to have a voice!
- Warren also doesn’t appreciate the difference between movement and party. I work full time for the Manning Centre for Building Democracy, a integral organization in the conservative movement.
- I’ve never been paid $1 by the Conservative Party, whereas you are and have been paid by the Liberal Party for communications! Putting my money where my mouth is? The Liberal Party pays for your mouth!
- If we’re going to compare apples to apples here, you ask “What did they donate to the Conservative Party last year?”, I ask “What did you donate to the Liberal Party last year?” Elections Canada has you listed as $0 to the Liberal Party of Canada in 2008. (You gave to the Ignatieff leadership campaign)

You write,

Michael Ignatieff has donated through the Laurier Club in 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009. Both Michael and his wife, Zsuzsanna Zsohar, have donated the maximum amount to the Michael Ignatieff campaign in 2009. And, in 2007, Zsuzsanna donated $1,000 to Michael’s riding and $1,000 to the Liberal Party.

First of all, the Laurier Club doesn’t mean anything in a legal sense to Elections Canada. To Liberals, it’s the max donor club. To Elections Canada, it could be called the “First Annual Montgomery Burns Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence… Club” and it would have the same legal standing. Anyway, donations to the “Laurier Club” are in fact donations to the Liberal Party. And, according to Elections Canada, Michael Ignatieff has donated $0 in 2008. So, either Michael Ignatieff has given $0, or he’s made his donations off-book (you say he’s given the max amount), or you’re mistaken and he’s given as many normal political donors do, with a $50 cheque here and a $75 cheque there. You really shouldn’t be hard on us regular folk, you with your top hat, monocle and deeds to all four railroads, both utilities and Pennsylvania avenue!

Late breaking news from DC,

The Senate will vote on this surprisingly contentious issue tonight, after a day of vocal lobbying from corporations and other countries. Sens. Byron Dorgan and Max Baucus have an amendment to make the “Buy American” provisions consistent with international trade obligations. That’s in line with what the White House has requested. It’s not clear what the language will require; either companies would be required to use American-made steel, iron and other commodities in projects, or they won’t.

Trying to salvage the Buy American provisions late today, the Steelworkers Union urged lawmakers to include Canada in its definition of “American.”) Some Democrats have threatened to withhold support from the legislation if it doesn’t include Buy American provisions. The Senate and House versions of “Buy American” will have to be reconciled in a conference committee.

I’m not sure about how I feel about US law defining “American” as inclusive of Canada (what other legal implications might this have one wonders). However, if this goes through, this may save Jack Layton’s base (unionized steel) and infuriate his protectionist sensibilities too. Layton has been pushing a “Buy Canadian” policy, effectively reacting to protectionism with protectionism. A change in the provisions to label it a “Buy North American” policy would still be protectionist (though broader to include Canada) and one wonders what sort of concessions would be asked of our country in participating in such an arrangement. What would this mean for labour and/or commerce mobility within Canada and the US, and outside of both countries on steel manufacturing and related industries?

Canadian labour and therefore the cost of our steel is relatively expensive compared to Mexican steel. Dems are considering the competitive quotient between Canada and Mexico and are likely finding that Canada is a safe concession for their constituents.

Senator John McCain, who Canadians passed over for Obama, introduced legislation earlier today to completely strip the “Buy American” provision out of the Obama stimulus bill. Stephen Harper, Gilles Duceppe, Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff have hoped that the US Congress will remove the protectionist element from the stimulus package.

During the previous election campaign, on October 10th, I received a “brown envelope” email from someone I presumed (and still do) to be a constituent of Bill Casey. The email made quite an accusation of corruption against the now-independent member from Cumberland-Colchester. The email promised proof of this corruption to be sent via fax, so like any lead I followed the trail to see what I would find. I received the fax and proceeded to ask around carefully about what I had just received.

Sometimes bloggers get accused of jumping the gun on biased single-sourced information and rush to produce it as an exclusive. In the world that is supposed to work on solid citation and reliable sources, a disaffected grumbler in Nova Scotia with an axe to grind falls far below what one might read in the Economist; one must consider bias, motive and track record when weighing information and it is critical to seek substantiation. I know of only a handful of reporters in this town that depend on single-sourced information more often than not. All of the others seek solid substantiation on every story.

