Legal loopholes - Bruce Carson, Nigel Wright, and Elections Canada

Elections Canada declined to recommend the RCMP investigate and prosecute electoral fraud cases in both 2008 and 2011 elections because, in the *opinion* of Elections Canada, the perps were unsuccessful in their attempt to sway the election results. They were crap at it so no harm no foul.

Yesterday Bruce Carson was acquitted of influence peddling under Section 121 of the Criminal Code - which prohibits anyone from using their influence with the government to obtain benefits for themselves or someone else - because although he approached Indian and Northern Affairs government officials to help set his girlfriend up with a 20% fee to sell water purification systems to First Nations, he approached the wrong people. He was crap at influence peddling so again, no harm, no foul.


This also partly explains I suppose why the RCMP never charged Nigel Wright, who shares lawyer Patrick McCann with Carson, with paying Mike Duffy off with a $90,000 cheque to "make this whole thing go away". It didn't go away, Nigel was crap at making it go away, so again - no harm, no foul.   

Canadian law apparently requires certain standards of felony competence from white collar perps before it is willing to take them seriously. If you can't be arsed to attain a bare minimum of professionalism in your chosen felony, Canadian law just isn't interested.  

This must piss off bank robbers no end. Busted at 4am surrounded by their safe-cracking tools and cops and blaring bank alarms does display a certain wont of proficiency at their chosen profession, yet Canadian law does not offer them the same consideration shown to those who attempt to undermine our elections, take personal advantage of their positions of influence, or buy off political cronies.

Bruce Carson still faces charges of influence peddling and being "the secret sauce" that enabled tarsands/extractive industry lobby group EPIC, according to their own presser, to successfully rewrite government regulations thatwere holding up tar their permits. 
According to the RCMP ITO, Carson allegedly lobbied Nigel Wright and Wayne Wouters, Clerk of the Privy Council, on behalf of EPIC for a salary of $10,000 a month. 

We await the court's decision on whether he was crap at that too.
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EPIC's epic NEP - Part 2

Con "fixer" Bruce Carson and Lib National Campaign Co-Chair Daniel Gagnier worked together on a national energy program for industry lobby group, the Energy Policy Institute of Canada, and have both given speeches and published numerous papers in support of it. 
Former EPIC president, now Senator, Doug Black was duly grateful :

"I would like to acknowledge our three vice chairs that presented our work to the energy ministers: Bruce Carson, Gerry Protti and Daniel Gagnier."

In light of EPIC's subsequent presser in 2012 (h/t Hugh) that :

"Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver announced legislative changes that would put EPIC's recommendations into federal law. Regulatory changes within omnibus Bill C-38 reflect recommendations of EPIC surrounding regulatory streamlining." 

... I thought we might take a look at a few of EPIC's regulatory streamlining recommendations and how they have shaped current Con policy on property rights, pipelines, public participation, and First Nations.

EPIC itself has been offline since last Thursday's press coverage of new RCMP allegations against former vice-chair Bruce Carson.
Tuesday Mar 11 Update :  EPIC's website is now a single blank page with a note saying HACKED BY and a very long name which seems to be Turkish.
Tuesday update #2 11am : EPIC website back up, listing same leadership as before. 

Let's start with Property Rights under the push for tarsands-to-tankers pipelines. 
Theirs, not yours. 
EPIC : Canadian Energy Strategy Framework, Page 31 :

"It is a well established common law principle that a right to mines and minerals includes the right to do all things necessary to work and recover the minerals. In other words, since a grant of mineral rights is essentially meaningless unless accompanied by the right to actually recover those minerals, it is assumed that the grant of mineral rights includes the right to recover the minerals as well.

Therefore, since an initial grant of mineral rights also conveys the right to recover the minerals, the regulatory scheme should focus on how these rights are exercised, not whether they can be exercised. Otherwise, the initial grant of rights would be rendered meaningless.

This does not suggest that a right to recover minerals provides the rights holder with a free pass to recover those minerals in any way they see fit, regardless of the environmental or social implications. It does suggest, however, that if recovering the minerals will necessarily result in certain and acceptable environmental effects, then the initial grant of rights should be interpreted as impliedly authorizing those effects."

I had never considered that mining or mineral rights automatically pre-approves accepting their resulting effects on the environment - as say the results from fracking - but EPIC cites the Aberta courts and Supreme Court of Canada as backing them up on this.

