Fakers

Fake F-35 mock up cockpit from Lockheed Martin for DefMin Peter Airshow MacKay to hold $47,000 presser in to announce purchase of 65 Lockheed Martin stealth fighters in 2010.
Tony Gazebo and Rona Ambrose attending.



Fake citizenship ceremony in which half of the participants were actually Citizenship and Immigration Canada staff passed off as new Canadians on Sun News Network





Fake lake, the $57,000 part of a $1.9 million display for the 2010 G8/20 summit, concerning which I asked some more questions earlier today.

Fake G8 border infrastructure slush fund that splashed $50M around Tony Gazebo's riding for gazebos and flower pots miles away from the border, and incidentally increased his vote margin win from 26 votes in 2006 to almost 11,000 in 2010.

Fake protesters made up of Conservative party interns and staff sent out by the PMO to heckle Justin Trudeau on the lawn of the House of Commons as he gave a presser announcing "new measures to increase transparency in the HoC." 

Fake apology to First Nations

Fake election phone calls, live and automated, presumably originating from the Cons' CIMS data base, either being obnoxious while pretending to be from an opposing party or advising voters their polling station had moved or closed.

Fake Jobs Grant from the same people who thought it was a super idea to grant businesses a 15% wage reduction pass NOT to hire Canadians. This new idea, which doesn't exist yet despite a recent Hockey Night in Canada ad blitz at $95,000 a pop, would again subsidize business while rolling back $300M from the provinces should they agree to hell freezing over.

Fake Commander-in-Chief shtick while surveying Alberta flood damage, and good lord, he's wearing fucking wings.
Unsurprisingly reminiscent of Bush photo op surveying Katrina.  Mr. Dress Up's spox explained it was "in tribute to the military".  
See Boris : last paragraph.

Fake CIDA "not", crayoled in at Bev Oda's request above the signatures of CIDA dept heads, making it look as if they, not she, had gutted KAIROS' funding from CIDA. After initially fudging about it, eventually she fessed up.
Meanwhile over in Israel, Jason Kenney told the Israelis he'd done it for them, then retracted it when he got back to Canada.

Fake security at the G20. $1-billion and 19,000 police unable to prevent a few black bloc from rioting but as protests wind down on the last day, kettling without first giving the crowd a chance to disperse nets many shoppers, media, and people returning home from work in the largest police bust in Canadian history. Public Safety Min refuses to divulge origin of command for police state crowd control exercise.

Fake 'red menace' scare. 
Steve, Airshow, MacKay, and PMO staffers make ridiculous remarks about bravely staring down Russian bombers in the Arctic. Meanwhile Canadian Forces are participating with those same Russian bombers in a Canada/US/Russia exercise in joint air traffic coordination in the Arctic. 
aka Fake justification for purchase of 65 F-35s.

 Fake "Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act", which made no mention at all of child pornography because up to an hour earlier this bid to require internet service providers to give police your name, unlisted phone #, and IP address without a warrant was called the Lawful Access Act.

Steve's fake outrage at Lib/NDP/Bloc coalition proposal - with separatists! and socialists! - following the 2011 election.
Following the 2004 election, Harper himself proposed a Con/NDP/Bloc 'cooperation' with those same separatists and socialists to unseat the minority Libs.
In 2000, a proposed coalition of the Bloc, Alliance, and PC parties sought to make Stockwell Day Prime Minister of Canada.

Fake 'grassroots' website Ethical Oil
Alykhan Velshi left a six figure job with Steve's gov to relaunch Ezra Levant's Ethical Oil  -"mooching off free Wi-Fi at coffeehouses and wearing flip-flops” - after which he returned to the PMO fold. Con Resource Bureau-connected webserver Go New Clear hosts Ethical Oil, Jason Kenney, Joe Oliver, Kathryn Marshall, etc.

Faked support for abolishing StatsCan long census. 
MP Maxime Bernier claimed "thousands" of complaint emails per day during 2006 census, all unfortunately deleted, vs. the 22 recorded "expressions of concern" sent to StatsCan. 
When Tony Gazebo falsely claimed StatsCan support for abolishing long census, StatsCan chief Munir Sheikh at left resigned in protest.

Fake smaller government

The Cons' 2012 budget proposed slashing 19,000 positions from the federal public service over five years, but added more than 34,000 between 2006 and 2012 - a 14% increase.                                                                                            Additionally, a 2011 CCPA study discovered a shadow public service: "Over the past five years, federal personnel outsourcing costs have risen 79% ... and remain above $1 billion a year."

