you have got to be kidding me janke - you`re questionning the source of 30k. just because you cant earn more than minimum wage doesnt mean that everyone else is hopeless.
get a life and a job.

Posted by: campbell queen at May 16, 2007 03:31 PM

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Rhetorical Question:

I wonder how many legs one can pull off of a Liberal fly before it can't walk...or wings for that matter.

My opinion...keep pluckin'

Posted by: Simon at May 16, 2007 03:43 PM

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The Liberals brought up the Alliance fundraising (YET AGAIN) in response Harper introducing a bill to ban these leadership loans.

In other words, they're trying to change the channel, and people like Darrell Bricker seem to have taken the bait.

Posted by: Dennis (Second Thoughts) at May 16, 2007 03:49 PM

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Excellent question!

Unless your parents were very rich, almost NO 27 year old is likely to have $30,000 to kick around to loan a leadership contestant.

Heck, Cherniak with a law degree had to BEG to raise the funds just to attend the convention.

When I was 27, I had $30,000 saved, but it was going towards a downpayment on a condo, not a low interest loan to a political leader.

A 27 year old is only a few years out of university for a 4 or 5 year degree, and just graduating law or medicine. I'm sorry, but 99% of the population can't scratch up that kind of cash at 27 unless it's been gifted to them.

At 27, you can get $30,000 credit if you have a professional degree, but you probably also have $15,000+ in student loans. And what 27 year old would extend their credit to loan money to a fourth place Liberal party leadership candidate?

I was a casual observer to this issue until you brought up the issue of his age. I think this stinks to high heaven.

Posted by: mecheng at May 16, 2007 04:02 PM

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This is the usual Liberal tactic of trying to sully the Conservatives' and PM Harper's reputation any way they can find, even if it involves complete distortion of the facts, defamation, dishonesty, disinformation ... LIES!

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2004/05/21/harperdonors_040521.html
"Harper discloses leadership campaign donors
Last Updated: Friday, May 21, 2004 | 1:35 PM ET
CBC News
Stephen Harper has published a list of donors to his Conservative leadership campaign, revealing more than three quarters were individuals who gave less than $200 each.
"Mr. Martin and a few others said I was funded from a secret cabal of big business," said Harper. "But most came from *small personal donors.*"
That's in contrast to Paul Martin's campaign, which set new records by raising $12 million, much of it coming in *six-figure donations from Canada's wealthiest corporations and business leaders.*"

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2003/05/03/liberals_debate030503.html
"Martin, Manley clash over financial disclosure
Last Updated: Saturday, May 3, 2003 | 11:55 PM ET
CBC News
Deputy Prime Minister John Manley challenged ... Paul Martin to reveal all campaign contributions Saturday during the first of six debates between candidates."

Campaign contributions: did Martin reveal all of his?

Posted by: Gabby in QC at May 16, 2007 04:04 PM

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You're getting to the bottom of getting to bottom of this one. Sure smells stinky for Dion and Carroll.

Think Cherniak will take the bait on this post?

After seeing JC's wonderful and non-demeaning fundraising on his blog just to get the paltry money to go to the Liberal Convention last December, I wonder how he'll approach Mr. Carroll and his 30K just sitting around ready to be loaned out with probably no hope of collecting.

Posted by: Alan at May 16, 2007 04:22 PM

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27 and tossing $30,000 to a long-shot Liberal leader is surreal.

Dig away, Steve.

Excellent job, as usual.

Posted by: ZiLLa at May 16, 2007 05:39 PM

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Why the Liberals are playing stupid, petty games when they have such serious problems within their own party is telling.

Looks like they're desperately trying to find something to take on the BBQ circuit this summer and coming up empty and looking damned foolish.

Harper obeyed the rules as they applied five years ago, it's a non issue.

I'm sick of all these pollster busy bodies polling on petty little inconsequential things, best to ignore them.

Have they polled on how many people use one sheet of toidy paper per go as suggested by Sheryl Crowe? No doubt it'll happen soon.

Dion will be salivating after that 30K!

Posted by: Libby at May 16, 2007 05:49 PM

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Is that $30,000 after tax dollars?
Is that $30,000 after student loans have been paid back?
The guy must have walked into a government job or have generous benefactors.

Posted by: ian at May 16, 2007 06:14 PM

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Everybody in the Liberal party knows that Dion will not survive as leader much longer, because the Liberals are not rising in the polls and Dion is not building up the necessary leadership charisma to carry the Liberals to a victory in any next election. The longer they hold on to Dion the worse it will get because their strategy is negative and trying to drag Harper down to Dion's level.

