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!
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,
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.