The Liberals have succeeded in resurrecting the Sponsorship Scandal
The notice of intent filed by the Conservatives against the Liberals is not directly concerning allegations that the Conservative Party broke campaign financing rules.
No, the libel being alleged is related to a Liberal statement that Conservative staffers were given jobs in return for committing criminal acts that benefited the Conservative Party (related to that campaign financing, as it turns out).
Of course, the Gomery Commission established that the Liberal Party was doing exactly that -- arranging for jobs for Liberal staffers who then acted in contravention to the law. And now the Liberals have managed to bring that bit of history back to the forefront.
The Canadian Press is now carrying the story first reported on this blog on a legal action being brought against the Liberal Party by the Conservatives. In particular, we are learning the basis of the libel charge.
It is not that the Conservatives might or might not have overspent on advertising.
It is that the Liberals have suggested that Conservative staffers committed illegal acts in return for jobs.
The Conservative Party of Canada is threatening legal action against the Liberals over language they've used to describe an investigation into Tory spending practices.
Lawyers fired off a letter to the president and executive director of the Liberal party, saying a number of Tory staffers have been defamed in a recent opposition press release on the so-called "in and out'' scheme being examined by Elections Canada.
"This letter is . . . intended to serve as notice that it is defamatory to suggest or imply that these individuals have engaged in illegal conduct,'' writes party lawyer Paul Lepsoe. "In particular, it is defamatory to suggest or imply that the positions these individuals have or have had on Ministers' staffs are 'rewards' for having engaged in illegal conduct.
"Our clients reserve their rights to take such action as they deem appropriate against the Liberal Party of Canada and others . . . .''
You can see the actual letter on Stephen Taylor's blog.
This is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. The Conservatives are not attempting to fight the charges of overspending via a libel suit. The Conservatives are fighting with Elections Canada on the interpretation and the scope of that law through a court challenge.
That is a different and separate matter.
What the Liberals did was suggest that the Conservative Party was some sort of criminal enterprise, and that the Conservative Party offers jobs to those people who break the law for the party:
The Liberal release, attributed to MP Dominic LeBlanc on Tuesday, refers to an "apparent scheme to violate election spending limits'' and "serious allegations.'' It also underlined that 11 former candidates and agents went on to find government positions.
"One has to wonder if there is a connection between their willingness to participate and employment by this Conservative government,'' LeBlanc said in the statement.
The Liberals are making these staffers out to be the equivalent of "made men".
Indeed, the question of the campaign financing is irrelevant. Regardless of what Elections Canada decides and how the court case between the Elections Canada and the Conservatives ends, the claim against the Liberals won't be affected. The Liberals have alleged that the Conservatives use employment as payment for criminal acts, and that these staffers are of such deficient moral character that they would commit criminal acts in order to earn these positions.
The Liberals are in a real bind here. The best defense against a libel suit is the truth. Liberal supporters who have commented on this story have taken some solace in the hope that the Conservatives really did contravene the law with the financing.
That only helped when we assumed (incorrectly) that the suit was brought in response to the charge that financing laws were broken.
Now the Liberals have to establish that criminality and employment go hand in hand in the Conservative Party. I have to think that even the most partisan Liberal apologist would blanch at the idea of proving that assertion.
If the Liberals are forced to backtrack on this, to apologize and say in no uncertain terms that the Conservative Party is not an organization in which criminal acts are performed in exchange for jobs or money, the repercussions are going to be serious. If that is how this plays out, the humiliation of the Sponsorship Scandal will be brought back into sharp focus. The Liberals will have to say that the Conservatives did not reward staffers with jobs for committing criminal acts. The Conservatives will be able to note that the Gomery Commission established that the Liberal Party and the Liberal-friendly advertising agencies involved in the Sponsorship Program did exactly that. In that case, advertising jobs were given to Liberals who then passed their paycheques to the party.
Yet again the Liberals have maneuvered themselves into a corner. If they fight, they stand a good chance of losing, and paying a signficant cost in legal fees as well as in political humiliation. If they back off, the humiliation is still there. The Sponsorship Scandal makes a return appearance, and Stephane Dion looks worse than hapless.
The cleverest thing is the timing of all this. In December, there will be a meeting of all Liberal Party riding presidents. If this lawsuit is not resolved by then, you can be certain the riding presidents will be discussing just how this will play out, and that they'll see the Sponsorship Scandal parallels looming. If the lawsuit has been resolved, and the Liberals have been humiliated, then the discussion will be even more intense.
