Conservatives in the News

[The Bread Guy]

Just to keep track of individuals (vs. the general political scene/climate) ...

This, from the Ottawa Citizen:

The Hull Hospital confirmed Tuesday that Sen. Patrick Brazeau is recovering from surgery after being injured in an incident at his rural Outaouais home Monday evening.

The hospital says Brazeau’s life is not in danger.

“I can confirm that Sen. Brazeau is at the Hull Hospital and that he underwent surgery,” said hospital spokeswoman Geneviève Côté.

He arrived at the hospital about 1 a.m. Tuesday, she said.

“Shortly after that he underwent surgery. It went well.”

Late Tuesday morning she said he was out of danger, though he is staying in hospital “for a certain time” to recover.

She wouldn’t say what kind of surgery the senator had, or why he needed it.

So far there are few details about the incident itself.

The Sûreté du Québec confirmed its officers went to Brazeau’s home in the community of Mayo, a little northeast of Buckingham, about 10 p.m. Monday ...

 

[The Bread Guy]

MP Cheryl Gallant (Renfrew — Nipissing — Pembroke) has pulled some odd ones before (check here, here and here), but really?

The slaying of Cpl. Nathan Cirillo while he stood guard at the National War Memorial in Ottawa galvanized the country, but now a Conservative MP is using his death to peddle Easter hams in a bizarre fundraising campaign.

Cheryl Gallant, who represents the Ottawa Valley riding of Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke, made the fundraising pitch in a March 2 email to supporters with the all-caps subject line TERRORISTS IN OUR MIDST.

The email is an assault on Liberal immigration policies, but it also includes a picture of Cirillo in military dress with the caption, "A Hero Forever In Our Hearts."

The text links the fast-tracking of Canadian citizenship for refugees and migrants to the reversal of a bill that revoked citizenship for dual citizens convicted of terrorist acts.

"Why do migrants need to be protected from losing newly granted Canadian citizenship if they are convicted of committing a terrorist act?" the email asks. "Is the Liberal Party afraid of alienating tens of thousands of new votes with the threat of deportation if any are convicted of terrorist activity?"

The email is punctuated with photos of Cirillo's killer and Parliament Hill attacker Michael Zehaf-Bibeau and Toronto 18 bomb plotter Zakaria Amara.

At the bottom of the email a red "Order Now" button leads to an Easter fundraising campaign where donors are told they will be rewarded with a ham, though the website cautions the ham is only available to residents of Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke ...

:facepalm:

 

[George Wallace]

:facepalm:

That sums up the feeling of many over the years about this MP.  She as had excellent advisers over the years from members of the retired CAF community in the Pembroke/Petawawa area, but their advice has often been overlooked/overturned by her or her civilian advisers. 

One of the factors working in keeping her in Parliament is the lack of a better choice of candidates from the other Parties in the area.

 

[The Bread Guy]

She as had excellent advisers over the years from members of the retired CAF community in the Pembroke/Petawawa area, but their advice has often been overlooked/overturned by her or her civilian advisers. 

It IS ironic, seeing this in an MP with no shortage of military constituents, both current and retired, in her backyard ...

 

[The Bread Guy]

Today appears to be the day ...

Senator Mike Duffy will finally find out his fate on Thursday as one of the country’s most high-profile political trials comes to a close.

Ontario Court Justice Charles Vaillancourt is set to rule on whether Mr. Duffy is guilty or acquitted on some or all of the 31 charges of fraud, breach of trust and bribery he faces in relation to his expenses as a Conservative senator appointed by former prime minister Stephen Harper’s government.

If convicted, Mr. Duffy faces up to 14 years in prison.

The ruling will be the first in a series of Senate expense cases making their way through the justice system, with possible implications for other senators now facing trials or criminal investigations.

It will also serve as the decisive moment in a trial that involved some of the most powerful members of Mr. Harper’s Prime Minister’s Office, including former chief of staff Nigel Wright, who gave Mr. Duffy $90,000 to pay off his expenses – and whom the senator is accused of bribing ...

 

[The Bread Guy]

Again ? ? ?

