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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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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