Meanwhile Ignatieff is putting in his time as "deputy" leader and letting Dion lead the charge against Harper. All the Liberals know that they cannot sell Canadians that Dion should be their next prime minister so Dion is just being used to trash Harper and then Ignatieff will majestically rise to be their new leader and sweep the country.

Dion is despised in his home province of Quebec and with a couple more stagant cross-Canada polling results, Dion will be asked/pushed/shoved to abdicate.

Posted by: Observer at May 17, 2007 12:43 AM

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So Dion borrows a few hundred thousand dollars, all of it declared publicly, all of legal, and the only thing you can come up with and keep harping back to is a single loan of $30,000 in a million dollar campaign. You are worried Dion is going to be beholden to a $30,000 loan?

And THIS is scandalously unethical.

But Harper hiding all of his big donors, while technically legal, has no ethical concerns?????

What the?

Look, if you are going to argue that a $30,000 loan could "buy" Dion, then surely you must concede that the hundreds of thousands of secret dollars raised by Harper and the secret payoff of Peter McKay's loans might, just might, raise an inkling of a shadow of an ethical question.

If you want to pass yourself off as having a fragment of objectivity you might.

Posted by: Ted at May 17, 2007 09:55 AM

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This is disgusting. The loan was declared and must be submitted to elections Canada.

His last job was as a senior staffer to Dion as Environment Minister - a job that pays 6 figures. Shall we now begin asking young Tory staffers who are driving expensive cars how they could possibly afford it given their age.

I am disgusted Janke - this is pure smear job and you should be ashamed.

Posted by: anon at May 17, 2007 11:57 AM

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Sorry, but there is a big difference between a young guy driving a fancy car he has leased or financed in some other fashion vs. a young guy having $30,000 after tax dollars available to loan.

As a young guy who makes good money, I am curious about this. Every young guy I know who has $30,000 kicking around did it by being smart with their finances and making smart investments. Not by risking it on low interest loans (6%) to political candidates.

I had to prove that the money for the down payment on my house really belonged to me. People making $30,000 loans to candidates should need to do the same thing, to ensure that it is not juast a shell game.

Posted by: mecheng at May 17, 2007 12:49 PM

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And the fact that this guy worked as a senior staffer to Dion stinks!

Where else but in the Liberal party is it considered an acceptable business practice to get a personal loan from one of your employees? ANY promotion after that is going to look like payback.

I don't have a clue if something shady went on, but the fact that Dion had a 27 year old working for him in a senior position making 6 figures, who then loaned him $30,000 of his own money stinks. The optics of this are terrible.

Posted by: mecheng at May 17, 2007 01:22 PM

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It was not a secret loan. If he was lending money on behalf of someone elese it would be in violation of the law. If an accusation that a law has been broken is being made say so so a proper defamation suit can be filed.

Posted by: anon at May 17, 2007 01:38 PM

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Mecheng:

As soon as the Conservatives reveal ANY information SOME information about the Big Money Backers behind Stephen Harper and Peter McKay, which amounted to over $1 million in secret payoffs to the most powerful political people in GOVERNMENT and the COUNTRY now THEN we'll maybe consider talking about the dozens of ways a smart young former employee might have gotten the small amount of money to loan to the guy who was trying to become the leader of the OPPOSITION.

What sort of influence peddling and issue pushing are Harper and McKay's backers forcing on us Canadians in exchange for their big secret payoffs? Canadians don't get to know because Mr. Accountability and Mr. Transparency don't think accountability and transparency should apply to them because technically they didn't have to tell us who was buying them off.

I love this piece of legislation. It is so backfiring on the Conservatives. Every single time they try to say that the Liberals should have gone further than what today's more strict laws require, we get to turn around and point out how they didn't even comply with today's standards.

Posted by: Ted at May 17, 2007 02:03 PM

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Oh, I am not certainly saying that anything illegal has happened. I'm just saying that past Liberal fundraising practices have created an atmosphere where those sorts of assumptions are reasonable.

I mean geez, you've got sponsorship, children donating, dead supporters. Taxpayers are skeptical.

I support the movement to limit loans so that this sort of "shady looking" deal doesn't take place. If it was a legal loan, fine. But it looks awful and raises questions.

I want the same rules in place for everyone. Harper was following the law at the time. It's a little ridiculous to ask him to go comply with regulations that were not in place when the donations were made. I don't even believe that Harper has the right to disclose those donors. Some people may have decided not to give to his campaign, or give a different amount had disclosure been required. Asking those people to give up their right to privacy after the fact is a red herring. They have a right to privacy.

Posted by: mecheng at May 17, 2007 02:32 PM

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Meanwhile the Auditor General is free to investigate the NINE BILLION DOLLARS that Cretin put into the, so called, Private Foundations. Then there's the CSL contracts and Canada Post and Via Rail finally not being blocked from proper auditing by the Lieberal Party crooks.

