Angry in the Great White North

The story of the money stolen from the London federal Liberal Party riding association, and what appeared to be an attempt to cover up the problem by David Pretlove, the director of the federal Liberal Party in Ontario, continues to build up momentum.

I reported on how the person charged with 42 counts of fraud and forgery in relation to this missing money, Suzan Pawlak, was on David Pretlove's staff (having moved on from the job of treasurer of the riding association which was the victim of the theft). The strange coincidence of David Pretlove's offering to cover the lost money on the condition that there be no formal investigation even as the person who would ultimately be charged in the case was working for him has raised a lot of eyebrows.

The first formal reaction was from the NDP, in a press release in which MP Paul Dewar demanded that Stephane Dion suspend Pawlak and Pretlove pending a formal investigation in what really happened.

Today, Chip Martin continues to report on the Pretlove/Pawlak story in the London Free Press:

Liberal Leader Stephane Dion is being called on to suspend a senior party official immediately for his bid to cover up the loss. The attempt shows the party hasn't learned its lessons from the Quebec sponsorship scandal, say the New Democrats, who have called for the suspension.

A Conservative party blogger has suggested the same official tried to cover up the disappearance of nearly $15,000 from local coffers rather than involve police, thereby "trying to fend off another Liberal party scandal."

And Joe Preston, the Conservative MP for the riding, joined the call for Dion to "show some leadership" and investigate.

The political partisans have targeted David Pretlove, now director of finance and administration for the Ontario wing of the Liberal Party of Canada. In January, he was interim director of the Ontario wing when he sent a message to the local riding association offering to cut cheques to cover the loss of money that had just been discovered.

In his letter, Pretlove offered to pay the amount missing in exchange for an assurance in writing "that there will be no further action taken and the matter be considered closed."

An assurance in writing? Again, just what was Pretlove trying to achieve with this?

Chip confirms that Pawlak was working directly for Pretlove at the time it was noticed that a substantial amount of money was missing, and at the same time Pretlove made his strange offer:

The Free Press has learned that at the time of Pretlove's letter, Pawlak had moved to Toronto and was working alongside him as "manager, political operations" for the party in the southwest and golden horseshoe regions.

And finally, I get my quote in as well:

Conservative blogger Steve Janke said it appears Pretlove tried to protect his co-worker from prosecution by offering "to use funds which he controlled to bury the incident."

"I'd hate to think that David Pretlove knew about a crime and didn't report it," Janke wrote.

The Conservative advocate concluded: "If there is potential for scandal, it is in trying to entice someone not to pursue a criminal investigation."

This morning I did an interview with Jeff McArthur of The Hawk Classic Rock radio in London(103.9FM) on this story, where we review the facts, the timeline, and the open questions raised by the sequence of events. That was a broadcast to the area served by the federal riding association that suffered the theft. If local Liberals hadn't yet heard the latest on what funny business was going on concerning their stolen party funds, they've likely heard about it now.

So the story is picking up steam.

But what of the Liberal reaction? On that there's more to come.

Check out other entries from the David Pretlove category
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Check out what Canadian bloggers have posted about David Pretlove
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