Brownbag Jesus - Mulroney, Del Mastro, and Dykstra

Jason Kenney's parliamentary secretary Rick Dykstra and Steve's former parliamentary secretary Dean Del Mastro yuck it up here at a Del Mastro legal fees fundraiser headlined by brownbagging Muldoon and subsidized by you as political contributions.

"These were funds that were raised separately and essentially moved through the EDA. They were put into the EDA and moved straight back out again " 

explained Alan Wilson, head of the Peterborough Conservative electoral district association, without once using the phrase in-and-out scheme to describe the apparently legal tax receipts they issued to the $600-a-plate donors after funneling them through the EDA in May 2013. Del Mastro's brother Doug sits on the board. 

Del Mastro, found guilty on three counts of violating the Canada Elections Act including faking documents to cover it up, will be sentenced along with his accountant to fuck all this Friday. He resigned his seat in the House of Commons two weeks ago in a move that allows him to retain his pension of some $44,000+ per year starting in the year 2025. 

Why, Mr. Speaker. Why?

In 1997, Brian Mulroney, PM of Canada from 1984 to 1993, received a $2.1-million defamation settlement from the taxpayers of Canada for unproven RCMP allegations that Mulroney had accepted bribes in the Airbus affair concerning government contracts. Mulroney testified under oath that he "never had any dealings" with arms dealer Karlheinz Schreiber, knew him only "peripherally" and they had a cup of coffee "once or twice." 

Ten years later, Mulroney admitted to having received three secret payments of $1000 dollar bills in brown paper bags from his business partner Schreiber. Totalling $225,000 to $300,000 and beginning when he was still a member of parliament, this represents a much smaller haul than he received from us for not having disclosed this information under oath ten years earlier .

Jason Kenney attended the above funder but not shown in photo.

Update : Peterborough Examiner takes a closer look at the numbers :

"The Examiner reported shortly after the dinner in 2013 that roughly 120 tickets had been sold.
Yet the financial returns for the riding association for 2013 show 53 people bought tickets. Of those, 23 people - including Brian Mulroney - bought two tickets, while the rest were single ticket-buyers.
It all adds up to 75 tickets sold. [Note : 76, actually]
It's unclear why the initial reports of 120 tickets sold do not agree with the riding association's financial return, and Wilson wouldn't comment."

Are 44 tickets missing payment and if so, were tax receipts issued for them?
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RoboConduct Unbecoming : To Canada from North Dakota

3 days before polls opened in the last federal election, Elections Canada officials were using the word "scam" to describe election irregularities, making this statement from the EC commish throwing in the towel two weeks after the election even before any investigation is  begun all the more astonishing :

 Commissioner of Canada Elections May 16, 2011

"There was no conduct reported that would bring into question the integrity of the election result overall or the result in a particular riding. Although misconduct was reported in several ridings, there is no complaint that it affected the overall result. There is some speculation in the media that the dirty tricks may have affected the result in some close contests.

The investigation of complaints regarding web based conduct - particularly third party conduct - is difficult, time consuming and may be inconclusive. The same applies to telephone communications that flow through intermediaries and foreign call centres. Consequently, the dirty tricks complaints which definitely occurred may not be resolvable, if the conduct is illegal under the Act."

Foreign call centres.

Back in March, Dean Del Mastro gaffed when he mistakenly accused Liberal MP Joe Volpe's campaign of using a foreign call centre from "North Dakota’s 701 area code". 
Amusingly it turned out to be Del Mastro and 13 other Cons who used Ohio-based Republican call centre Front Porch Strategies to help win their 14 ridings.

So given that the Cons are prone to blaming others for what they themselves get up to, let's have a look at just where North Dakota showed up in our last election.

There's the now famous "Idiot, he can hear us" call from North Dakota directing a Winnipeg Centre voter to the wrong polling station. The voter recalled overhearing "people discussing voters in Ontario, particularly Guelph and Thunder Bay."

Liberal MP Joe Volpe asked Elections Canada to formally investigate reports that residents in his Eglinton-Lawrence riding were being harassed by repeated calls from someone with a North Dakota phone number claiming to represent his campaign. 

Kingston Ontario residents reported being woken up at 2am by callers claiming to be from the Liberal Party, ditto calls on Easter Sunday, and being sent to the wrong polling station. Some of these calls were traced to a North Dakota calling centre.

