Christy Clark and the Manning Centre for Building Conservatives

In March 2012, Christy Clark gave the opening remarks to the Ottawa Manning Centre Networking Conference, the yearly "conservative family reunion".

She was introduced by her then chief of staff, former senior Harper advisor, Enbridge lobbyist, and Alberta 'firewall manifesto' signatory Ken Boessenkool, who was her very first campaign manager back in 2010. 

"We have a duty to Canada" to easy the flow of products to Asia, she told her audience at the Manning Centre [a year ago]. "We support pipelines in British Columbia."

BC Conservative leader John Cummins was not invited.

Manning has in the past said he doesn’t support the political ambitions of Cummins, who was elected as a Reformer with Manning in the 1993 election, because vote-splitting on the centre-right always makes it easier for the NDP to assume power.

One-time Harper government cabinet minister, Jay Hill, also said Friday he’s backing Clark’s leadership. “I’ll do whatever I can to support her and support the B.C. Liberals."

Preston Manning, founder of the Reform Party and President of the Manning Centre, is also a senior fellow at the Koch-funded Fraser Institute.

Jay Hill was in charge of the Cons 200 page dirty tricks manual on how to disrupt and stonewall parliamentary committees back in 2007.

Also helping Christy's campaign was Chuck Strahl, former BC Reform and Con MP, now chair of the Manning Centre and chair of CSIS watchdog the Security Intelligence Review Committee since last June, at which time he had to give up working for Christy.

The only pollster to accurately predict Tuesday's election result was Christy's principal secretary and ADM in charge of "Intergovernmental Relations" till a year ago and now on contract to Christy, former Reform and Republican policy advisor Dimitri Pantazopoulos.

Premier’s Office targeted crucial election ridings for the B.C. Liberals — all on government time and your dime

"Premier Christy Clark’s former principal secretary, Dimitri Pantazopolous, and former deputy chief of staff Kim Haakstad were among those involved in a comprehensive strategy that used government staff and resources to try to win swing ridings for the BC Liberals ...  serious misconduct by government employees and misuse of government funds.   

“Dimitri was the driving force behind the swing teams, from its inception through to the operational phase."

Pantazoploulos also runs the Manning Centre Municipal Governance Project and is mentioned by Calgary developer Cal Wenzel in the now infamous cel vid about buying the campaigns of developer-friendly municipal candidates in order to defeat Calgary Mayor Nenshi.

On Ken Boessenkool's twitter account at Kool, Topp, & Guy Public Affairs - the political consultancy firm formed in February - Christy's former chief of staff Ken Boessenkool and Christy's election advisor Don Guy are busy congratulating Nick Kouvalis of Campaign Research on Christy Clark's federal ConservaLiberal campaign win.  
The third partner in the firm is BC NDP campaign director Brian Topp.

and a quick tweet from Rob Ford's chief of staff Mark Towhey:

You do remember Nick Kouvalis from Campaign Research,  don't you ? 

In addition to being Rob Ford's election architect, Kouvalis is a regular speaker at ... wait for it ... the Manning Centre yearly bunfest.

Fun fact :  Founding directors of the Manning Centre for Building Democracy :

• Nigel Wright, Harper's chief of staff, currently in the news for cutting Con senator Mike Duffy a $90,000 personal cheque to cover money the Duffster owed to the Senate for inappropriately claimed living expenses for the past four years while Duffy was being investigated for it,  and 
• Gwyn Morgan, Chairman of the Board of SNC Lavalin til May 2 this year, the company being investigated for fraud in four countries on three continents, was Steve's choice for heading up his brand new Accountability commission in 2006.

Manning Centre : "Congratulations to Christy Clark on a spectacular victory. The election of a non-socialist government in BC is in the best interests of BC and Canada."
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Keeping score on Facebook

When Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament started up on Facebook last week, supporters of last year's Canadians Against a Liberal/NDP Coalition Gov't were all very dissy about it : We got 127,000 members in less than a week - crowed BloggingTory Stephen Taylor - the largest Canadian FB group evah!