For what this looks like in real life, see: Alberta Mother Fights Five Neighbouring Fracked Wells (h/tMogs)

Back to EPIC :  

"If the regulatory scheme determines whether or not each resource development should be allowed to proceed based on equal consideration of environmental, social and economic factors, then the scheme is failing to take into account the previous acquisition of property rights and is disregarding long established legal principles relating to private property. "

Consideration of environmental and social factors subordinate to corporate rights to private property!
EPIC then extrapolates a further extension of those rights in getting product to market.

 "... just as there is a presumption that mineral rights-holders should be able to recover the minerals in question, there should also be a presumption that mineral rights-holders should be able to transport recovered minerals to market, such as through a pipeline. Otherwise, the mineral right would lose its inherent value. 

This does not mean that all proposed pipelines should automatically be approved without examination of environmental and socio-economic considerations. What the presumption does mean, however, is that the need for a pipeline required to move resources to market should be evident in the proposal itself, and that any proposed pipeline project that aims to connect a new supply basin to market must be evaluated with the understanding that a pipeline (though not necessarily the specific pipeline project being proposed) should be allowed to proceed to allow producers to access downstream markets.
Otherwise, the upstream mineral rights become worthless.

With respect to most renewable resource projects, pipelines, transmission lines and nuclear generation projects, similar logic should also apply.

Just as the initial grant of mineral rights creates a presumption that those rights
should be developed, a preliminary determination by elected public representatives that a renewable project, pipeline, transmission line or nuclear generation project is needed and in the interest of the province or country ought to create a presumption that the development should be allowed to proceed."

Wow. I wonder if that would obtain under legal challenge or if, as Steve would say, it's a "no-brainer".

And speaking of Steve : 

"Statements from the Prime Minister claiming that Canada should become an “energy superpower,” and his recent promotion of Canada as an energy supplier to China, are examples of the kind of leadership required, at least at a general policy level, to provide clear signals of the government’s intent to officials, regulators, industry and other governments."

Strong stable Steve gets a cookie. A fortune cookie. Public regulators get the point.

Tarsands-to-First Nations-to-Tankers Pipeline, Page 24 :

"The federal government needs to take a proactive role in negotiations with First Nations to ensure the national interest is effectively represented. [Well hello, Jim Prentice!]  Almost all potential opportunities for market diversification require new or expanded infrastructure and the collaboration of First Nations."

Tarsands-to-tankers-to-China, Page 25 :

"China, Korea and Taiwan are seeking more secure supplies of oil and natural gas. Both the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline and the Kinder-Morgan expansion in Vancouver could help to meet this growing Asian demand, and there is clearly an opportunity for even further capacity development."

Public participation, Page 52

"Joint review panels are a unique aspect of environmental assessments in Canada that have created a plethora of legal concern and given rise to significant delays and accompanying costs with no apparent benefit to the decision-making process. 

In addition, joint review panel members are often independent from the regulators and are divorced from governments’ overarching energy policy goals.  

The federal government must develop regulations that restrict participation in federal EA reviews to those parties that are directly and adversely affected by the proposal in question. 

... determining whether increasing energy infrastructure from Alberta to the west coast is in the Canadian public interest, but once that policy has been determined it should not be revisited in specific project reviews. Regulatory proceedings for specific projects should focus on the merits of the project and the evidence on the record. The only third parties that should be allowed to participate in these reviews are those parties that have the potential to be directly and adversely affected by the proposed project."

... which is exactly what we got in the pipelines hearings in BC. 

So there it is - EPIC's word made flesh in the Environmental Assessment Act 2012.

I guess EPIC's bragging rights about their influence on government legislation for their 38 energy member organizations wasn't an exaggeration at all. They wrote it.

To you small and large L liberals. I'm sure it's royally pissed you off that I've tarred Liberal national campaign co-chair Daniel Gagnier for his work with Bruce Carson. 
I don't much care about Carson - he's gone as a fixer for Steve. 
What I do care is that we now have Gagnier, representing EPIC's views since 2010 and currently their registered lobbyist and President , as still shown at EPIC as of Friday, fixing up a tarsands agenda for Trudeau.