Fake emergency preparedness
"It's really just posing," Alberta Fire Chiefs Assoc. Pres. said, singling out fed politicians like SafetyMin Vic Toews showing up to "help out" Alberta flood victims after Cons' 2012 budget slashed federal funding for the Joint Emergency Preparedness Program. "They can just stay in Ottawa. They got in the way."

Fake "cooperation" with Elections Canada, including stonewalling on EC reports of election fraud 3 days before election,  'reviewing' Poutine logs at Responsive Marketing Group before EC, cutting their budget, taking 3 months to not provide EC with witnesses, delaying promised election reforms, and in the words of Judge Richard Mosley : generally engaging in "trench warfare". 


Dr. Dawg sees much of this as Conservative theatre.

I think they're just fakers always hoping not to get caught.

Feel free to add your own "faker" suggestions and links in comments - updating as they come in.

Video version on Youtube 
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Did Canada spy on journos at the Toronto G8/20 summit?

Image from leaked UK Government Communications Headquarters briefing slide featuring the logos of Canadian, US, and UK signals intelligence spying agencies.

Ten days ago The Guardian published GCHQ briefing slides, courtesy of former NSA contractor turned whistleblower Edward Snowden, revealing :

Foreign politicians and officials who took part in two G20 summit meetings in London in 2009 had their computers monitored and their phone calls intercepted on the instructions of their British government hosts, according to documents seen by the Guardian. This included:
• Setting up internet cafes where they used an email interception programme and key-logging software to spy on delegates' use of computers;
• Penetrating the security on delegates' BlackBerrys to monitor their email messages and phone calls

The inclusion in the docs of the Communications Security Establishment Canada logo along side those of NSA and GCHQ, and the mention of bugged internet cafes and BlackBerrys, put me in mind of Canada's $2-million indoor fake lake built for the G8/20 the following year so that 3,000+ Canadian and foreign journos could, in Greg Weston's words at the time :

"file their reports ... their feet dangling in the water ... from only cottage dock in existence with bar service and high-speed Internet connections."

And according to Weston, they were all provided with free "special summit edition BlackBerrys" too.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to Democracy

“It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."
"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"
"No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said Ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in."
               ~ Douglas Adams


In April, a Public Policy Polling national survey of 1,247 registered American voters found that 4% answered Yes to the question : 

Do you believe that shape-shifting reptilian people control our world by taking on human form and gaining political power to manipulate our societies?

4% extrapolates into roughly 13 million US voters - only a million or so less than the total number of Canadians who voted in the 2011 federal election.
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Patrick Brown, come on down!

When PMO communications officer Erica Meekes sent The Barrie Advance details and materials on a 2007 money-losing charity speaking gig Justin Trudeau did at Georgian College before he was an MP, she asked Advance editor Lori Martin to attribute her slag to an anonymous "source" rather than to the PMO.
Meekes further advised contacting Patrick Brown, “the local MP for Georgian College,” for comment, and Brown subsequently provided some suitably partisan disparaging comments about Trudeau.


Trying to remember where you've heard Patrick Brown's name before?

Here he is between Flaherty and Harper at the now infamous 2011 Ford family BBQ, listening to Harper thank Rob Ford for his help in getting elected and calling for a Harper/Hudak/Ford hat trick government.

Later on in the full video, FinMin Jim Flaherty thanked Patrick Brown and fellow MP Kellie Leitch, hidden behind Harper here, for "being key to organizing this event".

Dear Toronto Star : Looking forward to your adding the hat trick BBQ video to your continuing coverage of Patrick Brown's remarks.
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Steve and Barry have a little chat

Really excellent background from The Tyee on the outing of the numpty non-issue of charity speaker gig fees that the Cons used to waste the last week of the House of Commons before summer recess.
Tyee Bonus : Spot the Lickspittle

And as Dammit Janet asks : Why did no other media outlet but that one tiny paper, the Barrie Advance, realize that the real story here was the PMO sending out partisan trumped-up *anonymous* leaks on the taxpayers' dime?
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DILBIT : "Every plant and tree died"

9.5 million litres of industrial waste water, the 10th largest spill of its kind in Alberta in nearly 40 years.

Houston-based Apache Corp, with a project based on Haisla reserve lands in the Douglas Channel, also wants to export LNG from the eastern Rockies to China via an expansion of its Pacific Trail Pipeline.
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Harper's Parade of Perps with Perks #6

Bunch up everyone to make room for Steve's latest Perp with Perks, Saulie Zajdel.

