Party of One (64 page)

1
  After tabling a report in Parliament recommending changes to the law to keep up with new technologies and massive voter databases, Mayrand briefed reporters. On March 28, 2013, he told reporters that in Guelph about 7,000 calls were placed in 15 minutes at a cost of about $160: “It’s very cheap to breach the legislation, undermine public confidence and, honestly, to try to deter or prevent people to cast their ballots.”

2
  Some complainants could not be reached by investigators, some could not provide the incoming calling number nine months after the fact, or provide their telephone service provider at the time. People knew what had happened after the fact, but few had concrete proof. Call data from service providers was unavailable for 80 percent of the 1,726 complainants. Some filed their complaints too late to be included in the investigation, and some individuals and telemarketers simply refused to cooperate. The investigation was doomed from the start.

3
  See John Ivison, “Harper reminded he’s not omnipotent as court dashes Senate plans and Tories amend election bill,”
National Post
, April 25, 2014. Retrieved July 31, 2014,
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/04/25/john-ivison-harper-reminded-hes-not-omnipotent-as-court-dashes-senate-plans/
.

4
  Under the old act, if a person showed up at a poll without ID and wasn’t on the voters list, a person who knew him and was on the voters list could vouch for who he said he was, and the person could vote. That has been eliminated under the new act. Many poor, older people, Aboriginals, and students do not have the proper photo ID with a street address now required. (An Indian status card, for example, does not include a street address.) Despite wide protests, vouching is still eliminated, affecting hundreds of thousands of people. After an amendment, a person who has proper ID, but without a street address on it, can have someone vouch for the fact they live at a certain address in the riding and they can vote.

5
  Michael Sona told me that Prescott swore to him in a church parking lot that he knew nothing about the fake robocalls and Sona believed him.

6
  Just before the robocalls story broke, Ken Morgan helped organize the Guelph EDA annual Sir John A. Macdonald dinner on Thursday, February 2, 2012, tweeting on January 24, 2012, “Must confirm by this week everyone!” Michael Sona tweeted back, “Still in Ottawa, unfortunately won’t be able to make it. Senator Finley is always a riot! Be sure to ask him about what happened to the guy (MP Paul Szabo) who had House of Commons security drag him out of Committee haha.”* Other Guelph Campus Conservatives tweeted their regrets from Ottawa.

Senator Doug Finley was the keynote speaker for the $90-a-plate Sir John A. dinner. Sixty people listened as he started his speech critiquing how the media looks to create the news rather than report it. He also spoke about leadership and the importance of being seen to lead. He compared Stephen Harper to Sir John A. Macdonald for his work ethic.

By this time, Finley, who was the party “fixer,” would have known that reporters were working on the robocalls story that would be broken by Maher and McGregor on February 22–23, 2012. Finley could have talked to Morgan about the coming scandal. (Morgan had been the Guelph EDA president since 2006.) In better days, Morgan, Sona, and Andrew Prescott were among the twelve Guelph delegates who had attended the Conservative Policy Convention in Ottawa on June 9–11, 2011, co-hosted by Mike Duffy and Pamela Wallin. By May 2012, a new Guelph EDA board had been elected, Michael Sona had been named as a key suspect in the robocalls scandal by Sun News, and Ken Morgan was about to take a teaching position in Kuwait. Elections Canada cannot prosecute someone out of the jurisdiction. If a person returns to the jurisdiction, EC has one year to prosecute.

*(This was a reference to Finley being escorted from the witness table of a special parliamentary committee hearing into federal Conservative financing of the 2006 election held in August 2008. National Conservative campaign director Finley had shown up two days before his scheduled testimony and insisted on testifying that day. This would have bumped scheduled speakers. His unscheduled appearance was also possibly intended to intimidate some former Conservative candidates who were scheduled to testify that day. This is an example of the “swaggering, bullying style” of the Conservatives observed by Andrew Coyne [
NP
, February 24, 2012].)

7
  Elections Canada did not seek a production order for the CIMS database, relying instead on voluntary cooperation from the Conservative Party. A production order is a court order requiring the custodian of documents to deliver or make available those documents to law enforcement officials within a specified period of time. It is like a search warrant, but instead of the information being seized by investigators, its custodian is ordered to produce it.

