Paging Joe Comartin…

In justice news

Ex-Liberal official guilty of fraud not going to jail

MONTREAL — Benoit Corbeil, a former top federal Liberal party official, won’t be going to jail after all.

Corbeil who pleaded guilty to influence peddling and fraud charges had his 15 month jail sentence reduced to 12 months served in the community by the Quebec Court of Appeal in a ruling issued on Wednesday.

In upholding his appeal on the fraud charge, but upholding his conviction on the corruption charge, the court also absolved him of the order to repay $117,000 to the Liberal Party of Canada.

Did you really expect anything different?

Now, will we see opposition MPs call the Minister of Justice to the mat to explain how this judicial outcome could have occurred?

Explain Rahim Jaffer sentence, ministers told

Joe Comartin doesn’t believe Rahim Jaffer received favourable treatment for his driving conviction but he wants the federal and Ontario governments to tell Canadians that.

Mr. Comartin, the NDP justice critic and former long-time trial lawyer, believes there is a risk that the Jaffer case will shake the integrity of the judicial system.

It seems that we need tougher sentencing guidelines for committing fraud while Liberal. The Crown could not proceed on the heftier charges in the Jaffer case because he was not searched in compliance with his Charter rights. However, Corbeil was convicted.

On MPs and lobbying – where does it end?

Found on another website:

Mr. Jaffer’s valuable contributions to our clients include acting for foreign and offshore organizations in obtaining operating licenses, securing regulatory and governmental approvals for mergers and acquisitions, reviewing policies and conduct of Canadian Security Intelligence Services, advising government bodies on international issues regarding cross border tax collection, antidumping issues, and lobbying government on policy issues as well as facilitating inter-governmental relationships.

Oops, I’m sorry. The paragraph above erroneously cited the name of Rahim Jaffer. The excerpt above is not about the former MP who is the subject of a probe into website fibbery (and some alleged “puffery”) by the House of Commons ethics committee, but was rather in reference to a sitting Member of Parliament. I regret the deliberate yet illustrative error.

Now, of course, Lee has has probably not anything wrong here but I find it odd that a paragraph on a website puffing up an individual and what they can do for clients has caused so much controversy, with respect to Rahim Jaffer. Jaffer’s website seemed to claim that he could influence public policy decisions through his contacts. If Jaffer was indeed lobbying, he should have registered.

On the other hand, Lee is not a lobbyist but we have a firm boasting to their clients that a Member of Parliament is “lobbying government on policy issues” thus providing “valuable contributions to our clients”.

The language just doesn’t sit right. It’s quite a bit of puffery.

Selected readings from Derrick Snowdy’s Facebook wall

Derrick Snowdy, the private investigator behind the allegations of drugs and “busty hookers” that got Helena Guergis kicked out of cabinet, has recently become a very public figure. Since the time when he (probably) sourced The Star’s Guergis story, he has been a bit unreachable, jetting off to the Bahamas and… locking down his Facebook profile.

Here are some of Snowdy’s recent status updates from Facebook. I’ll only quote updates that are relevant to the media scrutiny of Guergis/Jaffer/Gillani/Snowdy.

Derrick Snowdy is planning a few days away from the circus. I think next week looks like a good time to go to DisneyWorld
Yesterday at 7:58am via Facebook for BlackBerry

Derrick Snowdy no hearings huh, hmmm me thinks someone spilled the beans toJack. now he wants it hushed
Mon at 8:14pm via Facebook for BlackBerry

[name withheld] Taliban Jack?
Mon at 8:23pm

Derrick Snowdy Yep, I guess he knows now how close this is going to hit home with a certain NDP and he needs time to prep
Mon at 8:25pm

Derrick Snowdy today was interesting… if you all only know what I know now!!!
Mon at 12:08pm via Facebook for BlackBerry

Derrick Snowdy is changing the tune
Sun at 12:47am
2 people like this.

[name withheld] Heh, when do we hear about the book deal?
Mon at 11:56am

Derrick Snowdy is a about to spill the beans on just how much the Liberals paid him………yeah right…like i would take money from Liberals….they so don’t know me at all
April 17 at 9:21am

Derrick Snowdy GONG SHOW journalism….the killer is
nobody is investigating Gillani
April 17 at 9:34am

[name withheld] take thier money and then donate it to the conservatives 🙂 once you hit your cap buy more guns with the rest 🙂
April 17 at 9:35am

Derrick Snowdy is dividing up the 13 million….who wants some. Does anybody think somebidy will start asking about CATSA soon?
April 17 at 1:38am

Derrick Snowdy is thinking that the first reporter to pay my cell phone bill will get an interview
April 15 at 7:43pm via Facebook for BlackBerry

Derrick Snowdy I can’t come to the phone righr now, I’m busy driving around in my Tank burning 100 dollar bills
April 16 at 10:04am

Derrick Snowdy is wondering where this media gets this weird story from……
April 15 at 7:30pm

[name withheld] and which weird story would that be?
April 15 at 7:32pm

Derrick Snowdy This lost money investor thing
April 15 at 7:43pm

Derrick Snowdy They are claiming I fucked over all the employees at epic and stole all the money. As manager of HR Geoff what do you think
April 15 at 11:42pm

[Geoff] Nonsense. I’m not sure how ensuring your workforce transitions into equivalent positions at another firm constitutes screwing your employees but I’m all ears if someone can explain it to me.
April 16 at 12:25am

[name withheld] They have no clue what you did at the end for the employees of Epic. You could have just locked the door and walked out, but you didn’t. Like you said to me way back when… The only thing you cared about was giving people jobs.
April 16 at 11:32am

Derrick Snowdy Feel free to send them an email, Kinnaird is sending lots of annon garbage
April 16 at 11:36am

[name withheld] It’s the cover story on the cover of the Star. But they spelt your name wrong.
April 15 at 6:00am via Facebook for iPhone

Derrick Snowdy they always do
April 15 at 10:29am

Derrick Snowdy suggests reading tomorrows Toronto Star….Mr. Kevin Donovan
April 14 at 11:09pm

Derrick Snowdy believes that everytime Michael Ignatieffs opens his mouth he confirms the fact that somewhere a village is being deprived of its idiot
April 12 at 11:49am

Derrick Snowdy is heading out of town for a few days. Message me if you need me
April 11 at 1:09am via Facebook for BlackBerry

[name withheld] Does this have anything to do with all those papers you were shredding the other day ???? 😀
April 11 at 2:56am

Derrick Snowdy I shredded nothing….lost, misplaced and encoded are another story LOL….
April 12 at 11:48am

Derrick Snowdy hmmm, this will be interesting. break out the paper shredder
April 9 at 12:56pm via Facebook for BlackBerry

Derrick Snowdy as a life long Conservative the proposed itax has me ready to puke…
April 1 at 9:52am via Facebook for BlackBerry

and in case you were wondering… Snowdy does play Mafia Wars on Facebook.