Secret payoffs Ted? Earth calling Ted, put your tinfoil hat on and don't forget to drink your Kool Aid.

Posted by: Bruce Randall at May 17, 2007 02:45 PM

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So who paid off McKay's $400,000 debt Bruce?

Who paid Harper and what are they getting for it?

Unlike Janke here who is willing to impute the worst on the scantiest of facts, I just want to know.

I mean, if it is important to know the details about a legal $30,000 loan because of some concern that the Leader of the Opposition might be beholden to that former employee... then it all the more important to know the details of a $1 million plus in secret contributions to Harper and McKay who are in government. Whether or not he was obliged to back then or not, if it is an important principled point about accountability, then that principle didn't sudden appear after Harper and McKay's leadership campaigns.

There is a whole heck of a lot of the pot calling the kettle black here.

Posted by: Ted at May 17, 2007 02:56 PM

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Those Lieberal's sure have had there knickers in a knot since former PMPM lost the last election for them. I can hardly wait for Stephanie Dion to finish the job of leading them into the wilderness of "da turd" party status.

Posted by: Bruce Randall at May 17, 2007 03:35 PM

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We need to get a little perspective on this issue of loaning money as in the Liberal case put forth above.

If I'm a graduate student loaning money to my prof. then would that compromise his evaluation of me towards my degree?

If I was a career criminal and loaned money to the judge or prosecuting attorney...then when up before their bench on a charge,will the public get a fair trial or will it be a sham?

If I was a drug dealer and knew and loaned money to a customs agent ,would he turn his head and look the other way as I drove thru with a trunkful of dope?

The answer in each case could be no but then again it could be a big YES. The problem of course is at the very least the optics and at most collusion.

The problem of course is credibility and as Dion has aptly demonstrated once again,he suffers from Poor Judgement (Central Nova riding being another that comes immediately to mind)..and due to his lack of good judgement his credibility is in question and hence he can't be trusted as a leader.

Politics is a team sport and time and again Dion just doesn't get it as is shown by his handling of the Jamie Carroll issue in that he didn't back his deputy PM when it was indeed called for.

These sort of actions send a very strong message to the LPC that their leader is without doubt a confused and politically naive choice to head a once national party.

Of course more disturbing is that pretty much most of the engaged electorate know it too.

Posted by: Simon at May 17, 2007 06:13 PM

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Attached is a news release from King's College :

"King's in the News

Carroll named Grits national director

Date Published/Broadcast: February 2, 2007
News Source: The Chronicle Herald

Carroll named Grits national director

OTTAWA — A Nova Scotian is the new national director of the federal Liberals.

Jamie Carroll, a 28-year-old who served as deputy campaign director of Stephane Dion’s successful campaign for the leadership of the Liberals, will start immediately, the party said in a news release on Thursday.

Mr. Carroll will also serve as the party’s deputy campaign director, the release said.

After Mr. Dion’s leadership victory, Mr. Carroll served first as his acting chief of staff, then deputy chief of staff.

Mr. Carroll grew up in Truro and in Guysborough County, and attended the University of King’s College. He started in politics in the 1993 election, pounding signs and knocking on doors for the Liberals.

He went to Ottawa to work for Halifax West MP Geoff Regan, was a special assistant to Paul Martin, then served as director of parliamentary affairs for Mr. Dion, who was environment minister at the time.

In the news release, Mr. Dion describes Mr. Carroll as "a trusted adviser (who) will provide strong leadership for our staff and volunteers as we head toward the next election."

Note: Jamie Carroll graduated from King's in 2000 with a Bachelor of Arts"

So let me get this right. This guy, who finished a BA in 2000 and seems to have spent the last 7 years hanging around politics makes enough money to donate $30,000 to a leadership campaign candidate. After tax.

Posted by: jenna at May 17, 2007 07:51 PM

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Yes he did have enough money and why is it any of your business?

He declared the loan to Elections Canada - as required by law - and if the money was not his then he would be in violation of the law. If someone is suggesting a law has been broken please say so and provide proof because anything else would be a smear job and we would expect Tories to aim a little higher.

Of course, we could presume that Stephen Harper doesn't want to declare his doners because they are all big oil sand investors who just got a sweetheart exemption on greenhouse gas targets. Or perhaps they are American, or the gun lobby, or groups that want Alberta to seperate from Canada. Sure would be interesting to know.

Posted by: anon at May 18, 2007 07:42 AM

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You PRESUME Harper has received money from industry/lobby groups.

We KNOW Dion received loans from someone who worked for him, who subsequently got a big promotion.