Grasping the seriousness of the accusation against Bill Casey and sensing that an agenda might be at play, I made sure to ask around. Not only double-sourced but triple-sourced! The answer was the same: my original source only gave me half of the story (the withdrawal of the $30,000). The other half which wasn’t being told was that he paid it back.

This story, now not a story, was put into the archives of my email (instead of on the front page of this website) and was not considered again. Until this afternoon,

Today, CBC reports,

Nova Scotia’s Independent MP Bill Casey is lashing out at federal Conservatives, saying allegations that he stole from the party amount to character assassination.

Casey, a former Tory who was kicked out of the party in June 2007, spoke out in the House of Commons on Tuesday.

“They put a cloud over my head and have hurt my ability to do my job as a member of Parliament because they’ve hurt my credibility,” he said.

“Who’s going to feel comfortable coming into my office knowing that the Conservative Party of Canada, the governing party has had the RCMP investigate me for theft and embezzlement?”

Casey, MP for Cumberland–Colchester–Musquodoboit Valley, received a copy of an RCMP memo that describes how Conservative party members wanted the Mounties to investigate allegations he embezzled funds.

The document is a briefing note to the RCMP commissioner. It describes how a member of the Conservative party contacted Bible Hill RCMP on Sept. 19, 2008, accusing him of stealing.

At issue was a $30,000 cheque from May 2007 from the party.

Since this filthy dog of a non-story landed in my email box last year and since it is now causing Bill Casey public troubles, I wanted to produce what information I have. Unfortunately, producing the identity of my source would go against a separate principle so I cannot do that. However, I will say that those folks I followed up with during the campaign who told me that there was no story there because Casey paid the money back were federal Conservative officials in Ottawa.

Here is the original email that I received,

Why Bill Casey should step down.

Bill casey stated publicly that he had only 1 minute to decide to vote against the budget(www.cbc.ca/canada/nova-scotia/story/2007/06/05/budget-casey), yet 5 days earlier a check signed by Frank Elliott ( Bills Campaign Manager) and Mr. Neilson was written out to bill caseys official agent( Ian Hamilton )cleaning out the account. The check amount was 30K. Obviously, they had made up their mind and understood Bill would be kicked out of caucus and that they would loss access to the money. The money was taken out of the riding association while under Scott Armstrongs watch, he was the president of the riding association and is now working for Bills campaign. He never said a word against the money being taken out. In fact there is a a witness that can testify to the fact he supported it at the time the money was stolen. There are several issues here. 1st. He lied to the nation. 2nd. He and his cohorts stole and embezzled a large amount of money. 3rd. He knew better. If he is willing to do all this and have such a disregard to the laws of this great nation, what else has he done that we don’t know about? I think its time Bill does the honourable thing by removing himself from the race and apologizes to all Canadians for such criminal actions.

I have a copy of the cheque. the cheque number is 150 made out on may 31, 2007, from the North Nova Conservative Party of Canada Association. their account was at the royal bank. the cheque was cashed at CIBC in Amherst, Bills hometown. feel free to contact me any time, I am willing to fax you a copy of the cashed cheque.

Here is the fax I received with the cheque,

From all accounts from the time I’ve lived in Ottawa and my time around federal Conservative politics, I have known Bill Casey to be an honourable and reputable man. That is still the case. This story is unfounded.

UPDATE: Bill Casey brings this up in the House of Commons,

Mr. Bill Casey (Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, Ind.): Mr. Speaker, on September 23, 2007, the RCMP informed the Conservatives that there was no evidence to back up their accusations of theft and embezzlement against me by their official agent. Yet two weeks later, other Conservatives distributed the same accusations of theft and embezzlement to the media and on the Internet. In fact, members can see those accusations against me on the website stephentaylor.ca.
Last week, the Minister of Public Safety said there was only one person involved, but now obviously there is more than one Conservative, and I do not mean Conservatives in this House, but there is more than one Conservative involved. Will they release the names of all those Conservatives?