Joyce Murray, MP for Vancouver Quadra said “several” supporters in her riding got late-night calls from people purporting to be Liberals who were “harassing and rude.” The calls came from a number in North Dakota.

London West candidate Doug Ferguson reported calls from Florida and the Dakotas " repeatedly asking them to take Liberal lawn signs. Also on election day, we had calls from people saying they'd received calls saying the polls had been moved."

The Barrie Liberal campaign office reported complaints about calls at 11:30 at night and 6:30am purporting to come from the Liberal Party. Call*69 showed the call came from South Dakota.

Lib MP Mr. Wilfert’s campaign office in Richmond Hill received an automated message two days before the election, showing a number from North Dakota. 

Voters in Ottawa-Orleans reported live calls and robocalls - rude, late at night,claiming to be from the Liberal Party - from North Dakota and Montana. 

Well you get the idea.

800 notes lists over a thousand complaints about North Dakota phone number 701-509-8703 - mostly to do with credit card scams and phishing. Two thirds down page one is this one dated Mar 27 2011 (h/t commenter Lexy at Sixth Estate) : 

followed up on April 14 by a concerned Andrew Gill campaign person asking for more info.

Liberal candidate Andrew Gill ran against Con MP Rick Dykstra in St Catherines in the last election.

“We had a ton of people call in during the campaign saying they got harassing phone calls all hours of the day and night,” Andrew Gill said, “over-the-top aggressive” calls. “The way we took it is they were trying to make our campaign look bad.”

Mr. Dykstra, now Parliamentary Secretary to Jason Kenney, has been mentioned on Creekside before in connection with rw US Republican robocallers Front Porch Strategies doing doorknocking for him in his riding, as well as his campaign manager joining FPS as the Canada-US liaison. 

Which is I think where we came in.

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RoboCon Republican edition update

Been just over a month now since I posted this picture of Front Porch Strategies President Matthew Parker sitting in the Vaughn campaign offices of Con MP Julian Fantino with a phone to his ear, a pencil in his hand, and a paper with the header "Election Day is Monday May 2nd - You Can Vote Now" in front of him during the last federal election.
The FPS caption reads : "Matt lending a hand for MP Fantino here in the greater Toronto area (GTA)"

I also mentioned a FPS tweet about their door knocking for Con MP Rick Dykstra plus some of FPS's other Republican pet causes.

Dave over at the Beav was bothered by this. Exactly how, he asked, did the Ohio boys' adventures in the Canadian election square with the Canada Elections Act prohibition on Non-interference by Foreigners?  

331. No person who does not reside in Canada shall, during an election period, in any way induce electors to vote or refrain from voting or vote or refrain from voting for a particular candidate unless the person is(a) a Canadian citizen; or(b) a permanent resident within the meaning of subsection 2(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

Good question. I fired off a letter to Elections Canada but did not receive a reply. Well, they have been pretty busy.

Two weeks later, student journos at Brock Press were wondering the same thing and Sun journalist Stephen Lautens had a go at unpacking the EC's language on violating the Elections Act. 

Four days ago : Vancouver Observer, April 9 :
Tories may have broken 2011 election rules with US Republican campaigners in Ontario
including this response from Front Porch Strategies' "Canadian liaison": 

“They were in Ontario for a day and a half (in April), for the purpose of acquiring new clients,” political consultant Jim Ross told the Vancouver Observer. “They knocked on doors for roughly an hour with Rick [Dykstra], traditional canvassing to identify support. While waiting for a delayed meeting they made roughly 30 minutes worth of phone calls for Minister Fantino, again to identify support.
“Other than teleforums, brief incidental volunteerism as described above over the course of a day and a half that was mostly spent trying to acquire new clients. There was no other involvement.”

Good for VO for getting a response from FPS 'Canadian liaison Jim Ross' but I think they might have mentioned that he was also Con MP Rick Dykstra's campaign manager in the last election before he made the jump to FPS. in November 2011. FPS is not alleged to have committed any improper use of live calls or robocalls.

Today Kady is on it. After also failing to get an answer from EC, she slogged through "through every election-related bill introduced in Parliament since 1997...in hopes of coming across even a parenthetical reference to S331 that would shed light on its original purpose" and comes up thwarted as to what the MPs who drafted and amended it actually intended. 

In other cross-border telemarketing news, FPS was awarded a 'Pollie' -  the US political PR industry's Oscar - in Texas this month for their telemarketing success in getting the National Holocaust Monument bill through Canadian parliament.
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