Either way, they will be wondering just how Stephane Dion managed to get himself and the party into this mess.
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Comments
Haha, this is priceless -- Dion the saviour? Um, no.
Posted by: Richard Romano at October 26, 2007 12:42 AM
Liberals got into this mess out of frustration and desperation. They're akin to hungry scavengers scraping the bottom of the barrel to come up with a morsel to chew on. This bit they've been chewing on looks like it will bite them back.
Looking forward to apologies from Leblanc and Jennings.
More of the Liberal desperation is played out daily in HOC with rant type questioning by emoting blowbags like Holland and Dhalla.
Peter Van Loan does a good job bringing up the millions still missing/ unaccounted for, in the sponsorship scandal. It's a smack down every time.
Posted by: Libby at October 26, 2007 07:09 AM
Interesting that these accusations come so easily to Liberals....seems like a classic case of transference to me...accusing an opponent of what you yourself are guilty of.
Tells me all I need to know about the mental health of the Liberal spin makers.
Posted by: WL Macakenzie Redux at October 26, 2007 09:17 AM
Heads up... the Liberals have repeated their referral to their libelous accusations in an e-mail sent out today.
Posted by: Christian Conservative at October 26, 2007 09:22 AM
The Gomery inquiry is the gift that keeps on giving. Thank you Stephane Dion for reminding Canadians of the practices that Liberals employed when you were in government.
Posted by: Hector B. at October 26, 2007 09:46 AM
Liberals are grasping at straws nowadays, and it must feel very demeaning for Ignatieff having to stand up in QP, after Dion makes his incoherent statements and Ignatieff has to clarify it for everybody.
It's now apparent that Liberals desperately want Bob Rae in the HoCs so that Ignatieff is again locked out from ascending to leader. Paul Wells in his Inkless Wells blog "Remains of the day", devastatingly says it all.
Posted by: Observer at October 26, 2007 10:32 AM
What was Peter Van Loan saying in the House just now? Something about corporate sponsers for a fund raiser for Liberals...Pizza Pizza, Great Lakes Brewery etc. etc. I thought corportate money was illegal? Leasa
Posted by: Leasa at October 26, 2007 10:43 AM
It looks like Great Lakes Brewery is knee-deeply involved with the federal Liberal Party. Anetta Jewell, Partner, Great Lakes Brewery of Toronto, was involved in a Martha Hall Findlay fundraiser this past March.
Ignatieff's backyard bbqs this past summer just happened to have as the beer of choice - Great Lakes Brewery products! Probably just a coincidence. http://www.tonyaspler.com/pub/articleview.asp?id=1128&s=5
Or the fact that Anetta is the riding president for the Provincial Liberal riding of Etobicoke-Lakeshore - Iggy's provincial cousin.
http://www.tonyaspler.com/pub/articleview.asp?id=1128&s=5
Pizza Pizza, if I recall correctly, switched to Income Trust status, and was harshly singled out by Jim Flaherty as one company and type of company that absolutely shouldn't be an Income Trust.
Posted by: alan at October 26, 2007 02:10 PM
I hope that Garth Turner is the next Liberal party leader after Stephane Dion gets turfed.
That would sink the party for sure.
Posted by: Lex Luthor at October 26, 2007 02:31 PM
Maybe Garth Turner would sink the Liberal Party, but Stephane Dion seems to be doing a great job himself.
Posted by: Bert at October 26, 2007 04:03 PM
How the hell are the Liberals still getting donations from corporations (even in donated beer for an event) under the new regulations?
P.S. I went to the Great Lakes Brewery website; luckily I don't drink any of those beers anyways, otherwise they'd be off my list. Pizza Pizza has seen the last dollar they're getting from me.
Posted by: Paul M at October 26, 2007 04:29 PM
IMHO this is part of God's payback for what Trudeau did to us. Long may the Liberals flounder!
Posted by: Larry at October 26, 2007 08:15 PM
Ah, toss all the scandal ridden Liberals in a big beer tent and supply them with free beer and all they can eat pizza, let 'em drown their sorrows or just GET STUFFED, sounds like they have suppliers.
Posted by: Libby at October 26, 2007 08:30 PM
Actually, Libby, I think the Liberals are more the party of ber and popcorn...
Posted by: DCardno at October 26, 2007 10:03 PM
...sadly, the Canadian voter, especially those of certain geographical areas are like Lemmings.
They'll follow the loudest voice.
Self thought is not really encouraged there.
Or as the old saying goes - history will repeat itself.
As a dog returns to its vomit...