Thank you for reading.
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EPIC's epic National Energy Program, Part one

Bruce Carson : "the secret sauce"

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EPIC's epic National Energy Program

After CBC reported that the RCMP had seized Bruce Carson's bank records as part of their investigation into his alleged illegal lobbying on behalf of the Energy Policy Institute of Canada, the policy think tank comprised of most of Canada's energy resource extraction corporations promptly went offline.  It's still offline.

This is not the first time poor old EPIC's website has melted away when struck by sunlight, only to reanimate a few days or weeks later with a member or two missing.

EPIC's whole purpose is to formulate a national energy program and get it implemented. 

Last night while I was reading their January 2011 report to government, A Strategy For Canada's Global Energy Leadership, [currently missing pages 11-26 and 29 and yes, I have no life], commenter Hugh left a link to their Aug 2012 presser announcing its release. 
Energy Policy Institute of Canada: Key Directions for a Canadian Energy Strategy Released    Excerpted, bold mine :

"EPIC's concentration on regulatory improvements were clearly laid out in draft documents presented to provincial and federal ministers in the summer of 2011 and, earlier this year, Federal Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver announced legislative changes that would put EPIC's recommendations into federal law. Regulatory changes within Bill C-38 reflect recommendations of EPIC surrounding regulatory streamlining." 

That would be Bill C-38, aka the Environmental Destruction Act, the 400 page omnibus budget bill fast-tracked by the Cons through the House and finance committee, amending or repealing 70 federal laws in a single bill, including gutting environmental legislation and, as EPIC boasts, streamlining the regulatory review process. 

As APTN reports, then EPIC president and now Senator Doug Black put it the previous year :

"I would like to acknowledge our three vice chairs that presented our work to the energy ministers: Bruce Carson, Gerry Protti and Daniel Gagnier."

Yeah, Team Tarsands :

• Bruce Carson, Harper's "The Fixer" inside the PMO, a lawyer disbarred for fraud in the 80's currently facing charges of influence peddling on behalf of his 22-year-old ex-sex worker fiancee to sell water purifiers to First Nations with polluted water, and also lobbying for millions in government grants within 5 years of leaving government. 
• Gerry Protti, founder of the oil industry lobby group the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and now head of the 100% industry-funded Alberta Energy Regulator, which streamlines the regulatory approval process for oil companies - the very recommendation touted in EPIC's presser and Global Energy Leadership report.
• Daniel Gagnier, active registered lobbyist for EPIC, go-between between Bruce Carson and Quebec Premier Charest in 2010, and now President of EPIC and Justin Trudeau's national co-campaign manager

Note : I have to catch a few hours sleep and go to work. In 12 hours or so I'll replace this note with some unpacking of EPIC's success at writing our national energy program with regard to importing workers to the tarsands, building a pipeline through BC,  etc  
Update : Scratch that. Got tl/dr, so new post instead - EPIC's epic NEP - Part 2

EPIC is not shy about naming the hurdles confronting their goal of making Canada a global energy superpower. In the meantime till I get back, here's a bit of their past research pointing out a few of them : 

1) A comparison of country's share of the total energy R&D investment budgets (in US $ millions) using combined data from 2007 and 2008:

2) Forecast for the US to become the world’s largest oil producer by 2017, and a net oil exporter by 2025

3)Estimated loss of $4 billion in federal tax revenue from discounted oil and gas prices

4)Direct employment in the energy industry in Canada in 2008 was approx. 2% of the labour force.

5)The energy supply sector accounted for approx. 7% of Canada's GDP in 2009.

