ElxFraudCourtDecision. Conservative party fought Elections Canada over conclusions that Tory MPs overspent on campaigns. OTTAWA – The Conservative Party aggressively fought Elections Canada over accounting issues in an attempt to keep election spending by the two MPs officially under the legal limit and avoid a potentially embarrassing investigation. In April, the party called in lawyer Arthur Hamilton to dispute the way the agency was calculating the cost of signage and staff salaries claimed by the campaigns of MPs Shelly Glover and James Bezan. Conservative party fought Elections Canada over conclusions that Tory MPs overspent on campaigns. PM's former chief of staff controlled secret Tory fund - Politics. CBC News has learned that Stephen Harper’s former chief of staff, Nigel Wright, had control of a secret fund in the Prime Minister’s Office when he cut the now infamous $90,000 "personal cheque" to disgraced Senator Mike Duffy.
In exclusive interviews, sources familiar with the fund tell CBC the money in it comes from Conservative Party coffers, and at times has reached almost $1 million. Like all political party funds, more than half of all the cash in the secret PMO stash ultimately comes from taxpayers' pockets. Individual donors to political parties receive generous tax credits. Why Mike Duffy and the Senate are the least of our concerns. EI board appointees made banned donations to Conservatives - Politics. Dozens of people appointed to plum patronage jobs have been donating to the Conservative party, despite government rules that forbid it.
A Canadian Press investigation found as many as one of every five chairpersons on the Employment Insurance Boards of Referees gave money to political parties, riding associations and election candidates while they served on the tribunal. All but one of the dozens of donations went to Conservatives, Election Canada records show. The lone non-Tory donation went to a Liberal riding association in the Toronto area. Those donations run afoul of guidelines for administrative tribunals, such as the EI referees boards, which hear complaints about EI decisions about issues such as denied benefits and fraud. Conservative MPs drop out of CBC and CTV talk shows at last minute. Damning findings removed from Sen. Mike Duffy’s audit report: documents. CTVNews.ca Staff Published Friday, May 17, 2013 10:52AM EDT Last Updated Friday, May 17, 2013 10:01PM EDT The Senate’s internal economy committee sanitized the original audit of Sen.
Star investigation: Millions in taxpayer-funded consulting work kept secret. Most federal departments are not following government guidelines that encourage them to tell the public just what they’re getting for the millions of dollars spent on management consulting. Harper government seeks three more years of Economic Action Plan ads. Those “Economic Action Plan” ads we’ve all come to love over the last four years are going to continue until at least 2016, but probably forever.
The Harper government has called for bids from ad agencies willing to plan a campaign that could run for up to three years, with the purpose of strengthening “ongoing consumer confidence in the Canadian economy and the direction of the country.” The posting, published May 3, does not mention how big a budget this campaign will get, but the government has already spent $100 million on “Action Plan” advertising since 2009. Interested agencies have until May 16 to submit their proposals. Does anyone even know what the Economic Action Plan is anymore?
Fox News guest: Scientific ‘enlightenment and reason’ led to the Holocaust. By David EdwardsThursday, May 2, 2013 9:19 EDT A Fox News guest on Thursday slammed President Barack Obama’s transportation secretary nominee, connecting him to an 18th century scientific movement that embraced reason, which she said was partially to blame for the Holocaust.
Fox News host Steve Doocy asked Penny Nance, CEO of the Christian activist group Concerned Women for America, if she could make any sense out of why Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx would proclaim May 2 as both a “Day of Prayer” and a “Day of Reason.” “He comes from North Carolina, which has the 7th highest church attendance, clearly he’s not running for re-election since he’s up for transportation secretary,” she opined.
“You know, G. K. Deficit-loving Tories may be brought down by $3.1-billion they didn’t spend. Tony Clement says although auditor general can’t find $3.1B allocated to anti-terrorism, no one saying money ‘misspent’ Federal departments and agencies spent about $3.1-billion less on public safety and anti-terrorism activities than they were allocated, and no there was no explanation for the gap.
In a report released Tuesday, Michael Ferguson revealed that the Harper government has been unable to explain why so much money set aside in recent years for the anti-terrorism initiative has simply gone missing. Furthermore, he found the government did not have a clear handle on whether it had met the strategy’s objectives of keeping terrorists out of Canada, and deterring attacks.
Auditor General report says feds can’t account for $3.1-billion. Cdn secrets vulnerable: AG report. By shutting down Rights & Democracy, Stephen Harper’s government is being mean-minded, and hurting our image abroad. In Afghanistan, the Canadian human rights agency Rights & Democracy has been working to shore up women’s rights by bringing the country’s backward family law up to international standards.
In Haiti, it helped Kay Fanm (Women’s House) to provide medical care, counselling and training for women and girls traumatized by gender violence. In the Democratic Republic of Congo and in Bolivia the agency has helped women to run for political office. In Zimbabwe it is documenting rights abuses. These are a few of the recent programs that Rights & Democracy has managed in 17 countries, carrying a torch for Canadian values on a modest budget of $11 million a year, most of it in federal funds. No longer. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government has just pulled the plug, after a long and ugly public controversy.