PING!
Posted on 06/11/2006 12:57:41 PM PDT by GMMAC
Liberals still don't know why they lost:
Party feels no need to discipline Joe Volpe
for his questionable election practices
The Edmonton Journal
Sun 11 Jun 2006
Page: A18 Section: Opinion
Byline: Lorne Gunter
The federal Liberals still just do not get it. They cannot come to grips with what it is about their ethics and attitude that finally put off enough voters to dislodge them from power last January.
Yes, I'm talking about Joe Volpe, the Toronto MP and leadership candidate who took $27,000 in campaign donations from five children; money he has since returned.
But I am also talking about the reaction of Volpe's leadership rivals and of the Liberal party itself. The Liberal hierarchy seems to feel it has no obligation whatever to discipline the kiddies' candidate.
When 10 of the 11 leadership candidates had to file their first financial statements with Elections Canada last month, it was revealed that $108,000 of the $152,700 Volpe had raised had come from the executives of just one company -- generic drug-maker Apotex -- and their spouses.
Apotex has frequently been involved in minor controversies with individual Liberals.
In 1998, then Health Minister Allan Rock, who had once acted for Apotex when he was a lawyer in private practice, set off a battle within the Liberal cabinet by proposing the government cut public health-care costs by making it easier for generic drug companies to copy prescription drugs without paying royalties to the pharmaceutical companies that held their patents.
In 2001, Rock ordered nearly a million doses of an anti-anthrax drug from Apotex, even though that violated Bayer's patent. Rock blamed junior officials in his department for not realizing the order violated the law.
Then in the last federal election, Elie Betito, a Parliament Hill lobbyist for Apotex -- who was also president of the Oakville, Ont., Liberal riding association and a senior campaign volunteer for incumbent Liberal MP Bonnie Brown -- was forced to resign his party posts after telling a competitive shooter in an e-mail, to "take your NRA , GUN-LOVING ASS BACK TO THE U.S. WHERE YOU BELONG."
It was bad enough when the Apotex families' donations to Volpe were first reported. Campaign finance laws limit individual donations to $5,400, but they also forbid corporate donations and donations on behalf of others. So when 20 donors, all affiliated with Apotex, each gave the maximum allowable to Volpe, it caused many observers to wonder whether elections officials might rule the donations, which were within the letter of the law, sidestepped its spirit.
Then came the revelation that five of these 20 were children, two as young as 11. While that is not illegal, it too prompted questions about what 11-year-old has $5,400 to give to a political candidate?
Volpe's donations were not the only ones that raised eyebrows. Among them, the 11 candidates had borrowed from individuals five times as much money as they had raised. This may have been in part because tax receipts cannot be issued for donations given before the official start of a campaign, but it may also have been because while there are limits on how much donors may give, there are no limits on how much they may lend.
Again, the money raised doubts about the Liberals' commitment to cleaning up their act.
Volpe remains unrepentant about his acts, though. In an interview last week with The Journal, he insisted his personal appeal and ideas had prompted at least three of the Apotex children to give him sizable cash gifts. He insisted that when he spoke at their school in the last election (an event the school has no record of), "these kids just connected with me; they loved what I did. When they heard I was running for the leadership (many months later), they said 'What can we do?' "
Apparently the "what" was smashing their little piggy banks and taking out more than $5,000 each.
Volpe retorted to those who doubted his story, "There are families where kids actually talk about these things."
Yes, there are, including my family and very probably yours. But my 10- and 11-year-olds have never been so moved by a politician to give him $54, much less $5,400. Then, perhaps, that's because they have never been exposed to the charisma and intellectual charm of Joe Volpe.
Still, Volpe can be expected to make excuses for his behaviour. To admit to too much wrongdoing would end his leadership ambitions. But what of other prominent Liberals?
Steven MacKinnon, the party's national director, insisted the Volpe revelations were a matter for Elections Canada rather than his party. "Elections Canada regulates contributions to leadership candidates," Mr. MacKinnon argued. "The Liberal party does not."
But shouldn't the party have a higher standard than "Hey, if it ain't illegal, it's OK by us"?
Or consider the criticism of Volpe by front-running candidate Michael Ignatieff: "I think any candidate has to safeguard not only his or her reputation but the reputation of the party. And there is no way to avoid the fact that Mr. Volpe's campaign difficulties have caused reputational damage to (the) party."
It's all Volpe's doing in Ignatieff's mind, though, as in MacKinnon's. See how Ignatieff never suggests the party should share some of the responsibility for failing to discipline Volpe itself?
Until the Liberals start being more proactive and firm with their candidates' behaviour, the will never regain the public's confidence.
Lorne Gunter
Columnist/Editorial Writer, National Post
Columnist, Edmonton Journal
Tele: (780) 916-0719 E-mail: lgunter@shaw.ca
PING!
It's all of the above.
Canada seems to be making real progress, except for its MINORITY Liberal Party.
"forced to resign his party posts after telling a competitive shooter in an e-mail, to "take your NRA , GUN-LOVING ASS BACK TO THE U.S. WHERE YOU BELONG.'
Had to resign? That elected bitch from Mississauga said much worse, horrific things about the US and nobody batted an eye.
"The federal Liberals still just do not get it. They cannot come to grips with what it is about their ethics and attitude that finally put off enough voters to dislodge them from power last January."
Hey Canada... our USA liberals act the same way. THey don't resign their offices when caught but get stubborn and hope their mainstream media pals gloss over their despicable actions.
When conservatives are even vaguely accused then holy hell is raised about it. Liberals are hypocrites here too.
As more and more people realize that liberals are mentally ill with no ability whatsoever to process experience and logic, our country edges closer and closer to what it needs to be in the modern world.
Well, that's good to hear. But from what friends tell me, the Mississauga I lived in decades ago has become an ethnic cesspool that Parrish seems in tune with.
Let's hope they are still wondering why they lost when they lose the next election.
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