RoboCon : Skippy vs Lenny

"What happens," asked the Ottawa Citizen, "when a “Pierre Poutine”-style robo-caller, like the automated system that sent Guelph voters to the wrong polls in 2011, meets a robo-responder like Lenny?"

"Every minute Pierre Poilievre's telemarketer spent with our recording was time she wasn't bothering someone at dinner."

And we thank you for that, Alberta software developer Mango 

The telemarketer calling here on behalf of the re-election campaign of Pierre Poilievre, champion of the Fair Elections Act, told "Lenny" she was from "Campaign Support". 

Guelph-based "Campaign Support" made calls into Liberal MP Irwin Cotler's Mont-Royal riding in the fall of 2011 suggesting that Cotler may be resigning so how's about you support our Steve in a non-existent upcoming by-election? 

From Campaign Research principal and Conservative strategist Nick Kouvalis' affidavit : 

“The calls were conducted under the business name of Campaign Support, which is a business name registered by Campaign Research for the specific purpose of conducting telemarketing activities.”

Cotler was not of course considering resigning at the time and kicked up a stink about the dirty tricks telephone campaign in the HoC. 
House Speaker and $8198.79 Campaign Research client Andrew Scheer dismissed the campaign as "reprehensible" but not actionable, thereby preserving Campaign Research's other founding principal - Richard Ciano, president of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario - from being dragged into any committee investigation of his firm's actions.  

Kouvalis, also former campaign chair and chief of staff to Mayor Rob Ford, promptly went on CTV to explain that his job is "ending Liberal politicians' careers". 

Campaign Support was soon spun off Campaign Research as a separate legal entity headed up by Kouvalis and Greg Dunlop. Dunlop left Kouvalis's firm two months ago after four years - if LinkedIn can be believed - and now heads up his own telemarketing firm iFusion Research.
iFusion also used to be a shell company for Campaign Research 

Here's Steve in 2011 campaigning in Irwin Cotler's Mont-Royal riding on behalf of Con hopeful Saulie Zajdel, presumed beneficiary of the later Campaign Research phone campaign. 
Zajdel lost to Cotler and was put on the payroll in Heritage Minister James Moore's office as a shadow MP doing ethnic outreach while awaiting a new shot at the riding.

Zajdel pled guilty this year to charges of corruption and breach of trust in two real estate deals involving tens of thousands of dollars in bribes.

Conservative Party spokesey Fred DeLorey expressed surprise at Zajdel's arrest in June 2013, saying none of this had come out in their screening of Zajdel. 
A few months earlier, DeLorey was also surprised when McMaher busted the Conservative Party and RackNine shell company Chase Research for being behind the Republican-style push-poll robocalls about changes to Saskatchewan's electoral riding boundaries. 

And so the story has turned inevitably back to Con robo/live calls ... which is where I think we came in... 
.

Stephen Harper and Saulie Zajdel in happier times ...

Stephen Harper seen here campaigning for Saulie Zajdel back in 2011. 

Saulie didn't win but he did go on to become a political aide to then Canadian Heritage Minister James Wilfred Moore - where he used his six-digit taxpayer-funded job in Moore’s office to undermine Liberal MP Irwin Cotler, the candidate who had defeated him in the election.

Campaign Research helped out with that.

Here Harper and Zajdel share a moment over brown paper bags. 

Not many Conservative politicians have the chutzpah to be photo-opped with a prop like brown paper bags ever since former PM Muldoon successfully sued Canada for $2.1 M for even mentioning them.


CBC, yesterday : Saulie Zajdel pleads guilty to corruption charges for real estate deal

"He had faced charges of bribery, breach of trust, fraud and corruption.  Zajdel's lawyer, Jeffrey Boro, told CBC News pleading guilty was a difficult decision for his client. 

"Mr. Zajdel has decided to turn the page, close that part of his life and move on," he said. He received a suspended sentence and was ordered to perform 240 hours of community service and donate $10,000 to a charity."

It was a difficult decision but Mr. Zajdel has decided to turn the page, close that part of his life and move on...  
Yeah, quite a lot of that going around ...
                                                                     

.

Brown bag photo h/t : Robert Jensen2 via Holly Stick in old comments.
.

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.
.