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Bruce Carson : "the secret sauce"

~~~updated below~~~

"You are the secret sauce," Doug Black, President of the Energy Policy Institute of Canada, wrote to EPIC co-founder and Harper's disgraced "fixer" Bruce Carson.

Bruce Carson, former PMO staffer, has banking records seized by RCMP 

According to CBC yesterday, an RCMP affidavit alleges Carson illegally lobbied many of his former government colleagues - including Nigel Wright and Wayne Wouters, Clerk of the Privy Council - on behalf of EPIC, an industry lobby group of 38 energy resource members including Shell, Suncor, Enbridge, EnCana, Imperial Oil, Cenovus, ConoccoPhillips and Canadian Natural Resources, for a salary of $10,000 a month. 

Black responded, "Excellent. Need Nigel on side."

Interestingly, Bruce Carson and Nigel Wright share the same lawyer, Patrick McCann. 
Doug Black was appointed to the Senate last year.

EPIC's mandate was to produce an industry-led national energy strategy, which they did in 2011, and by June 2013 the 100% industry-funded Alberta Energy Regulator was set up with yet another EPIC vice chair and energy lobbyist as chair - Gerard Protti, founder of CAPP.

The EPIC leadership line-up from 2011:

Doug Black – EPIC President 

David Emerson – Chair 

Bruce Carson – Vice Chair 

Elyse Allan – Vice Chair - CEO of GE Canada  

Gerard Protti – Vice Chair - VP of EnCana, founder of CAPP 

Daniel Gagnier – Vice Chair - VP of Alcan

There's another interesting relationship in that line-up as well.

When Carson appeared before the Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment, and Natural Resources in April 2010, in addition to plumping for building a pipeline to move oil from Alberta to BC - Enbridge and TransCanada Pipelines are both member orgs of EPIC - Carson also made a pitch for smart meters. 

Nine months later on Jan. 25 2011, BC Hydro gave the first contract for its smart meter program to Corix Utilities, which (is) was at the time half-owned by CAI Capital Management Ltd. 

As it happens, yet another EPIC founding chair, David Emerson, was previously made a senior advisor to CAI Capital Management and then the following day he was named CEO and board chair of B.C. Transmission Corp., which "plans, operates and maintains the province's publicly-owned electrical transmission system" for BC Hydro. 

(BC Transmission was privatized by the BC Libs in 2003 and then reabsorbed back into BC Hydro at massive public cost in 2010)

                        

h/t Joyce Miller at Watershed Sentinel back in 2011 for Corix research.

Photo at top from Canada Ministry of Environment webpage shows Carson attending a meeting with then Environment Minister Jim Prentice and US Secretary of Energy Steven Chu two months after leaving Harper's office. 

updates : Welcome, Gazetteers!
with thanks for your wonderful link to Tyee Will McMartin's piece on Emerson, smart meters, CAI, and Corix.

APTN : Senior Trudeau advisor linked to Bruce Carson's alleged illegal lobbying: RCMP document

That would be Liberal National Campaign Co-Chair Daniel Gagnier from our 2011 list above - president of EPIC since sometime in 2012 and still  going  strong.

Poor old EPIC. Seems every time they get a little publicity, their website goes offline. It's been down since last night so here's a screencap taken yesterday.

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Bruce Carson and the tarsands fox - streamlining the henhouse

Yesterday the Edmonton Journal reported :

More than 75 environment officers who watched over oil industry activities left the provincial environment department this fall, to take higher paying jobs with the new industry-funded Alberta Energy Regulator. Another 75-plus are expected to leave in the spring.
In mid-November, the department also began handing over to the regulator thousands of files on oil industry activity pertaining to the Public Lands Act, according to documents obtained by the Journal. 

This shift in staffing and the moving of years of files out of a government department to the new arm’s length regulator are key steps in the government’s plan, announced last spring, to create a more streamlined approval process for oil companies that wanted “one window” to get permits for new projects.

The article notes that the chair of the 100% industry-funded Alberta Energy Regulator, Gerard Protti, is "a founder of the oil industry lobby group, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers." He also spent 15 years as an executive officer of EnCana Corporation. 

Not mentioned in the article, or in Protti's bio at the AER, is that in 2011 Gerard Protti and disgraced Harper advisor/fraudster/fixer Bruce Carson were both vice-chairs of the oil industry lobby group EPIC, Energy Policy Institute of Canada, and produced a paper calling for exactly the "streamlined approval process for oil companies" that the new Alberta Energy Regulator is mandated to deliver.

EPIC : A Strategy for Global Leadership, Jan 2011

"Streamline Canada's regulatory processes to end overlap, duplication, and delays which can negatively impact Canada's competitiveness and productivity. This could be accomplished by implementing a one-project, one-process review to end duplication in regulatory regimes within one level of government and between governments ..."