8
  One of the co-sponsors of the Conservative Political Action Conference is the John Birch Society, which the father of the Koch brothers helped to found.

9
  This is an important decision since it will establish new case law, and the judge had to write his decision carefully to prevent the decision being overturned. Elections Canada has never lost a case.

10
  On June 19, 2014, the Council of Canadians and the Canadian Federation of Students announced they would challenge the Fair Elections Act in the Superior Court of Ontario, alleging that it violates section 3 of the Charter on the grounds that it infringes on the rights of certain Canadians to vote.

six
· T
HE
B
IG
L
IE

1
  Real engine trouble occurred for the F-35 on June 23, 2014, at a Florida air base. The Pratt & Whitney engine on an Air Force F-35 A model broke apart and pushed through the top of the plane, catching fire as the pilot was preparing for takeoff. This prevented the jets from appearing at the Farnborough air show in England for a widely publicized event. The incident would also prevent the jets from appearing at the naming of Britain’s new aircraft carrier on July 4, 2014. See “F-35 fighter jets to be inspected after major engine fire in US,” Reuters, July 2, 2014, and “F-35 fleet cleared to fly after June engine fire prompted grounding,” July 15, 2014, by CNN staff.

2
  Interview with Kevin Page, June 13, 2012.

3
  See, for example, “Drones replace ‘The Right Stuff ’: Fighter pilots make way for remote warfare,”
washingtontimes.com
, April 10, 2013.

4
  Edwards is also the controlling shareholder of Imperial Metals Corp., which owns the Mount Polley mine in BC. The mine-waste dam collapsed in August 2014 spilling 10 million cubic metres of tailings into
Polley Lake, Hazelton Creek, and Quesnel Lake. BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc. estimated the cleanup could cost $200 million.

5
  See Laura Payton, “MPs battle over F-35 fighter jet costs,” CBC News, April 4, 2012.

6
  Government did not want lower-level managers called to testify at committee hearings because there had been disagreement about the project within Public Works. In December 2012 Harper tried to escape the growing scandal by suddenly appearing to order the Air Force to re-evaluate options for a new jet. The government announced it would put the procurement process on hold.
The Globe and Mail
said on December 12, 2012: “It was a rare U-turn for an administration that only infrequently acknowledges it was wrong—but one the Tories felt was necessary to repair their fiscal stewardship credentials.” The Tories also admitted the planes would cost at least $45 billion, not the $9 billion they had originally estimated. (See Steve Chase, “Ottawa officially scraps F-35 purchase as audit pegs costs at $45-billion,”
The Globe and Mail
, December 12, 2012, updated December 13, 2012.)

The so-called independent review panel was a charade. It did not call for open bids. Manufacturers such as Saab, which makes the Gripen NG fighter jet, had so little faith in the review that they did not even bother to participate in the re-evaluation.

seven
· T
HE
D
EATH OF
E
VIDENCE

1
  See “Science minister’s coyness on evolution worries researchers,” CBC News, March 17, 2009.

2
  Hyer became deputy chief of the Green Party on December 13, 2013.

3
  
Yes Minister
was a satirical British situation comedy set in the private office of a cabinet minister.

4
  “CEO asks big oil for ELA funds: Says water research important to the sector,”
Winnipeg Free Press
, June 20, 2012.

eight
· M
ELTDOWN

1
  This is public record material. See “Chalk River shutdown triggers isotope shortage,”
Ottawa Citizen
(no byline), December 5, 2007. Retrieved July 31, 2014, from
http://www.canada.com/story.html?id=be7892fd-c460-4a8d-aa15-d1f128a3d883
.

The news story indicates that the reactor was shut down for regular maintenance on November 18. See also “Lunn knew of reactor issues in September: report,” CTV News (Staff), January 9, 2008. Retrieved July 31, 2014, from
http://www.ctvnews.ca/lunn-knew-of-reactor-issues-in-september-report-1.270513
. This news story is based on a report by auditor general Sheila Fraser about needed safety improvements to the Chalk River reactor. Keen was fired for not starting it up again, because it did not have the required emergency backup power installed.