It isn't just Mr Fantino disrespecting Veterans, it includes other members of the House as well.

Those posted to, or have having been posted to, Petawawa know the Conservative MP, Cheryl Gallant.  Well, she has just stuck her foot in her mouth again, in comments about Veterans.  Here is a screen shot of what a friend posted on her FB page; before someone, her or one of her minions, took down--a reasonable post removed:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152569623259972&set=gm.723365947696492&type=1&theater

She has done it again.  Conservative MP Cheryl Gallant has once again proven to be an embarrassment to the Canadian Government and the electorate who have elected her.

MP GALLANT LEAVES NATO DOCUMENTS BEHIND IN AIRPORT ...

Reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://renfrewtoday.ca/default.asp?pid=1133610&wireid=01035_ARP_GallantPapers1web_080904

How does this woman survive, or keep getting re-elected - her latest, from her web page and a recent statement in the House of Commons - also attached in case the link doesn't work for you ...

... Only liberals would sell off our Chinook Helicopters before a replacement, which was supposed to be the EH-101 helicopter, was in place. Without the strategic lift helicopters cancelled by the liberals, soldiers died unnecessarily on the bomb-laden roads of Afghanistan. The question the Trudeau liberals refuse to answer is ‘How many must die because they delayed the purchase of search and rescue helicopters?’ ...

A reminder:  the Chinooks were sold to the Dutch in 1991, when this guy was PM:

MP Gallant  :facepalm:

 

[jollyjacktar]

Boy, time has not been kind to her.  She really looks like a man now...

 

[brihard]

The good lord said "come forth for brains", and she came fifth.

 

[The Bread Guy]

At least ONE case is done, even if the other continues ...

The Crown will not appeal last month’s acquittal on election finance charges of a former Conservative MP’s cousin.

David Del Mastro was found not guilty by a court in Brampton, Ont., on charges that he had exceeded donation limits by funnelling contributions to his cousin Dean Del Mastro’s 2008 campaign through his Mississauga-based electrical contracting company.

The Crown introduced evidence at trial showing 22 donations of $1,000 made to the Del Mastro campaign by employees of Deltro Electric, who all later received cheques from the company in the amount of $1,050.

(...)

The Public Prosecution Service of Canada tells CTV News that it will not appeal either the decision to exclude evidence or the not-guilty verdict.

Meanwhile, Dean Del Mastro, the former Peterborough MP and one-time parliamentary secretary to prime minister Stephen Harper, is currently free on bail pending another appeal of his 2014 conviction on unrelated Elections Act offences. He has served a total of seven days of his 30-day jail sentence ...

 

[The Bread Guy]

And off into the sunset, not surprisingly in a low-key way?

At the end of a long hallway in Parliament's centre block, one office is crowded with stacks of boxes, roll after roll of packing tape and a few of the souvenirs from a decades-long political career.

The MP for Calgary Heritage — better known as former prime minister Stephen Harper — may have cast his very last House of Commons vote (just over a week ago). Perhaps fittingly, according to the parliamentary website, it was to oppose the Liberal budget.

As CBC News reported in May, Harper is expected to resign his seat before Parliament resumes next fall.

The former prime minister has remained all but silent since his Conservative party lost power in the last election, so the eventual announcement of his departure was never expected to come with much fanfare on Harper's part regardless.

Beyond the stacks of boxes, however, there is at least one more sign of his imminent exit.

For $200, friends and party faithful are invited to join Harper at his "final Calgary Conservative Stampede BBQ" in July.

The event is hosted by Harper's riding association. President Hal Anderson said the decision to identify it as final was a mutual agreement between Harper and the riding association ...

 

[The Bread Guy]

Mike Duffy:  No, I'm NOT paying that $ back -- shared under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act, RSC 1985 ...

Sen. Mike Duffy is saying No to a request from the Senate to repay about $17,000 in disputed expense claims detailed at his criminal trial.

Duffy’s lawyer writes to the Senate this week that the senator won’t repay seven of his claims totalling $16,955 because they were deemed “appropriate” by the Ontario judge who acquitted Duffy of 31 criminal charges in April.

