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From:  "Larry Hilman" <hilmanlarry@speechplans.com>
Subject:  Vacation reservation for Bob
Date:  Fri, 13 Jan 2006 02:58:04 -0500
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>like Scott Reid who is today his director of communications, and David Herle, the head of his leadership campaign.)
>Comment le premier ministre peut-il continuer de jouer ce jeu jeux avec la v�rit� concernant l'octroi des contrat? Comment?
>(How can the Prime Minister continue to play this game with the truth concerning the granting of contracts?)
>Kate, from SDA reminds us of an excerpt from the Globe and Mail where Ralph insisted that there wasn't any rigging of contracts:
>
>"Why does the government not just admit . . . the Prime Minister abused the process to get contracts to his friends at Earnscliffe, to his campaign manager David Herle?" Conservative Leader Stephen Harper said. "Why does he not just admit that he got public money to his political associates?"
>Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan and Finance Minister Ralph Goodale jumped to Mr. Martin's defence as opposition MPs chanted "where's Paul" -- a reference to the Prime Minister's empty Commons seat. Aides said that Mr. Martin was meeting with foreign ambassadors and representatives after the government released its new policy paper on foreign affairs.
>Mr. Goodale insisted that an independent audit by accounting firm Ernst and Young in 1997 and the Auditor-General's review in the 2003 had found no rigging of contracts.
>Let's fast-forward to the current scandal of income trusts, a scandal that surrounds Ralph Goodale and his announcement on the non-taxation of these investments. One of the people at the meeting of the executive committee of the Investment Dealers Association of Canada (IDA) was Goodale confidant Donald Black, a director of Greystone Managed Investments Inc. that manages the Hartford Growth and Income Fund, a fund that has significant investments in income trusts. Angry in the Great White North has more:
>
>Finance Minister Ralph Goodale had an hour-long meeting with senior representatives of Canada's investment community -- at which the issue of income trusts was discussed -- only hours before his decision on the issue was announced, CanWest News Service has learned.
>An official in Mr. Goodale's office confirmed yesterday that the previously undisclosed meeting with the executive committee of the Investment Dealers Association of Canada (IDA) took place, but said those who attended left the morning meeting "no wiser" about the decision that was announced later that day after markets closed.
>So, how close are Goodale and Black? Greystone Capital Management is based out of Regina, Saskatchewan. Black ran Pioneer Life Insurance and gave Goodale a senior position in the firm during his brief stint in the private sector. According to some sources, Goodale was appointed this senior position to allow the now Minister of Finance to continue working on his political ambitions.
>
>The faxes are from accounting firm Deloitte & Touche to the Ministry of Finance (Ralph Goodale's office). The faxes are to Mike Burton, a former ministerial staffer of Finance Minister Ralph Goodale. However, it appears from these faxes that Burton is also an organizer within the Saskatchewan Liberal Association.
>
>The faxes, intended for the Minister's office detail Liberal Party donations to the riding of Regina Qu'Appelle where one assumes Burton is organizing for the Liberal Party. The faxes also describe accounting of party funds in the ridings of Prince Albert and Regina-Lumsden-Lake Centre.
>
>Furthermore, is it the same Mike Burton from Saskatchewan that provides us with yet another one of those 30 million reasons to not vote Liberal?
>
>The pages detail the business of the Saskatchewan Liberal Association.
>The cover page indicates the intended destination, "Finance"
>The fax number on the cover page (613) 995-XXXX indicates a House of Commons / Ministerial number.
>There is not a number within the (613) 995- range that should be receiving faxes dealing with partisan business.
>This fax was obtained indirectly by this conservative blogger via a campaigning Conservative friend who obtained it from a Conservative MP that received the fax by mistake (number blurred to protect the innocent). Apparently, the fax number was typed in erroneously (a dialing typo).
>
>Click image to enlarge
>
>UPDATE: Mike Burton has been quite involved in the Liberal family for some time. Burton ran for the Liberals in the Saskatchewan provincial election in 2003 in the riding of Swift Current.
>
>UPDATE: Angry takes the ball and runs with it. He discovers that Goodale's ministerial staff has a particular focus on Saskatchewan issues for some reason.
>
>Posted by Stephen Taylor at 07:53 AM | Comments (47) | Trackback (1)
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>
>December 30, 2005
>  The latest polling data and what it may mean
>Today, SES research in its daily rolling poll indicates that the Conservatives and the Liberals are statistically tied in the wake of the news of the RCMP criminal investigation into the apparent leak on income trusts.