2
  See “Nuclear safety watchdog head fired for ‘lack of leadership’: minister,” CBC News, January 16, 2008.

3
  Interview with Keen, August 16, 2012. The NDP voted with the government to reopen the reactor.

4
  The pretext was to give them money for the development of the next generation of AECLs CANDUs. See Greg Weston, “Ottawa basically paying SNC to take AECL,” CBC News, June 29, 2011. Retrieved July 31, 2014, from
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/weston-ottawa-basically-paying-snc-to-take-aecl-1.1078128
.

5
  See “The made-in-Canada isotope shortage facing medical scans,” CBC News, May 26, 2014, and “Canada to get out of isotope business, PM says,”
The Globe and Mail
, June 10, 2009.

nine
· T
HE
E
XONERATION
B
LUES

1
  Although Guergis was not Iraqi, the racism during the Gulf War (1990– 1991) was just as strong as in 2003. People assumed someone of her complexion was Iraqi, even though she wasn’t—and therefore viewed her as a target to vent their feelings about the war.

2
  Rahim Jaffer met Stephen Harper and his wife for the first time at a party at Ezra Levant’s house in Calgary. Elected in 1997 when he was only in his twenties, Jaffer told me, “I acted my age on the fun side but worked hard and took the job seriously.”

3
  The second time Jaffer met Harper was at the Century Grill when a dozen Conservative operatives “came to sniff Harper the potential candidate.” Jaffer recalled, “It was interesting hearing his thoughts—a smart guy.” But it was the future PM’s appearance that got Jaffer’s attention: “He was incredibly shabby. His belly was hanging out of his shirt that was unbuttoned. He was wearing a hundred-year-old tweed jacket. I turned to James Rajotte and said that Harper was a candidate
for
Extreme Makeover
. He was not hugely charismatic.” Jaffer noted that although Harper definitely listened, “He seemed to always have his mind made up. He had no patience. He did not win 100 percent of the support of the people at the Grill.”

4
  The loss of Edmonton-Strathcona was attributed to Rahim’s work ethic, but this analysis failed to consider the strong progressive elements in the riding that returned candidates such as Liberal Anne McClellan and NDPer Linda Duncan.

5
  On March 31, 2010, the Liberals alleged that a letter-writing campaign had been waged on Helena Guergis’s behalf after the PEI airport story, by those close to her, including her executive assistant and the assistant’s mother, as well as a constituency assistant and former riding president. Rahim Jaffer’s arrest on the driving charges had occurred in September 2009.

6
  Ironically, the place she had allegedly called a “hellhole,” Charlottetown, was her father’s birthplace.

7
  Interview of Guergis by Peter Mansbridge. See CBC News, May 10, 2010, updated May 11, 2010: “Guergis breaks silence on scandal.” Sidebar “Charlottetown tantrum” reports about Mansbridge viewing the tape with Guergis at the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority office in Ottawa. CBC News article includes part of this quote. Cameras were not allowed in to the room, and the tape has never been released to the public. A reporter from
The Enterprise-Bulletin
(“What meltdown?” August 3, 2010) also viewed the tape and reached a similar conclusion to Mansbridge.

8
  See report: “Guergis appears on Parliament Hill after P.E.I. incident,” CTV News, March 15, 2010.

9
  Statement of Arthur L. Hamilton, April 16, 2010. RCMP File #2010-391251. Present: Mr. Arthur L. Hamilton, S/Sgt. Stéphane St-Jacques and Insp. John Keuper.

10
  See “Winnipeg O’ My Heart,” a blog about moving to Winnipeg, June 1, 2011. Many Manitobans are fiercely proud of their unique tradition of wedding socials, fundraisers for a wedding couple known as a “Winnipeg social.” You rent a hall and sell tickets to everyone you know. The couple’s wedding party organizes the event and hosts it for the bride and groom instead of having showers, stags, and stagettes. It is commonplace in the province. See also “The Social: A Manitoba tradition,”
Maclean’s
, January 11, 2013, which says, “The wedding fundraisers are almost as ubiquitous as perogies and cold weather.”

11
  After Jaffer lost his seat, he put in what he believed to be legitimate expense claims. A Conservative MP made an allegation that Jaffer had stolen the money, but the dispute was never resolved. Normally the party would not spread damaging rumours about itself, unless it was trying to target someone, in this case Jaffer.