Duffy was told last month that the Senate was taking a second look at expenses revealed at his trial that range from $10,000 for a personal trainer to $8 for personal photos.

The Senate gave Duffy the option of taking the dispute to arbitration in front of former Supreme Court justice Ian Binnie who would decide if the expenses were legitimate and how much Duffy would have to repay.

Duffy’s lawyer Donald Bayne writes that the senator isn’t interested in arbitration because he does not want to “legitimize” a process that is “an improper collateral attack” on the his acquittal.

The decision means the Senate committee in charge of policing spending will soon withhold the money from Duffy’s salary so the Senate can recoup the cash it believes Duffy shouldn’t have been allowed to claim.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Standby for by-election ...

Former Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak will resign his seat in the legislature next month and become CEO of the Ontario Real Estate Association.

Hudak, who was first elected in 1995 at the age of 27, says after 21 years in provincial politics it's time to make a change, so he'll step down from his Niagara West-Glanbrook seat on Sept. 16.

Hudak had served in the cabinet of Mike Harris and was elected PC leader in 2009, but failed to defeat the Liberal government in the 2011 and 2014 elections.

His wife, Deb Hutton, was a senior adviser to Harris when the two met and married.

Hudak came under widespread criticism, even from many Conservatives, in 2014 when he promised to fire 100,000 public sector workers if the Tories got elected, an issue many blamed for their defeat.

He emerged as a stronger MPP after stepping down as leader following the 2014 defeat, championing the sharing economy and more liberalized liquor laws, but never seemed to see eye-to-eye with new PC Leader Patrick Brown.

The 49-year-old Hudak has also been hosting a radio talk show on weekends that is syndicated in several Ontario cities.

"These past 21 years have been tremendously rewarding, and I will miss my colleagues in all three parties," Hudak said in a release Tuesday. "I want to thank all of them, past and present, for their friendship, leadership and advice." ...

 

[CougarKing]

Kenney's Alberta run could be over before it even begins?

Calgary Herald via MSN newsfeed

Kenney could be barred from PC race by party rules, says rival
Calgary Herald

James Wood, Calgary Herald
4 hrs ago

A Tory MLA says Jason Kenney doesn’t meet the standards laid out by the Progressive Conservative party for leadership candidates and could face disqualification from the race.

On the weekend, the PC party board approved the rules for the leadership campaign, which officially begins on Oct. 1 and will culminate in a delegated convention next March.

Among its decisions, the board adopted a provision that was in place in the party’s 2014 leadership race, which stipulates that candidates “avoid causing harm or disrepute” to the PC party and its brand “through any detrimental action or conduct.”

Kenney, the Conservative MP who is the only declared candidate in the race, is campaigning on a platform of uniting the provincial right by bringing together the PC and Wildrose parties in a new entity, potentially called the Conservative Party of Alberta.


Sandra Jansen, the PC MLA for Calgary-North West and a potential leadership contender herself, said Monday the party rules raise a major question about Kenney’s campaign.

“In my opinion, Jason Kenney is clearly intent on dismantling the party and so I believe that he certainly doesn’t fit the guidelines. But that’s not my call to make,” said Jansen, who has been an outspoken critic of Kenney.

Jansen is one of several candidates mulling a potential bid for the leadership of the Tories, who governed Alberta for more than four decades before being upset by the NDP in the 2015 election. PC MLA Richard Starke, Edmonton city councillor Michael Oshry and Calgary lawyer Doug Schweitzer number among the possible contestants.

(...SNIPPED)

 

[Altair]

Kenney's Alberta run could be over before it even begins?

Calgary Herald via MSN newsfeed

a most welcome development if it comes to pass.

 

[PuckChaser]

a most welcome development if it comes to pass.

Afraid a stronger Tory party out west will return the Liberals to 0 seats they held in 2011?

 

[Altair]

Afraid a stronger Tory party out west will return the Liberals to 0 seats they held in 2011?

God no.

I want the wildrose and Brian Jean to get a shot at governing. Polls are useless at this stage of the game but they are ahead.

