Con leakage

Impolitical mops up the latest embarrassing Con leakage -Con MP Kelly Block's staffer Russell Ullyatt who was fired for leaking drafts of confidential Finance Committee reports to at least four Con-connected industry lobbyists.
"I heart you," one of them wrote back to Ullyatt on receipt of his "Thought you'd like to see this in its infancy" covering note.

So whenever CBC's Power and Politics is done wrapping up its important coverage of the opinions of the Bonhomme mascot, here are a few other connections the CBC might consider following. After all, Ullyatt may well have only taken up leaking confidential docs to industry lobbyists for the very first time this week but given he's been swimming in the Con pool for some years now, it wouldn't hurt to ask, would it?

Prior to being hired by Brock, leaker Russell Ullyatt was employed as Senior Special Assistant to Secretary of State Helena Guergis (Foreign Affairs and International Trade).
In 2008 Ullyatt was campaign manager for Con MP Rob Clarke, the former RCMP sergeant who made the news when a "uniformed RCMP officer was spotted delivering campaign signs out of an RCMP truck".

The leaked docs recipients

Lynne Hamilton, former Mike Harris alumnus now a VP at GCI Group, and author of the "I heart you" note.
The GCI Group Leadership Team page lists Ken Boessenkool, former Senior Policy Advisor to Stephen Harper, as Senior Counsel. Hamilton's bio :

7 years at Hill & Knowlton plus previous government posts :
Chief of Staff to the Ontario Associate Minister of Health and Long-Term Care
Ontario Ministry of Northern Development
Environment Ministry media coordinator in 2000 for the Walkerton water tragedy
Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Tourism -"handled the corporate
restructuring of over 40 companies for the Government"
Ontario Premier’s office co-ordinating the daily issue binder for question period.

Tim Egan, CEO at the Canadian Gas Association.

Founding director of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project aka Not Really Science People - the Tim Ball and Tom Harris climate change skeptics group. Former President of the High Park Group, a Toronto-based lobby organization of which Tom Harris is the former head of its Ottawa office.

Clarke Cross, senior consultant with Tactix Group and former Legislative Assistant to Con/Alliance MPs James Lunney and Leon Benoit

Andy Gibbons of Hill and Knowlton , also formerly a legislative assistant to Con MP Leon Benoit.

Con cabinet ministers and the former political insiders who are now paid to lobby them - you can see how Russell Ullyatt might easily have got the two email lists confused. If only there was some sort of rule to keep the two separate.
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The Cons : Six days in a leaky boat

Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt's communications director leaves a binder of documents marked "Secret" about the nuclear industry behind at CTV News following interview with Raitt. She resigns.

Same communications director leaves tape recorder behind in House of Commons washroom. Enclosed tape had been left on accidentally and is said to have recorded Raitt making disparaging comments about Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq.
Ex-communications director is in court right now to prevent the Halifax Chronicle Herald from publishing contents of tape. Official government position : "Nothing to do with us."

Four board members at the Toronto Port Authority reported that when Lisa Raitt was its CEO, lunch could cost nearly $1000 and management approved their own expenses.
ETA : Transport Minister John Baird responded by changing the TPA constitution to add two new board members the day after parliament was shut down so Steve wouldn't lose his job prorogued in December, putting the four complaining board members in a minority position. Olivia Chow alleges move was a cover-up to protect Lisa Raitt.

Steve gets busted by whistleblower who forwards docs to Le Devoir confirming the HarperCon strategy at the 2007 Climate Change Conference in Bali to surreptitiously undermine the Bali agreement on greenhouse gas reductions while publicly appearing to support it. Strategy consisted of sowing division among European nations - Boris nails it.

I have to go out for a little bit. If there are any further leaks while I'm gone, please leave me a message in comments.
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4:30 Update : The Chronicle Herald -1, Lisa Raitt's ex-aide -0 :
On the now partially published tape which you can listen to at the above link, Raitt and MacDonnell discuss Raitt's political opportunities dealing with the isotope "crisis" :

"We had to control the agenda."

"It's sexy. Radioactive leaks. Cancer. Nuclear contamination"

Raitt :

"Because when we win on this, we get all the credit. I’m ready to roll the dice on this. This is an easy one. You know what solves this problem? Money. And if it’s just about money, we’ll figure it out. It’s not a moral issue."

Oh dear. Cancer and nuclear contamination as sexy career opportunities.
Plus there's a bonus Oh dear for Iggy :

"Ms. Raitt tells the man driving them around Victoria that Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff had backed down from defeating the Conservative government on a budget a few days earlier because he got a message from Canadian bankers.

"They did it at the Canadian Council of (Chief) Executives, there was three presidents of major banks who stood up in the room — and this is not from cabinet so I can talk about it — stood up and said, 'Ignatieff, don’t you even think about bringing us to an election,' " said Ms. Raitt.
"'We don’t need this. We have no interest in this. And we will never fund your party again.' That was very powerful. So he heard it from very powerful people in the industry. He was definitely muzzled."

Ooops. And here I thought the CCCE controlling the ConservaLiberals was supposed to be just a tinfoil hatful of bloggy conspiracy theories.
January. That would put it right about when Iggy snuffed the coalition of opposition parties.
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Steve and Sandra motivate their troops

What? You never wondered what might be playing on some of those little earpieces that everyone's wearing in Question Period ?

Six days in a leaky boat

Seems like we may have ourselves a Tory whistleblower or two.

One : Baird's long-awaited environment initiative speech is mistakenly sent to the fax machine in the Liberal's lobby two days before he is due to make it public.

Two : An office temp allegedly leaks the framework of upcoming environment legislation to the media.

Three : Ministers' photo ops, green policy price tags, and itineraries for the next few months are leaked to the media.

Four : The Con's secret dirty tricks manual, aka Chaos For Dummies, is leaked to Don Martin at the National Post.

Five : Someone leaks to Canada Press that the government has "ordered all committee chairs to return their copies of the [dirty tricks] handbook, apparently in a bid to determine who broke confidence."

Some are predicting that Steve will shut down the HoC till fall, before anything else spills out.
Hey, it worked for BC Premier Gordon Campbell.

H/T Scott Tribe