Also not mentioned is that as EPIC's representative, Protti registered as a federal lobbyist from July 2012 to April 2013 to lobby for :

"a philosophical energy strategy that is adopted politically and then motivates regulatory activity in terms of economic development, energy and the environment."

to

• Canadian Coast Guard (CCG)
• Environment Canada (EC)
• Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO)
• National Energy Board (NEB)
• Natural Resources Canada (NRCan)
• Prime Minister's Office (PMO)
• Privy Council Office (PCO)

And voilà, in June 2013 the Alberta Energy Regulator is proclaimed with Protti as chair.

Jan. 28 Update : From Dec. 2012 to March 31 2013, Protti was hired by DFO to help negotiate transfer of Experimental Lakes Area.

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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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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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Harper's Parade of Perps with Perks - Part 4

Please welcome Senators David Tkachuk, Marjory LeBreton and Carolyn Stewart Olsen to the growing family scandal of Steve's Parade of Perps with Perks.  Click to enjoy.

While Steve is still going with the lone topgun chief of staff on the Duffy knoll with the chequebook story from his temporary hideout in South America, his perps at home are busy fucking that up for him. 

We were most relieved to hear from Senator Tkachuk that even though he was soliciting advice from the Prime Minister's Office on how to do his audit of Duffy, and Nigel Wright was calling him up wanting to know "When is this thing over with?", Senator Tkachuk assures us that "no one came to my room and told me what to do."

Well that's good to know but with Steve's former-press-secretary-now-Senator Carolyn Stewart Olsen spearheading the Duffy audit whitewash/rewrite in the steering committee for you, your own room was pretty well always safe, wasn't it? 

That whitewashed audit is now winging its way back to the same perps for further review and Steve's buddy, government leader in the senate Marjory LeBreton, has refused to open the hearings, complaining she lives in a town "populated by Liberal elitists and their lickspittle media” and is not getting enough credit for opening up the senate to Steve's scandal.

Excellent piece on this from Mound of Sound

Updated Perps with Perks and their bios.
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Harper's Parade of Perps with Perks - Part 3

Please welcome Nigel Wright, Steve's chief of staff on loan from Onex Corp and the latest member of Harper's Parade of Perps with Perks, for secretly cutting Mike Duffy a $90,000 personal cheque to paper over the senate investigation and Deloitte audit into Mike Duffy's creative housing expense claims and reports he billed the Senate for travel while campaigning for the Cons .

Duffy isn't co-operating with the investigations now he has the cash but that didn't stop House leader Peter Van Loan from praising him for his "leadership" in returning money that didn't belong to him. 
Duffy : 

"It's become a major distraction so my wife and I discussed it and we decided that in order to turn the page and put all this behind us, we are going to voluntarily pay back the living expenses related to the house we have in Ottawa"

Ah yes the Royal Bank loan and the PMO instruction to keep his little head down.
Unfortunately Duffy then blabbed around town about his secret cheque from Wright.

So which is it then? A bank loan or a personal cheque from Steve's chief of staff? 
Both? Given he purportedly has secured the bank loan to cover the senate repayment, what's the cash bonanza from Nigel Wright for exactly?

“The PM was not aware of the specifics,” Andrew MacDougall, Mr. Harper’s director of communications, has said of this transaction when asked.

I think that's called implausible deniability.

Nigel Wright, a founding director of the Manning Centre for Building Democracy, has resigned.
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Updated Perps with perks and their bios.

Arrgh update. Typo correction : That should have been "a founding director"; without that "a", it made him sound like the only one.  Apologies.
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Harper's Parade of Perps with Perks

Time to update Harper's Parade of Perps again, says Canadian Cynic.
Ok then ... let's add three more to make it an even ten Parade of Perps with Perks.

New entrant below the still unidentified Mr RoboCon is Saskatchewan Senator Pamela Wallin, seen here in 2000 advertizing her stint as host of  Who Wants to Buy a Millionaire? in New York where she owns an apartment. Senator Wallin is not currently being investigated for clocking $321,027 in "other" senate travel expenses because she does visit her Saskatchewan residence even she holds an Ontario residency health card just like PEI Senator Mike Duffy. However the former investigative journalist does not want to discuss it, explaining it's a "point of privacy". 