Arrested today and facing five counts of corruption, breach of trust, and fraud from 2006 to 2011 in the anti-corruption sweep that also bagged the mayor of Montreal, Zajdel is better known to us as the guy who was put on the public payroll as a "cultural liaison" by Heritage Min James Moore for an alleged $60G's to act as the Cons' shadow pretend MP in Irving Cotler's riding after he lost to him in the 2011 election.  

Here's Steve campaigning for Zajdel three days before Election Day.

Here's Nick Kouvalis from Campaign Research defending their        "reprehensible" calls made into the riding on Steve and Zajdel's behalf implying Cotler would not run.

After his election loss to Cotler, Zajdel gave speeches in the Mount Royal riding, such as one advertised as : “How the Federal Government Relates to Israel.” 

A 2011 election campaign vid uploaded by Zajdel, along with the tagline :

"Let us thank our prime minister Stephen Harper for how he supports the land of Israel, he is its strongest advocate of any leader in the world."

Steve and Saulie in happier times in a photo op featuring brown paper bags - a prop usually avoided by the Cons after Brian Mulroney.
Mulroney spoke at a $600-a-plate fundraiser for Dean Del Mastro, another Perp with Perks, this past May. [h/t Toe at Bread 'n Roses]

Brown bag photo h/t : Robert Jensen2 via Holly Stick in comments.
And to Canadian Cynic for the nudge.

Previous Perps editions with bios.
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From Creekside to Cyveillance to PRISM-ID

Creekside is a really tiny insignificant Canadian blog, as I'm sure both of you know. I rarely venture into covering anything about the US unless it has a direct and immediate bearing on Canadian interests and hasn't been mentioned anywhere else. Consequently I don't get much US traffic unless I happen to blog something like State Dept. hires TransCanada consultant to approve Keystone pipeline, and it goes up some magical link chain via Think Progress to the New York Times.  

Then I get a wee spike in US traffic, some of which consists of the downloading of hundreds of pages over the course of a few hours from US data-mining firms like PSInet and Cyveillance who specialize in protecting the online reputations of their corporate clients. I can imagine the reason behind some of their search terms on Creekside - Carlyle Group, Manning Centre, CETA; but others make no sense at all - Kady O'Malley, Matt Taibbi, Stephen Harper.

Usually there are several different IP addresses from the same company working Creekside at the same time - some doing word or date searches while others download several posts per second. Must be some kind of metadata collecting program, thinks technodolt me. 
I google up Cyveillance; other bloggers have complained about them, but not recently. 
A 2009 news release says they were bought out by QinetiQ :

QinetiQ North America, of McLean, Va., is a subsidiary of British defense company QinetiQ Group PLC and ranks No, 24 on Washington Technology’s 2008 Top 100 list of the largest federal government prime contractors.

A Bloomberg story, China's Cyberspies Outwit Model for Bond's Q, notes "former CIA Director George Tenet was a director of the company from 2006 to 2008 and former Pentagon spy chief Stephen Cambone headed a major division." 

Which got me thinking about that corporate/government data-mining revolving door, and I wondered if there was a connection between Cyveillance and PRISM. 
There is - if PRISM-ID is related to PRISM. 

US Department of Homeland Security
Privacy Impact Assessment for the U.S. Secret Service Cyber Awareness Program (Cyveillance) December 14, 2012

Cyveillance, a subsidiary of QinetiQ of North America, is under contract by the Secret Service to search available information related to the Secret Service and its missions.The information captured by Cyveillance is reviewed by Cyveillance personnel to identify the results that appear to fall within the parameters of the Secret Service’s stated requirements. Potentially relevant information related to the Agency’s missions is forwarded to Secret Service personnel who determine whether further investigation is required to assess the content (e.g., to determine if it is a viable or potentially viable threat). If further investigation is deemed necessary, the information obtained through Cyveillance is incorporated into the Protective Research Information Management System (PRISM-ID)1, an existing Secret Service system.

And what is PRISM-ID?

PRISM-ID system records data on threats, inappropriate or unusual behavior, and incidents that may impact the Secret Service’s mission to protect persons, events, and facilities. The system also may contain PII [personally identifiable information] on subjects of an investigation. PRISM-ID does not include information on individuals merely seeking access to protected facilities or sites unless they are the subject of an investigation or otherwise came to the attention of the Secret Service for threatening, inappropriate, or unusual behavior. Information may include criminal history, health history, employment history, military service history, education history, immigration status, and other personal information provided by the subject or others familiar with the subject.

