Just to confuse things, I’ve started a new blog about the 2007 Quebec election on The Gazette’s website. Click here to visit.
March 8, 2007...2:07 pm
quebec election 2007: (another) blog
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I’m Andy Riga, a reporter, travel columnist and occasional political writer at The Gazette in Montreal. This blog is a personal site. More about me here.
Check out my other blog, Exploring the Falaise St. Jacques
Click here to send me an email. Zero Interest
3 Comments
March 8, 2007 at 5:45 pm
[...] The Gazette’s Andy Riga is now blogging his E-File on the Quebec election. [...]
March 19, 2007 at 2:48 pm
I will be glad when the election is over and you are back.
September 15, 2007 at 5:20 pm
Hi, Andy
I would just like to comment on how the veiled voting issue has been seized upon by Harper’s Conservative just in time for the Quebec by-elections and just in time to detract the focus away from the Cons very own ad scam.
The Ottawa Citizen and Maclean’s magazine each ran a story on the Cons ad scam but I have seen little else posted in any of the other mainstream newspapers.
Did the Gazette run anything on this?
Al
Articles posted below.
17 sitting MPs participated in Tory ad scheme
Commons committee to discuss possible inquiry into dispute
Glen McGregor and Tim Naumetz, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Monday, September 10, 2007
Elections Canada has listed 17 sitting MPs among Conservative candidates who participated in a contentious scheme to channel $1.2 million through riding campaigns to pay for blanket regional television and radio advertising during the 2006 election, court documents show.
One of the Conservative MPs, cabinet minister and Government Whip Jay Hill, sits on a committee the opposition has forced to meet today to begin probing a series of “in and out” transactions the Liberals claim may have been used by the Conservative party to skirt campaign spending limits.
Internal Elections Canada records the agency filed in a Federal Court action list a total of 67 Conservative candidates who took part in the transfer scheme.
The party transferred tens of thousands of dollars each to the candidate campaigns, which simply turned the money around by using bank transfers to pay the party for the ads. The candidates later claimed election expense rebates for 60 per cent of the ad expenses, but Elections Canada rejected the claims.
Other than the 17 who won their seats, including 10 Quebec MPs who were long shots at the outset of the campaign, the vast majority of the candidates who received the money lost their election bids and had little or no chance from the start. In most cases, their donation levels were low and for some, the party ad payment took up most of their expenses.
The Commons procedure and House affairs committee is scheduled to meet today to discuss an inquiry into “allegations made against the Conservative Party of Canada’s systematic attempt to defraud Elections Canada, as well as the Canadian taxpayer, in relation to the 2006 federal election.”
The confrontational wording of the agenda was set by a letter from Liberal and Bloc Québécois MPs that forced the meeting under House of Commons rules. The NDP has also said it wants an inquiry.
But Liberal MP Dominic LeBlanc says Mr. Hill should consider recusing himself from the hearing because his own election campaign return might be scrutinized.
“Mr. Hill should ask himself whether it doesn’t taint the committee proceedings to have somebody who may have participated directly in this scheme asking questions of Elections Canada witnesses, for example,” Mr. LeBlanc said.
“I think it gives rise to the perception of impropriety.”
The Elections Canada list shows Mr. Hill receiving a transfer of $14,999.97 from the Conservative party and recording a payment in the same amount for radio and TV advertising.
Copies of eight of the television ads obtained by the Citizen from Elections Canada show they are replicas of national TV ads the party unveiled during the campaign, including a separate national series for Quebec. Elections Canada has ruled advertising by candidates must oppose or support individual candidates to be eligible as a candidate expense. The electoral agency also argues in letters filed at Federal Court that the candidates have been unable to provide contracts with a media placement company to prove they incurred the advertising costs
The committee meeting today promises to be explosive, but the government could head off further hearings if Prime Minister Stephen Harper asks Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean to end the current session of Parliament before the end of the week.
The prime minister has said he intends to ask the Governor General to prorogue Parliament before its scheduled resumption next Monday. An official with Government House Leader Peter Van Loan said last week that wouldn’t likely occur until shortly before the House was scheduled to return, in case an emergency forces the recall of Parliament before Monday.
The Liberal party says the Conservatives may have used the transfers to spend more on their national campaign than the $18.3-million ceiling set by election law. The Conservatives reported an expenditure of $9.1 million on national advertising.
The Tories contend the advertising expenses were legal because the ads carried small-print taglines listing candidates or ridings whose official agents the ads said authorized and paid for them. The Conservatives last week also argued that the ads are an issue of free speech.
The Liberals have likened the transfers to a money-laundering scheme.
In April, chief electoral officer Marc Mayrand referred the transfers to Elections Commissioner William Corbett for an investigation. The following month, official agents for 34 Conservative candidates took Mr. Mayrand to Federal Court over his refusal to reimburse the campaigns.
According to the court documents filed by Elections Canada, the list of other MPs who participated in what the party called a “regional media buy” include Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, Heritage Minister Josée Verner and Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon.