Hon. Peter Van Loan (Minister of Public Safety, CPC): Mr. Speaker, as I advised this House previously, the RCMP looked into this matter and made it clear that there was no evidence of any wrongdoing with regard to the member for Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley.
I also confirmed to this House that the Conservative Party was of the same view.

Bill Casey passed on his thanks.

(The Liberal Party says the National Post got it wrong and they respond in the update)

That’s the conclusion one may come to if one reads Don Martin’s latest column in the National Post. However, it seems that Don doesn’t come upon the conclusion himself. The fundraising numbers for the last quarter of 2008 have come out and the story is the same, yet this provides fodder for political columnists since money is important in politics to build well-oiled political machines. The Conservatives are flush with cash rounding out 2008 with $21 million while the Liberals with about $6 million. Yesterday, I spoke with Jack Layton and the NDP leader was astonished that his party posted 90% of the Liberal total, though he sounded like he was chastizing the Liberals rather than bragging about his own party’s strength.

These particular paragraphs of Don Martin’s piece stand out,

The other glimmer of Liberal hope is political weaponry they have purchased from the Barack Obama campaign.

Specifically, they have purchased computer programs and donor-targeting technology at a discount from the friendly U. S. Democrats and plan to unleash hundreds of gigabytes at crafting a master list of donors while combing the country for new support.

It looks like the Liberals are starting to get their game in gear, or are they? Last summer, I met a member of Obama’s senior staff at a web 2.0 conference in New York City. The staffer told me that the Liberals had once contacted the campaign to adapt some of their fundraising capacity. The result? The Grits never followed up. According to Martin’s piece, Ignatieff’s team finally did and they got a discounted rate.

But it is this discounted rate which may pose a problem for the Liberal party.

What does the Elections Act say about discounts?

“commercial value” , in relation to property or a service, means the lowest amount charged at the time that it was provided for the same kind and quantity of property or service or for the same usage of property or money, by

(a) the person who provided it, if the person is in the business of providing that property or service; or

(b) another person who provides that property or service on a commercial basis in the area where it was provided, if the person who provided the property or service is not in that business.

“non-monetary contribution” means the commercial value of a service, other than volunteer labour, or of property or of the use of property or money to the extent that they are provided without charge or at less than their commercial value.

Ok, so the Democrats allegedly provided a non-monetary contribution because they sold computer programs to the Liberals at a discounted (less than commercial value) rate.

When an official agent receives a non-monetary contribution from a donor, the official agent must obtain complete documentation about the commercial value of the goods or services donated, and the name and address of the donor, so that the contribution may be (subject to its commercial value) reported in the Candidate’s Electoral Campaign Return (EC 20120) as a contribution and as an expense. “Gifts and other advantages” are reported separately in the Candidate’s Statement of Gifts or Other Advantages Received (EC 20053)

So, do the Liberals have to fill out some forms? No! Thankfully, they’ll save some time because the contributions themselves are ineligable.

404.(1) No person or entity other than an individual who is a citizen or permanent resident as defined in subsection 2(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act shall make a contribution to a registered party, a registered association, a candidate, a leadership contestant or a nomination contestant.

The Liberals as a registered political party appear to be taking non-monetary contributions from foreigners to raise more money in Canada. If Don Martin’s account is true, the Liberals aren’t playing by the rules. This should raise some serious questions about the judgement of Michael Ignatieff.

Liberals receiving discounts from the Barack Obama campaign?

No, they can’t.

UPDATE: And they didn’t according to Liberal Party spokesman Daniel Lauzon. Daniel writes:

You should note that the Liberal Party has not, in fact, purchased software from the Obama campaign or any other supplier. Though we are currently exploring options for more powerful software – including products like those used by our friends to the south – we have not made a purchase, let alone at a discount.

The statement appears to stem from an interview granted yesterday, and I am in the process of clarifying this unfortunate misunderstanding.

I hope this clears things up. I appreciate your cooperation in clarifying this matter for your readers.