>
>It's a big no-no for a ministerial budget to be used for partisan purposes and it's clear from these faxed pages that
>
>
>The poll shows the Liberals at 35%, the Conservatives at 34% and the NDP at 14% with a 3.1% margin of error. Thus a virtual tie exists between the two front runners.
>
>Is this good news or bad news for the Conservatives? It could be bad news if the Conservatives break through this early. During the 2004 campaign, soft NDP support became anxious when the news media (and Stephen Harper) predicted that a "Conservative Majority" was in sight.
>
>But this time has been different for the Conservatives as they've been running a policy heavy campaign, floating real and positive ideas to the Canadian voting public. Most importantly, the campaign has been one for positive change in lieu of one that demanded that Canadians punish the Liberals. Over the first half of this campaign, the Conservatives were on a daily mission to remove every single rational reason that Canadians could think of to not cast a Tory ballot on January 23rd.
>
>Meanwhile, the Liberals have been running a catchup campaign responding to Conservative announcements and losing media attention when they present their also-ran policy. Further, as many observers have noted, perhaps a significant element of the Grit campaign was to wait and let Stephen Harper shoot himself in the foot. You almost thought that they expected the Conservative leader to take the bait over the handgun ban. However, the Conservatives handled the announcement with agility as they pointed out that the ban had been effectively on the books since the 1930s. Police chiefs and victims of gun-related crime also lambasted the Liberals on the shallow policy.
>
>Here we are in late December at the end of the first half of the campaign. Paul Martin must feel like a kid who thought he could study from old exams and pull it off at the last minute. However, the test is a lot different this time and Mr. Martin must feel like he's got a lot of cramming to do.
>
>Now, as the Liberals team are facing scandal after scandal (the most recent being the RCMP investigation of the income trusts), the Liberals will find it difficult to offer anything positive while they fend off what could turn out to be a mini-Adscam during the final half of the campaign.
>
>In fact, the Liberals will also find it difficult to go negative against Stephen Harper while the Canadian electorate perceives a completely different situation unfold in front of them in the news media.
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>Paul Martin and his team are panicking at this stage of the campaign while the Conservatives must be breathing easier as they can take comfort in having run a clean and professional campaign thus far.
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>Will the polling number give voters a reason to pause? And if they do pause, will it be to see a scandal-plagued Liberal campaign that has run off the track? Will Canadians instead see a Conservative minority government as a real possibility and become accustomed to this idea over the next few weeks. If they do - and this is highly speculative - we might see a late-breaking trend: bleeding Liberal support going NDP to hold the Conservatives to account.
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>You don't need to be a pollster to see that the Conservatives have gained momentum whereas the Liberals have clearly lost it.
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>Appointing Ralph Goodale also keeps the Liberal light flickering in Saskatchewan. Remember that Goodale was the Leader of the Saskatchewan Liberal Party from 1981-1988 and during this time he was the only Liberal MLA elected (in 1986).
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>Would you be surprised to find out that almost all federal judges appointed from Saskatchewan are Liberal Party donors?
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>I'd say I was, but I'm coming to understand Liberal methodology.
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>Click image of table to enlarge
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>While the Liberal Party has been largely shut out of provincial and federal politics, one has to wonder why the federal judges appointed from Saskatchewan do not necessarily reflect the voting patterns of the people from that province.
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>Here are breakdowns of the donations by party from the federally appointed judges in Saskatchewan since 1993.
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>I don't know if I find it odd or maddening when I hear Canadian Liberal friends complain about how the "balance" on the US supreme court is in jeopardy because of George W. Bush's appointments.
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>In Canada we have no such balance (even to upset by one judge). In Canada, we haven't anything close to balance. Do Conservatives even apply to law school when faced with such job advancement statistics?
>
>In Canada, most of us celebrate diversity. I hope that one day we can celebrate diversity of thought.
>
>Posted by Stephen Taylor at 01:23 PM | Comments (18) | Trackback (1)
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>
>  CBC covering up for Goodale?
>
>By now, most of us have heard that the RCMP is investigating Ralph Goodale's income trust announcement.
>
>Here's the letter that set off the news-storm addressed to NDP finace critic Judy Wasylycia-Leis from the RCMP.
>
>I just received an email from a concerned conservative in Ralph Goodale's riding and he details suspicious behaviour from the state-run broadcaster:
>