Between Duffy and Bruce Carson stands Labrador MP and Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Peter Penashue, who resigned from both yesterday following reports of illegal overspending and accepting corporate contributions disguised as individual donations in his 79-vote win over the Liberal incumbent in the last election. The Conservative Party transferred $44,350 to his campaign last November and this month to cover his overspending repayment debts.
Penashue explained that "mistakes were made by an inexperienced volunteer" - Reg Bowers, the campaign's official agent - who was subsequently appointed by Resources Minister Joe Oliver to the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board. The CNLOPB bio describes Bowers as "having extensive business involvement" and "a Bachelor of Commerce" as well as "post secondary work with the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants." Still, you know ... math.
Penashue intends to have a do-over election, presumably before Elections Canada gets around to finishing an investigation which could bar him from running for election again.
Yesterday a Conservative Party spokesman explained : Nice riding you got there, Labrador, be a shame if something happened to it :

He will be the Conservative Party candidate in the by-election and if Newfoundland and Labrador want to continue to have a strong voice within government they need to re-elect him as the Member of Parliament for Labrador.

Under Steve is Dean Del Mastro, Steve's parliamentary secretary and pointman on the robocall election scandal, being investigated over his $21,000 personal cheque to Frank Hall at Holinshed Research Group for voter ID/GOTV services. Ah, I see the Frank Hall vid I reposted a month ago is "no longer available" at Youtube. So how's the rest of the RCMP/Elections Canada investigation into Del Mastro's scandal-ridden 2008 election campaign going, huh?
Fun fact : Del Mastro has now missed 26 consecutive Ethics committee meetings.

Well that's all for now, folks. Stay tuned though - it's only March.

Update : Collect the whole set!
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Harper's parade of perps

Notable how many of Steve's patronage peeps are grifters, conmen, or alleged perps .

Starting from the left ... picture updated to include Pierre Poutine and the robocon network [h/t Beijing York in comments] - no charges and no arrests, 21 months and counting... 

Dr. Arthur Porter, "His Excellency, Ambassador Plenipotentiary, Republic of Sierra Leone", also Harper-appointed chair of CSIS watchdog SIRC and lead investigator into CSIS' treatment of Abdelrazik. Money once paid to former Israeli arms trafficker to sell infrastructure deals to Sierra Leone, and now subject of an arrest warrant for fraud, money laundering and bribes/kickbacks in connection with SNC Lavelin's successful bid to build a $1.3-billion hospital in Montreal.
Viv Toews, minister responsible for CSIS and SIRC, says somehow it's the fault of the NDP and Libs.

Senator Mike Duffy, Harper-appointed lollypop, whose very useful 2008 election coverage included running Stephane Dion's three time stumbled interview restarts 5 days before election day. Duffy now being investigated for his housing expenses as a senator due to apparently having no idea which province he lives in.

Bruce Carson, Harper's "The Fixer". A lawyer disbarred for fraud in the 80's, Carson was charged last year with influence peddling on behalf of his 22-year-old ex-callgirl fiancee - the only bit anyone remembers - to sell water purifiers to First Nations and lobbying for a $25 million government grant within 5 years of leaving government. 

Senator Patrick Brazeau, 38, suspended from the Senate he barely attended with full salary. Dodgy alleged financial record going into the Senate, now highlighted by sexual assault arrest and an investigation into questionable Senate housing expenses. 

Tom Flanagan, Harper's one-time Calgary School mentor and election mastermind. Fired from CBC and on leave from U of Calgary till retirement since yesterday for framing the watching of child pornography as a victimless crime and an issue of 'personal liberty'. Accused Paul Martin of supporting child pornography during 2004 election. Toast but his legacy lives on.

Con MP Rahim Jaffer, once Harper's Chair of Con Caucus. Ran election campaign ads accusing Jack Layton of being soft on marijuana. When Jaffer arrested for drunk driving, cops and defense lawyers couldn't agree whether the cocaine was in Jaffer's pants pocket or in his jacket pocket so he got off.

Nathan Jacobson, busted in the US in 2008 for fraud, $46-million in money laundering, and running online no-prescription pharmacies, but neglected to tell his Canadian hosts he was a fugitive due back in US to serve his sentence. Arrested in Toronto last October. 
Nice photos of Jacobson with Harper and Benjamin Netanyahu presumably no longer available on government website. 

As noted at DJ, Con propaganda machine stressed to the breaking point here but Steve still scraping them off when and only when their public behavior becomes an embarrassment. 
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A further updated picture : Harper's Parade of Perps with Perks

Update : Collect the whole set!
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