So does blogging about it count as "inappropriate or unusual behavior"? Asking for a friend.

Back to the Homeland Security Privacy Impact Assessment, which follows a Q&A format regarding the access and retention of "personally identifiable information" and how it is purged within 10 working days if not deemed relevant to further inquiry. All very reassuring, however :

While the general purpose of Cyveillance is not to collect PII, the collected information may contain PII. As Cyveillance’s function is not to collect PII, it is not possible for the Secret Service to know what PII, if any, may be contained in the collected information.

And this just blew me away : 

4.3 Privacy Impact Analysis: Related to Notice

Privacy Risk: Individuals may not be aware of the existence of Cyveillance and the data its collects and reports to the Secret Service. 

Mitigation: This PIA serves as public notice of the existence of Cyveillance in support of the Secret Service missions.

Ah but you'll only see it if you happen to be browsing through the pages of Homeland Security.
Suddenly I feel like Arthur Dent : "Yes, it was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the leopard'."

6.1 Is information shared outside of DHS as part of the normal agency operations? 

Identified information that becomes part of an investigative or criminal case file may be shared on a need-to-know basis with federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, other foreign and domestic government units, or private entities in accordance with the routine uses outlined in the applicable SORN.

And just to destroy whatever tiny shreds of respect you were holding out for me not being totally tinfoil ....

After four days of Cyveillance hanging out at Creekside in January, I shut down my computer for 24 hours, checked in on my stats from a blackberry, and they had gone. The next day I logged back onto my computer and within seconds they were back again. 

I know, I know, but there you go - coincidence or not, it's what happened.
Beware of the leopard.

Update : 

Firedoglake : NSA Swaps Information On You With Private Companies For More Information On You .

PRISM : Everyone is a foreigner somewhere

                                              Image from Prism/US Overview PowerPoint slide

While DefMin Airshow MacKay prevaricates in the House about the extent to which Canada is complicit in the NSA 'foreigner' surveillance program PRISM outed by whistleblower Edward Snowden, former NSA and other foreign government officials are more forthcoming :

Guardian : NSA 'offers intelligence to British counterparts to skirt UK law'

The US National Security Agency circumvents UK law by offering, rather than being asked for, intelligence from global websites to their British counterparts, according to David Blunkett, who was home secretary at the time of the 9/11 attacks. British agents have to seek ministerial approval to request information from the US.

DutchNews : Dutch security service has received information via PRISM:  [h/t Min Reyes]

Dutch security service AIVD has also received information on email and social media traffic via US spy system PRISM, the Telegraaf reports on Tuesday. 

If the AIVD lists an American address as suspicious, it is supplied all the information within five minutes.

Der Spiegel : Prism Exposed: Data Surveillance with Global Implications

Former NSA employees Thomas Drake and Bill Binney told SPIEGEL in March that the facility would soon store personal data on people from all over the world and keep it for decades. This includes emails, Skype conversations, Google searches, YouTube videos, Facebook posts, bank transfers -- electronic data of every kind. 

The NSA's research projects aim to forecast, on the basis of telephone data and Twitter and Facebook posts, when uprisings, social protests and other events will occur. 

Gus Hunt, the CIA's chief technology officer, made a forthright admission in March: "We fundamentally try to collect everything and hang onto it forever." What he meant by "everything," Hunt also made clear: "It is really very nearly within our grasp to be able to compute on all human-generated information," he said.

Seen on twitter : Prism is currently reported to be searching for Sara Connor.
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The Whistleblower vs Watership Down Syndrome

So that's what a real hero sounds like.

We don't talk much about freedom vs security up here in Canada, do we?
Sure we were taken aback when a 2009 RCMP mission statement colour-coded its surveillance subjects in advance of the G8/20 summit, warning of :

"notions/expectations regarding the environment, animal rights, First nations' resource-based grievances, gender/racial equality, and distribution of wealth etc."

... following which the Harper Government™ spent nearly $1-billion deploying 19,000 security personnel to make the largest mass arrest of 1,100 peaceful protesters in Canadian history.

But mostly we are pretty contented sufferers of Watership Down Syndrome : as long as the farmer supplies us with carrots on a more or less regular basis, we accept that some random noisome bunnies are going to get slipped a noose from time to time and, in exchange for a continued supply of carrots, we will never mention them again.