The other MPs are: Quebec MPs Sylvie Boucher, Daniel Petit, Steven Blaney, Jacques Gourde, Luc Harvey, and Christian Paradis; B.C. MPs Ron Cannan, Dick Harris, Jim Abbott and Colin Mayes; Ontario MP Patricia Davidson; and Saskatchewan MP David Anderson.
Mr. LeBlanc says he expects the committee will want to probe who orchestrated the transfers and advertising buys, including senior party officials and leadership.
—————————————————–
Maclean’s Magazine
And then it got worse
How the Conservatives used veiled voting to distract the easily confused opposition
Kady O’Malley | Sep 12, 2007 | 4:42 pm EST
For those of you who weren’t able to make Tuesday’s meeting of the House Committee on Procedure and House Affairs – which has somehow found itself at the nexus of not one but two off-season political controversies – a mini-recap of the surprisingly dramatic proceedings.
First, a little background.
Last week, committee chair Gary Goodyear was forced to convene an emergency meeting to consider a full-scale probe into allegations the Conservatives had engaged in illicit financial shenanigans during the last election – namely, transferring money from the national campaign to riding candidates, ostensibly to pay for local advertising. Although the party defends the practice as being entirely legal, Elections Canada is currently investigating the matter.
Around the same time this was beginning to make news, Elections Canada head honcho Marc Mayrand was asked by a Quebec radio reporter whether Muslim women who wear veils would be required to show their faces when voting in three federal by-elections taking place in the province next week. No, was Mayrand’s response; the current law does not require a voter to present photo ID.
The reaction was immediate and unequivocal. The Prime Minister accused Mayrand of flouting the will of Parliament, finding himself in rare agreement with the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Quebecois.
When the committee meeting got underway Monday morning, the government initiated a motion calling on Mayrand to reverse his ruling. Suspecting a Conservatives plot to keep the committee arguing about veils instead of discussing the financing scandal, the opposition voted unanimously in favour.
(Unfortunately, they apparently didn’t read the motion before voting. Like the gun in the first act that goes off in the third, this will be important later.)
In theory, that should have been the end of the veil-abuster. Having addressed the hidden menace of veiled voters, the committee would conceivably now be able to debate the campaign spending scandal. But by Tuesday afternoon, what once seemed an issue so cut and dry not even the New Democrats would take the opposite view, had become considerably less so.
As for the Chief Electoral Officer, he responded to Monday’s salvo with a polite, yet firm refusal to reconsider. He also offered to come before the committee to explain – once again – what the law actually is, as opposed to what the same MPs who voted for it in the House think it ought to be.
But before any of the three opposition parties could start wriggling out of unanimity on veiled voting, Pierre Poilievre – the Conservatives’ designated committee hitman – popped up with a suggestion. Instead of concentrating their efforts on allegations that the Conservative Party engaged in “systemic fraud,” he said, why not broaden the terms of reference? Why not, in fact, include the campaign spending of all four parties for every federal election since 1997?
In his best high school debate club style, Poilievre assured members his party wasn’t trying to shut down the probe – far from it. Indeed, they just want to make it more thorough. After all, wasn’t it the Liberals who were involved in a little something called the sponsorship scandal? And what about the mysterious $40 million that Justice Gomery wasn’t able to track down? Could it be lurking somewhere in the fine print of Liberal records? Who, other than the Liberals on the committee, could disagree with that, he wondered.
It was a new variant on a tactic that has proved remarkably effective for the government in the past: the old divide and conquer. This time, though, nobody on the other side of the table seemed to be buying it – even New Democrat Pat Martin, who Poilievre singled out for special mention in the cause of federal accountability.
When it became clear his entreaties were falling on deaf ears, he turned on his erstwhile allies like a jilted suitor, accusing the parties of colluding in a conspiracy of silence. It was, actually, kind of entertaining, like putting Oliver Stone in a room with nothing but CPAC for inspiration. At times, Poilievre’s knack for political melodrama had much of the room howling with laughter. Even he joined in, although it wasn’t clear whether he was in on the joke or actually was the joke.
Though Poilievre’s proposed amendment went down to predictable and ignominious defeat, it was the Conservatives who triumphed in the end
Remember that part about not reading the motion? As it turns out, the opposition parties hadn’t only signed on to the request Mayrand rethink the issue. If they had bothered to read the whole motion, rather than skimming the first few lines, they would have realized that Mayrand’s refusal would trigger immediate hearings into the issue of veiled voting, in order to produce a full report on the issue by Monday, when the by-elections are scheduled to take place. The committee will hold all day meetings on Thursday, beginning with Mayrand, and then moving on to hear from various groups that have expressed an interest in the matter.
As for the financing probe, it gets pushed to the back burner until the veil report is complete, which will probably be right around the same moment that Parliament – and therefore the committee – will cease to exist, thanks to prorogation. After the Speech from the Throne in October, the opposition can take another kick at the can, if the story hasn’t fallen dormant by then.
Continued Below
Either way, a word of advice to all committee members, in order to spare themselves – and the country – this kind of frustration in the future: Read twice, vote once, whether it is a seemingly innocuous committee motion or a two-inch thick set of amendments to the country’s voting laws.