Posted by: tomax7 at October 27, 2007 12:34 PM
Oh, just to clarify about voters being Lemmings. I was wrong ;-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemming
While many people believe that lemmings commit mass suicide when they migrate, this is not the case. Driven by strong biological urges, they will migrate in large groups when population density becomes too great. Lemmings can and do swim and may choose to cross a body of water in search of a new habitat[5]. On occasion, and particularly in the case of the Norway lemmings in Scandinavia, large migrating groups will reach a cliff overlooking the ocean. They will stop until the urge to press on causes them to jump off the cliff and start swimming, sometimes to exhaustion and death. Lemmings are also often pushed into the sea as more and more lemmings arrive at the shore. [6]
The myth of lemming mass suicide is long-standing and has been popularized by a number of factors. It is usually stated that the main source of the belief in the suicide myth was propagated by The Walt Disney Company documentary White Wilderness which includes footage of lemmings migrating and running head-long over a ledge. An investigation in 1983 by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Brian Vallee, showed that the Disney film makers faked the entire sequence using imported lemmings (bought from Inuit children), a snow covered turntable on which a few dozen lemmings were forced to run, and literally throwing lemmings into the sea to show the alleged suicides. [7]
Due to their association with this odd behaviour, lemming suicide is a frequently-used metaphor in reference to people who go along unquestioningly with popular opinion, with potentially dangerous or fatal consequences. This is the theme of the video game Lemmings, where the player attempts to save the mindlessly marching rodents from walking to their deaths.
Posted by: at October 27, 2007 12:52 PM
"Disney film makers faked the entire sequence"
Say it ain't so!!!
And Global Warming or Reuters wasn't even on this!
Posted by: tomax7 at October 27, 2007 12:53 PM
Now the Liberals have to establish that criminality and employment go hand in hand in the Conservative Party. I have to think that even the most partisan Liberal apologist would blanch at the idea of proving that assertion.
Hate to break it to you singleminded partisan zealots, but criminality goes hand in hand with all government spending and with all government jobs. Of course you can parse legal codes (written by the same criminal government hacks whom you propose to prosecute) and argue in front of a judge (appointed by and nearly always connected politically to the same hacks) all day and you will almost never convince government hacks to convict other hacks.
The only real question is why did the government take the money from you in the first place, and what valuable "service" would they be performing for you by funding a gigantic bureaucracy and then using the rest of the money to buy votes with ridiculous and idiotic sponsorship deals in order to buy a couple of hundred votes in swing ridings? Is that moral? Even if they have written laws for themselves in order to make it technically legal? Does the fact that certain political parties have been more successful at buying votes in this way mean that the other parties - populated with the same kind of greedy, ambitious hacks - are some kind of moral paragons?
Posted by: at October 27, 2007 02:56 PM
Must admit, pockets of Ontario are loaded with Lemmings, most of the country is aware of that fact. These birds come out to vote both Federal and Provincial elections. They latch onto one issue, listen to the MSM and go vote Liberal. There have been periods of sanity and there is evidence we're coming into one right now, people are realizing just how mucked up the Liberal party is and how well the Conservatives are doing in a short period of governance.
I may be naive but right now we have a Prime Minister who is in the job for the right reasons. He feels he can make a difference, get the Country back to the values she was built on and DEFEND those values.
Posted by: Libby at October 27, 2007 03:59 PM
"get the Country back to the values she was built on and DEFEND those values"
What are you talking, 1700, or 1800, or perhaps our Charter of Rights? :->) I couldn't resist -- values we were built on, indeed, after we took care of the natives.
Posted by: catherine at October 27, 2007 05:28 PM
don't get too giggly about the libs leaving for good, they have an agenda that's driven by political powers like quebecor, china.
fidel castro was an honarary pall bearer for trudeau
Posted by: kelly at October 27, 2007 07:31 PM
"Does the fact that certain political parties have been more successful at buying votes in this way mean that the other parties - populated with the same kind of greedy, ambitious hacks - are some kind of moral paragons?"
No. Because all people of any given stripe are guilty by association. If you are a politician, you're bad. If you're a corporation, you're greedy and evil. If you're a criminal from a lower income bracket, you're a victim of society. If you're a man, you'll cheat on your wife.
What more does anybody need when you have an omnipotent prejudice?
Posted by: Surecure at October 29, 2007 12:17 PM
...actually, that should have been "omniscient prejudice". But, you'll have to forgive me. I support the Conservatives these days, so I must be uneducated.
Posted by: Surecure at October 29, 2007 12:21 PM
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