Monday, August 11, 2008

The out and out taxpayer fraud known as in and out




Party sent $37,000 to his campaign, then took it back: ex-Tory


Parliamentary panel looks into alleged Conservative scheme to evade ad spending limits Monday, August 11, 2008
CBC News

In a hearing about Conservative election spending, an unsuccessful candidate testified Monday that he agreed in advance not to spend $37,000 the party sent to his campaign in 2006 and quickly took back.

Gary Caldwell, who ran for the Tories in the Quebec riding of Compton-Stanstead, said he later redrafted his election spending report to withdraw a claim for a 60 per cent federal rebate on that amount.

"I realize that the central party, any party, can give money to the local riding association, but when we examined this further I became convinced that it was only a legitimate local expense if we in fact spent it," he told the Commons ethics committee. " In fact, that was not the case."

Caldwell said he left the Tories "after what happened and my concern that the Conservative Party was no longer interested in rehabilitating parliamentary institutions." He plans to run next as a Green Party candidate.

The former Conservative, who said he spent about $9,000 on his 2006 campaign, was the day's first witness before a quarrelsome panel of MPs.

The committee is examining alleged Tory "in-and-out" arrangements to take advantage of unused spending room in local campaigns. The controversy has raged since the RCMP searched the party's Ottawa headquarters in April at the request of Elections Canada.

The elections agency alleges that the Conservatives exceeded their $18.3 million spending limit on campaign advertising by more than $1 million in 2006 by disguising national ads as local expenses.

Such a scheme would give the party a spending edge and set candidates up to claim undeserved federal campaign subsidies. Elections Canada has refused to approve hundreds of thousands of dollars in rebates claimed by Tory candidates.

That refusal is the subject of a lawsuit being pursued by the party against chief electoral officer Marc Mayrand, the head of the agency.

Doug Finley, who directed the party's winning national 2006 campaign, tried to be the first witness of the day, sitting down at a witness table and insisting on his right to speak. He was escorted from the room by security guards.

Outside the hearing, Finley said he had told the committee it was the only day and time he could appear.

6 comments:

Dr Mike said...

I spontaneously get this vision of Richard Nixon standing in front of the American people & saying those now infamous words "I am not a Crook".

So what the devil do we have going on here--sure looks bad.

Here we have the gov`t laundering money thru riding associations & spending it on a National campaign which contravenes the Elections Canada Rules for campaign spending.

I have this vision in my head of Mr Harper standing in front of the Canadian people & saying "I am not a crook".

I think the result should be the same in this case as it was with Richard Nixon.

Dr Mike Popovich.

Anonymous said...

It has been reported that scientists are now using Conservatives instead of Rats in their laboratory experiments.

It seems that there are some things that Rats just won't do.

Anonymous said...

Hence the extremely unfortunate and unpalatable position - to say the least - in which Canada and its citizens now find themselves.

When the leaders of our country, and especially the prime minister of Canada, intentionally lie to and mislead the Canadian public; falsify data and analysis; obscure, block and hide information; promulgate twisted propaganda; and interfere with investigations into their conduct; what you are effectively left with is a fascist dictatorship, the likes of which the world has sadly seen both in history and in present day times.

Deceivin' Stephen Harper is not a "leader."

He's a despicable DESPOT!

Wake up Canada, before it's too late.

Oldschool said...

I was wondering . . . did the Lieberals pay back all the taxpayer funds they stole????
If it turns out that these funds transfers were wrong . . . at least they were using their own money . . . not mine!!!
LPC - pay back what you stole!!!

Anonymous said...

When caught in their own Putrid, CONS mechanically repeat their usual rehearsal:

Blah...blah...blah...Adscam...blah...blah...blah.
Blah...blah...blah...Adscam...blah...blah...blah.
Blah...blah...blah...Adscam...blah...blah...blah.

They should "move on."

Anonymous said...

Old School said......whine, whine, whine, about what the Liberals did. Voters were promised by Lying Harper that this time "his" Conservatives were going to be different. No more of that stuff. Promise Made-Promise Kept, blah blah blah. So tell me Old School.....when are you facist goofs going to figure out that when you screw your own political base, like you did with your "tax fairness" plan, you lose the next election. Hello......is anybody awake in Tory land or are you waiting for next enema from Lying Harper so you can go spout off?