Angry in the Great White North

The Liberal Party is under some pressure to take action on the growing questions surrounding Liberal Party director (Ontario wing) David Pretlove's strange offer to reimburse the London riding association almost $15,000, discovered missing in January. The offer was conditional on a written assurance that the police not get involved. The offer was turned down and the police were called in. Strange as that offer was in January, it is now seen as downright suspicious when it was learned that the woman charged this week in the theft, Suzan Pawlak, was on Pretlove's staff when Pretlove made his offer.

Maybe we can start to clear away some of the questions. But only some of them.

From a friend of a friend who heard it from the top:

Pretlove was just being "a nice guy" and trying to help a single mother who said she was being hounded by local officials for stuff she had misplaced or was in moving boxes because she had to leave where she had been living in St. Thomas.

Take this with a grain of salt, but let's proceed with the assumption that it is accurately reflects David Pretlove's initial explanation of the matter.

Is Pretlove telling people that he was just helping out a poor soul he thought was being unfairly hounded? But this is significant. In this explanation, David Pretlove is admitting that he was specifically helping Suzan Pawlak who had found herself in a bind with the London riding association.

No coincidences. Pretlove knew Pawlak, and knew the condition of the offer that the police not be called had to be because Pawlak was personally concerned about police involvement. If he didn't know it then, he certainly knew it this week when Suzan Pawlak was charged by the police with fraud and forgery.

Still, part of his explanation makes some sense. The discovery that money was missing was made in December 2006 or January 2007. It always seemed reasonable to assume that as the treasurer from August 2005 through August 2006, Suzan Pawlak would have immediately been contacted by London riding association folks for any information she could provide to explain the discrepancy.

I think this is essentially confirmation of that.

But hounded? Did the riding association already peg her as the possible culprit? Were the contacts confrontational? Or was that her characterization of her discussions with the riding association she used when she spoke to Pretlove?

I'm assuming that David Pretlove was not involved in these discussions directly, unless it was through Suzanne van Bommel, the board member who delivered to the riding exective Pretlove's emailed offer to cover the missing money on the condition that the police be kept out of the matter.

Suzanne van Bommel, now the Liberal Party nominee for the riding, is said to be "devastated" by this. This missing money has been an issue for van Bommel, though I can't see how she could possibly be involved. At the time of her nomination, many Liberals complained that van Bommel's nomination was allowed to proceed while the whole story of the missing money was kept away from the membership. After the nomination was complete, the problem with the funds was revealed, including van Bommel's role in delivering David Pretlove's strange offer:

The missing money and actions of the association's board of directors have prompted complaints from rank-and-file Liberals upset at being kept in the dark. They're demanding answers.

"I've never encountered anything like this and I've been in politics since I was 13," said Lois Jackson, a St. Thomas party member.

Jackson is upset the riding executive has said nothing about the matter publicly, despite conducting a nomination meeting in April for which nearly 800 party memberships were sold.

But at the heart of this is the question that if this was about "misplaced stuff" and "moving boxes", where does the $15,000 come into the picture? The $15,000 wasn't in a moving box. There was a discrepancy between the riding's books and the actual bank balances. How does that turn into a question of moving boxes that haven't turned up yet?

I guess we'll have to wait until David Pretlove decides to talk to the press directly to explain how helping out a person worried about misplaced stuff turned into an offer to cut cheques for many thousands of dollars on the condition that the police never get involved.

I mean, really. If someone asked you to lend him a buck or two, fine. But if that someone then tells you that if the cops come looking, tell them he was never there, wouldn't you stop and wonder just what it was that this person was doing?

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