Then again, as Edward Snowden points out above, what happens when a new farmer makes changes to his end of the deal and it's too late for us to change ours?
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Glenn Greenwald on Democracy Now : A Massive Surveillance State

The National Security Agency has obtained access to the central servers of nine major internet companies -- including Google, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo and Facebook

The Guardian : The NSA Files

Michael Geist : Why Canadians Should Be Demanding Answers About Secret Surveillance Programs

The Sixth Estate : The Obama Snooping Scandal and the Inevitability of the Surveillance State and Mass Surveillance: Shamrock, Prism, and Supercomputers

Ian Welsh : The Logic of the Surveillance State

Juan Cole : PRISM : The US Government is mad at Bradley Manning for doing to it what it is doing to all of us

Ronald Diebert in the Star: U.S. online snooping: What Canadians need to know

Update : Touché from Purple Library Guy in comments :

"... except actually the bunnies got a better deal. In our case, we have a farmer who isn't actually supplying any carrots, just propagandizing us into fearing that if we don't let him keep doing his thing, some evil terrorist/commie/feminist/whatever will take our carrots away."

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Steve has been "very clear" ...

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Harper's Parade of Perps with Perks - Part 5

Updated : h/t Canadian Cynic

Welcome Con MPs Devinder Shory, James Bezan, Shelly Glover, and update! House Speaker Andrew Scheer to the growing family scandal of Steve's Parade of Perps with Perks.  

Devinder Shory, Calgary Northeast, accused of providing legal work that supported allegedly fraudulent mortgages - in his case at least five straw-buyer cases of more than $3.7 million:

Promised a payment of up to $8,000, hundreds of straw buyers, mostly new immigrants, allowed their names to be used to obtain falsely inflated mortgages on over 200 properties. When the straw buyers could not pay up, the bank would foreclose and the "masterminds" would walk away, wiring proceeds from the alleged fraud to Lebanon, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Dubai. 

[T]he Alberta Lawyers Insurance Association (ALIA) has agreed to pay $9.2 million to BMO to settle the case on behalf of all 17 lawyers named in the suit."

April 28 2014 Update : Two Con candidates hoping to challenge Devinder Shory appear to have had their nomination papers quashed by Dimitri Soudas to protect Shory.

Two years after the election, Elections Canada is still waiting for campaign expenses compliance from Manitoba Con MPs James Bezan and law 'n order gal Shelly Glover regarding documents that put them over the top of their allowed amounts ... just like Perp with Perks veteran Peter Penashue in Labrador. Both Glover and Bezan have filed court applications to prevent their being barred from the House by EC's Marc Mayrand while Con Party lawyer Arthur Hamilton wrangles their cases.

ETA : Dear Mr. Hamilton : Clawing back campaign staffers' pay a year later in order to get Glover under the spending limit wire in what you refer to as "an honest mistake of fact" seems a bit mean. I also fail to see how having election campaign signs up in places where the traffic is poor disqualifies their existence as, you know, election campaign signs.

Belated addition of House Speaker Andrew Scheer, MP, for sitting on Mayrand's formal letter of May 24 advising him Bezan and Glover were in violation of election law and therefore ineligible to sit in the House. Scheer did not advise the House and the next day Glover filed a court challenge, followed by Bezan. 
We the public of course would not have known about any of this if the media had not dug into it - hats off to Kady and McMaher.

Very good post from Dr.Dawg on whether rule of law still exists if a sitting government can flout it without repercussion. Whether the court finds any mitigating factors in Bezan and Glover's applications or not and regardless of Scheer's eventual ruling, the Cons will claim it a victory and continue on as they like. 

Running out of perp parade room here and the month is yet young ... I'm going to have to start setting out benches at the back for the next batch to stand on.

Previous editions/perps' bios
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Steve and the multinational man of mystery

I do hope someone is securing the rights to make a Made In Canada thriller about Stephen Harper's spy watchdog and his various business associates.

I'm referring of course to the Honorable Dr. Arthur Porter, "His Excellency, Ambassador Plenipotentiary, Republic of Sierra Leone" and also "Member, Queen’s Privy Council for Canada” for life.

Really, this cast of characters has everything -  spies, dictators, terrorists, Russians, drug cartels, arms dealers, diamond mines, bribery, money laundering.  

Here's a storyboard to get you started ...

2008 : Dr. Arthur Porter is appointed to five-member CSIS watchdog committee, SIRC, on recommendation of PMO. 

June 2009  SIRC committee member Arthur Porter appointed to lead investigation into complaint CSIS 'was complicit in the detention' of Abdelrazik" six years previously.
Investigation goes nowhere.