Of course now that CAPP membership has reached 140,000 150,000, they've gone all 'well fuck facebook then', and the National Post is plumping for the 163 Canadians Who Don't Care if Harper is Proroguing Parliament Give a Rat's Ass About It
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As CC points out, the prorogue FB support group are of course the real competition to CAPP and not the anti-coalition group, but Susan Delacourt points out an important difference between anti-prorogue group and the anti-coalition group for us anyway (h/t Dammit Janet) :

"This new Facebook group is counting on people to educate themselves about parliamentary tradition, practice and principle. The old Facebook group was organized around the notion of 'never mind parliamentary rules about majority/minority and confidence, this thing is wrong.'

In other words, you have to understand basic rules of Parliament to understand why this prorogation is unusual; you had to ignore parliamentary rules to argue the coalition was wrong."

And right there Susan nails the basic difference between progressives and the ReformaTories.
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It's either Sensenbrenner or Mr.Mustard in the Library

Days after an internal probe by the Clerk of the Privy Council Office Kevin Lynch failed to determine the source of the Naftagate leak, James Travers at The Star reported that "Multiple sources say the Canadian note questioning the Democrat frontrunner's public promise to reopen NAFTA was leaked from the Prime Minister's Office" to Frank Sensenbrenner, a Republican who worked at the Canadian embassy in Washington.

Now Sensenbrenner's father, James, introduced the notorious U.S. Patriot Act as chair of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, but just how did his son Frank appear in our midst?

"[Frank] Sensenbrenner was introduced to senior embassy officials by Gerry Chipeur, a Calgary-based lawyer who was once legal counsel to the Reform and Canadian Alliance parties, the antecedents of today's Conservative party.

Chipeur, a dual citizen who headed the Republicans Abroad Canada, also has deep ties to the evangelical community in both countries and prominent U.S. Republicans, including Kansas Senator Sam Brownback.

The entrée of Sensenbrenner into Canadian diplomatic circles was forged at the Republican National Convention in New York in 2004, where members of the Canadian embassy and Conservative officials such as Day, Chipeur, Alberta MP Jason Kenney and John Reynolds, co-chair of the Tory 2006 election campaign, all attended.

Sensenbrenner had cut his political teeth in Canada, attending private college in the Toronto area and attending early Reform party conventions where he first befriended those in then-leader Preston Manning's inner circle.

The push to get him on the payroll came particularly from Day, sources said, when he took over the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative file, the name given to the Republican move to require all Canadians crossing the U.S. land border to carry passports or secure driver's licences."
~ Tim Harper at The Star

I had no idea Day, Kenney, and Reynolds attended the U.S. Republican National Convention but I can't say I'm surprised. This old boys network is already so 'deeply integrated' they can't imagine what's taking the rest of Canada so long to catch up.

Frank Sensenbrenner has since denied having a role in the leak of the Canadian consular memo.
So due to that internal Privy Council Office probe which protects the Cons from having to answer any difficult questions, we're back to Mr. Mustard in the Library again.

Cleavage-gate.

yeah, you were awesome too baby ... hey, did i leave some shit there last night? ***

BT Stephen Taylor is pleased that this whole sordid business of biker chicks and microphones allegedly planted in the seams of mattresses is now solidly behind us :

"By clearing the deck of the Bernier issue, the Prime Minister’s office will construct a narrative of promptly dealing with issues of substance and holding the line on fabrications from the opposition...Today was a bad day for Conservatives, but it represents an opportunity for the government move forward on its agenda without this distraction."

Yeah! - "moving forward", "constructing a narrative", "promptly dealing with issues".

So what have you got for us?

Ottawonk, from whom I pillaged the above pic and ***, notes that according to this Government House Leader page, next week is "Sound Economic Management Without a Carbon Tax Week", tastefully accompanied over at the ReformaTory homepage with this pic.

Oh. So it's Business as Usual with Funny Hats Week vs boobs then, is it?

I dunno, Mr Taylor, but I'm gonna hafta go with Cleavage-gate here. Boob stories always have more legs.

Ottawonk - wicked funny on this - Go