I personally would like to see a pure right wing government in Canada, not a old boys club that the PCs and any PC wildrose merger would represent.

 

[Lightguns]

Kenney's Alberta run could be over before it even begins?

Calgary Herald via MSN newsfeed

The same PC MLA who urged voters to vote Liberal in the last Federal election?  The grassroots is trying to force her out of her own party. 

 

[ModlrMike]

I think she's just trying to sully his name in advance of her own run at the leadership. I am challenged to understand how his stated goal of returning the PC party to government is "causing harm or disrepute". As to uniting the WR and PC, well the federal Liberals coasted through several elections on the back of a divided right. Surely Albertans don't want the NDP to have the same opportunity?

 

[Altair]

I think she's just trying to sully his name in advance of her own run at the leadership. I am challenged to understand how his stated goal of returning the PC party to government is "causing harm or disrepute". As to uniting the WR and PC, well the federal Liberals coasted through several elections on the back of a divided right. Surely Albertans don't want the NDP to have the same opportunity?

same could be said about the conservative from 2006 onwards. It's better to not say that because it's not that cut and dry.

Back to alberta though,  it's illegal to unite parties. Can't merge assets or money. So there are two ways to unite the right. One party ceases to be and joins the other right wing party. Wildrose is bigger,  has more money, has more seats. They won't fold. Brian Jean won't step down.

The other way is to fold both parties and make a new party. Starting from scratch too, because the new party wouldn't have access to the assets and money of the two defunct parties. I believe this is the path Kenney is taking and if you run for leadership promising to dismantle your own party I can see where that falls under causing harm or disrepute.

 

[The Bread Guy]

And here's why there are third parties to complain to about your ATIP request results -- shared under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) ... ...

A document obtained under access-to-information laws refutes former Conservative cabinet minister Julian Fantino's claim that an email at the heart of an official languages complaint had been doctored.

In 2013, an email from Fantino's office asked that all correspondence signed by the minister be sent in English, even if the addressee was French-speaking.

"I would like to reiterate that ALL correspondence signed by the minister be sent in English," said the email, dated Feb. 14 of that year.

"In special cases, ie (Haitian Prime Minister Laurent) Lamothe, then it makes sense, but for example, for the Ethiopia trip thank you letters to staff, we noted twice that we had some in FR (French). I understand that we know the recipients' first language is French however the minister can write in English if he chooses to do so. That is also in line with the OL (Official languages) act."

The Canadian Press wrote about the email at the time after receiving a copy from a source.

That prompted Fantino, the then-international co-operation minister, to state in a letter sent to various media that the email had been doctored.

"The source of these allegations has either altered documentation before giving it to the reporter, or the reporter has selectively edited what they were given," he said.

Fantino claimed concluding words to the email — "for review" — had been removed.

The extra words would have meant Fantino just wanted to approve the emails in English without necessarily sending them only in English, even to francophones.

A request to Fantino's office at the time for a copy of what he claimed was the original email was turned down for privacy reasons.

In March 2014, when the Conservatives were still in power, a completely blacked-out version was obtained from the Canadian International Development Agency.

In explaining the redacted version, the department invoked articles in the access-to-information law allowing for passages in a document to be edited out, notably if it contains recommendations from a federal institution or minister.

The Canadian Press then filed an access-to-information request with the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada to obtain a copy of the email. The communication is identical to the one obtained from the source in 2013.

Fantino did not return calls for an interview request for this story.

The 2013 email prompted NDP MP Yvon Godin to file a complaint with Official Languages Commissioner Graham Fraser.

"The complaint was deemed to be well-founded and (it was determined) there had been a breach of the official languages (act)," * said Robin Cantin, a spokesman for the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages.

Cantin said the official languages office did a follow-up in October 2015.

"We then recommended that the instructions for ministerial correspondence be reviewed to ensure that language preference of the addressee was fully taken into account," he said.

Fantino, a former Toronto police chief, was first elected to the Commons in 2010. Following his stint as international co-operation minister, he was named veterans affairs minister before being stripped of the portfolio in 2015 after being criticized for his performance.

He lost his seat in the 2015 election.

* - That means the law was broken.