More Harper Pork, This Time In Vaughan

Conservatives quit over Vaughan health-care money So reads the headline on the CBC website reporting that more federal pork is being doled out, this time in the riding of Vaughan, currently held by Julian Fantino who captured it in a byelection last year. Outraged over the fact that two of Fantino's key backers, developer Michael DeGasperis and construction insurance man Sam Ciccolini, will benefit from a $10 million grant to an organization of which they are chair and director respectively, two prominent Conservatives have quit their riding association.

The two dissenting Conservatives, Richard Lorello, the local Conservative candidate in 2008, and riding association member Tracey Kent feel that it is wholly inappropriate that the money was awarded to a private group, Vaughan Health Campus of Care (VHCC); both regard it as a reward to both DeGasperis and Ciccolini for their help as fundraising co-chairs in Fantino's victory last November.