More and more, people are seeing the bald mendacity of the Harper regime. Despite their claims of electoral probity and refusal to use U.S. firms in their campaigning, it turns out that 14 Conservative (will the claim be made that they were rogues?) did exactly that by signing on with Front Porch Strategies, a well-connected Republican company during last year’s election campaign; one of them was the offensively pugnacious Dean Del Maestro, who has done a fine acting job feigning indignation over what he calls Liberal and NDP smears in the House of Commons. Interestingly, but hardly surprisingly, one of the events orchestrated by the company for Del Maestro turned into a smear campaign against Michael Ignatief.
The Star also reports how the Conservatives use the resources of the powerful Conservative global organization, the International Democratic Union (IDU), a coalition of member parties including the U.S. Republicans, the Canadian and U.K. Conservative parties and, in the Australia, the centre-right Liberals.
Perhaps of even greater note is the fact that Senator Doug (in-and-out-Conservative crimes) Finley is a deputy chair at IDU.
What is that old saying? If you lie down with dogs, you will get up with fleas. Clearly, corporate entities need to vet their clients more carefully.
Showing posts with label senator doug findley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label senator doug findley. Show all posts
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Friday, November 11, 2011
A Blow Against Public Morality
Despite the conviction of the Conservative Party of Canada for the illegal financing of its 2006 campaign that brought it to power, a blow has been struck against, not for, public morality.
As reported in The Star, the sophisticated in-and-out scheme, masterminded by the likes of now-Senator Doug Findley, saw the Conservatives shifting "national advertising money, through wire transfers into and immediately out of local riding campaign accounts, in order to claim national ad spending as local." This illegal tactic allowed the party to far exceed legal limits on campaign spending, probably a factor in its electoral victory.
The public immorality resides not just in the act, but also in the punishment, the reason for the punishment, and the spin being placed on that sanction by Conservative Party operatives.
First, the punishment - a mere $52,000 fine.
The reason for that paltry punishment, which made no effort to hold the architects of the fraud, Doug Finley and Irving Gerstein, then-party director Michael Donison, and then-chief financial officer Susan Kehoe. criminally responsible, was explained by Crown attorney Richard Roy. He suggested to Judge Célynne Dorval that it was in the “public interest” to strike the deal that withdrew charges against them. The judge agreed, saying that an expected six-month trial “would not have made any difference” even if there had been convictions because the fines amounted to the maximum penalties that could have been imposed.
Legally, what the judge said may be true, but that failure to prosecute the perpetrators of the crime allows for the following, the spin being placed on the results by the Conservative Party apparatus, who call it a “big victory.”
“Every single Conservative accused of wrongdoing has been cleared today,” said spokesman Fred DeLorey, in a written statement afterwards.
Conservative party lawyer Mark Sandler said the party’s guilty plea is only an admission of “inadvertent negligence” and not an outright or deliberate attempt to flout the law.
The hubris of the Conservatives is such that even this judicial slap on the wrist is contentious as the Conservative party and the Crown still disagree on the exact amount that was involved. The Crown says the national party failed to report $1.24 million spent, while the Conservatives admit only to $680,000.
The biggest victim in all of this sordid mess is the Canadian public, once more being shown by example that immorality and illegality aren't really immorality and illegality, as long as you remain truculent and defiant in legal defeat.
As reported in The Star, the sophisticated in-and-out scheme, masterminded by the likes of now-Senator Doug Findley, saw the Conservatives shifting "national advertising money, through wire transfers into and immediately out of local riding campaign accounts, in order to claim national ad spending as local." This illegal tactic allowed the party to far exceed legal limits on campaign spending, probably a factor in its electoral victory.
The public immorality resides not just in the act, but also in the punishment, the reason for the punishment, and the spin being placed on that sanction by Conservative Party operatives.
First, the punishment - a mere $52,000 fine.
The reason for that paltry punishment, which made no effort to hold the architects of the fraud, Doug Finley and Irving Gerstein, then-party director Michael Donison, and then-chief financial officer Susan Kehoe. criminally responsible, was explained by Crown attorney Richard Roy. He suggested to Judge Célynne Dorval that it was in the “public interest” to strike the deal that withdrew charges against them. The judge agreed, saying that an expected six-month trial “would not have made any difference” even if there had been convictions because the fines amounted to the maximum penalties that could have been imposed.
Legally, what the judge said may be true, but that failure to prosecute the perpetrators of the crime allows for the following, the spin being placed on the results by the Conservative Party apparatus, who call it a “big victory.”
“Every single Conservative accused of wrongdoing has been cleared today,” said spokesman Fred DeLorey, in a written statement afterwards.
Conservative party lawyer Mark Sandler said the party’s guilty plea is only an admission of “inadvertent negligence” and not an outright or deliberate attempt to flout the law.
The hubris of the Conservatives is such that even this judicial slap on the wrist is contentious as the Conservative party and the Crown still disagree on the exact amount that was involved. The Crown says the national party failed to report $1.24 million spent, while the Conservatives admit only to $680,000.
The biggest victim in all of this sordid mess is the Canadian public, once more being shown by example that immorality and illegality aren't really immorality and illegality, as long as you remain truculent and defiant in legal defeat.
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