Dion got this loan KNOWING that it would be disclosed publicly. That shows terrible judgement on Dion's part.

Posted by: mecheng at May 18, 2007 12:08 PM

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What about 55555 Inc.?

Posted by: ANON at May 18, 2007 01:05 PM

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What about 55555 Inc.?

Posted by: ANON at May 18, 2007 01:06 PM

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it looks like it hit the nerve......lefties

Posted by: george at May 18, 2007 01:46 PM

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Martin's donations were all revealed - every penny - and likely still posted on the website of the ethics counsellor. 5555 was the entity set up to do run the leaderhsip campaign.At the end of the leadership, his campaign had $2-3mm left over unspent that was given to the party. All public, all published.

Changing the channel away from Harper's secret financial backers list won't work.

Oh and Bruce Randall - what are you - 12?

Yikes.

PS hope you have your copy of "how to politicize and manipulate pariliamentary committees for the benefit of the Conservative Party". I am sure you blgging tory types will find some way to call it triumph of democracy and accountability.

Very sad and embarrassing.

Posted by: canadian_2 at May 18, 2007 04:26 PM

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Martin's donations were all revealed - every penny - and likely still posted on the website of the ethics counsellor. 5555 was the entity set up to do run the leaderhsip campaign.At the end of the leadership, his campaign had $2-3mm left over unspent that was given to the party. All public, all published.

Changing the channel away from Harper's secret financial backers list won't work.

Oh and Bruce Randall - what are you - 12?

Yikes.

PS hope you have your copy of "how to politicize and manipulate parliamentary committees for the benefit of the Conservative Party". I am sure you blgging tory types will find some way to call it triumph of democracy and accountability.

Very sad and embarrassing.

Posted by: canadian_2 at May 18, 2007 04:26 PM

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Ted, if you say there was a 1 million secret payoff, how could it be secret. Where did you get this info. Secret is secret, so how do you know, unless you are just causing trouble. Facts and proof Ted.
Notice the number of donators to the party in the first quarter. That is how Harper financed his leadership bid. Lots of us giving 200.00 or less at bbqs, dinners, coffeeclatches and meet and greets.

Posted by: maryT at May 18, 2007 07:51 PM

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Carroll was a Ministerial Assistant in the last Government. His salary was anywhere from 70k to 100K. Since he had served several years he would have most likely received a 6 months severance in '06.

Easy to see where he could come up with 30K

Posted by: obvious at May 18, 2007 08:59 PM

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Typical Grit babble doublespeak on 55555 Inc. The millions that were funneled through 55555 Inc.into lieberal party coffers hours before Cretin changed the rules on financial contributions were never accounted for.

While old Martin cronies have tried to suggest that the money came from Canada Steamship Lines or your old pals at St Joseph's printing, it was more likely "washed" adscam bucks or perhaps from your good party man Paul Champagne of HP/DND scam fame.

Put up or shut up Scott Reed, ooops I mean canadian 2. Produce the financial statements for 55555 Inc. or put a sock in your flapping yap.

Give Canadians the list of contributors to 55555 Inc. now!

Who were the secret financial backers of 55555 Inc. that funneled millions into the adscam party?

55555 Inc. is fair game. Keep insisting on disclosure on leadership campaign contributions..... we want to know the secret financial identities of who really controls the lieberal party through shell entities like 55555 Inc.

Posted by: Anon at May 18, 2007 10:29 PM

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Keep digging. The corrupt Lieberals are fuckin scared....
I wonder why? Well, I don't really.

Posted by: Eatern Paul at May 19, 2007 01:13 AM

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Well, if the intelligence of Conservatives is gauged by the contributors to this and other BT boards, years of virtually uninterrupted Liberal government are bound to follow (not that even I think that is a good thing).

Seriously, the idiot ramblings of double-digiters like the most recent "anon" who seeks disclosure of what has already been disclosed and avoids seeking same of what remains secret from his little rat-pack political hack PM, illustrates this better than anything I say ever could.

In case you are too stupid to find them, the details of all contributors to the Paul Martin and the amounts contributed are found at
http://www.parl.gc.ca/oec/en/archives/ethics_counselor/disclosure.asp

Seems to me to be rather desparate to base much of one's tenure in government on continual attacks on someone who has not been leader for many, many months now.

I guess just like your fair (actually below average) leader, you think if you repeat lies often enough you start believing them.

Posted by: canadian_2 at May 19, 2007 10:20 AM

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Steve,

As much fun as it's been for some people to take knocks at Joe Volpe, I think we should start being honest about the situation. He was exonerated by elections Canada, and has moved on. We should too!

Posted by: Tom Denver at May 23, 2007 03:25 PM

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