June 2010  Porter promoted to Chair of SIRC by Harper

Also in June 2010, Porter wired $200,000 in personal funds to former Israeli agent and international lobbyist/arms dealer Ari Ben-Menashe to secure a $120-million grant from Russia to build Russian port facilities in Porter's native Sierra Leone where his family have diamond mining interests. The offshore payment was made via one of Porter's private companies, the Africa Infrastructure Group, but the deal fell through. 
Mr. Ben-Menashe was charged in the US in 1989 with illegally attempting to sell three military transport airplanes to Iran but acquitted on the grounds he was acting on official Government of Israel business. 

Ben-Menashe testified he had personally witnessed George H. W. Bush attend a meeting with members of the Iranian government in Paris in October 1980, as part of a covert Republican Party operation — the so-called October Surprise — to have the 52 U.S hostages then held in Iran remain there until President Jimmy Carter, who was negotiating their release, had lost the 1980 presidential election to Ronald Reagan.

His house in Montreal was fire-bombed this past December.

During Porter's 2004 -2011 tenure as CEO at McGill University Health Centre, two former top executives at SNC-Lavalin allegedly authorized $22.5 million in payments related to getting the contract for a $1.3-billion superhospital expansion to Porter who was head of the selection committee. Payments were made to Sierra Asset Management Inc in the Bahamas at a bank run by a business associate of Porter's.

Nov 2011 Porter resigned from SIRC following the NaPo story on his dealings with Ben-Menashe and a month later from his position as CEO of McGill University Health Centre, where he left behind $300,000 in personal debts and a hospital with a $115-million deficit .
According to the McGill Daily, Porter sold the condo McGill fronted him half a million bucks to buy without paying back the $800,000 loan on the place.

Feb 2013 Arrest warrants issued for Porter for defrauding the government, accepting bribes, and money laundering in connection with alleged SNC Lavalin $22-million kickback to Porter via Sierra Assets Management to secure the hospital contract.  Also on the arrest warrant :

• Former MUHC director Yanai Elbaz.
• Former CEO of SNC-Lavalin Pierre Duhaime
• Former SNC-Lavalin VP Riadh Ben Aissa, in jail in Switzerland for the past year on suspicion of making bribes in return for contracts in Libya
• Jeremy Morris, Sierra Asset Management, Bahamas, 

SNC-Lavalin signed a deal to award Sierra Assets Management, formed in November 2009, 3 payments totaling $10-million for consultancy fees regarding a gas project in Algeria. The $1.2 billion Rhourde Nouss gas project deal was awarded to SNC  the same year by Sonatrach, Algeria’s national oil company.
Last Monday Algerian police raided SNC offices in Algiers regarding "allegations of bribery and kickbacks involving Sonatrach and public officials and agents hired by SNC-Lavalin to procure a number of large infrastructure projects."
FINTRAC, the Canadian federal agency that monitors money laundering, is investigating a trail of SNC payments to Porter and later Sierra Asset Management from 2007 to June 2012, six months after Porter left MUHC.


On May 27 Porter and his wife were arrested in Panama and are fighting extradition to Canada. Porter has stated he is too ill to leave his home in the Bahamas to fly all the way to Montreal to face charges, however he was seemingly well enough to embark on a business trip 1½ times that distance from Bahamas to Antigua, but was unfortunately nabbed en route in Panama.

Porter's Panamanian lawyer, Ricardo Bilonick Paredes, a former ambassador of Panama, testified at Manuel Noriega's 1991 trial that he :

"acted as a middleman between Manuel Noriega and Colombian drug cartels in the 1980s ... passing millions of dollars in bribes to Noriega, in exchange for the ability to fly planes packed with tons of cocaine from Panama to the United States."

Dr. Karol Sikora, Porter’s business partner at his medical cancer clinic in the Bahamas, was hired by the son of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2009 to give a medical opinion on the condition of the Lockerbie bomber, Abdel Baset al-Megrah - in prison for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.  Sikora secured al-Megrah's release from prison on compassionate grounds, testifying that he only had 3 months to live. Al-Megrahi lived another three years .

Currently Sikora is arguing Porter's self-diagnosed stage four lung cancer means he will not live long enough to stand trial.

Some have questioned how Steve could have displayed the poor judgement to appoint Dr. Arthur Porter, multinational man of mystery, to head up a sensitive position at SIRC giving him access to both Canadian and American intelligence.

You're kidding me, right?

May22 2014 update : National Post :
Arthur Porter and associate split $22.5M payout in ‘biggest corruption fraud in the history of Canada,’ Quebec inquiry hears

SNC-Lavalin made threats against Spanish bid rival

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