Tag: election financing

“Tough talk” from Dion, until the headline question comes up

Today, Stephane Dion held a press conference in the National Press Theatre in Ottawa to address recent comments by the Prime Minister regarding the dysfunction of Parliament, particularly in reference to the Ethics committee which wrapped up a round of meetings last week without much accomplished.

The leader of the opposition started his press conference by responding indirectly to the Prime Minister’s ultimatum given in at the Conservative caucus retreat in Lévis, Quebec when the PM said that Mr. Dion has to “fish or cut bait”, meaning that Dion either has to instruct his members to contribute to a working atmosphere in Parliament or indicate to the PM that its time for an election. Dion made reference to fishing, cutting the fish, eating the fish and fishing for victory… or something. The Liberal leader was certainly fishing, however, not in the way the Prime Minister had hoped and rather was searching for a reason to defer ultimate judgment on this Parliament.

His tough words were empty as he told gathered reporters that the PM was wrong on climate change, irresponsible on the alleged Cadman affair, on the so-called In-and-out election financing scheme, but as Richard Brennan from the Toronto Star asked, why don’t you just say “bring it on”?

Dion was non-committal and responded that Canadians have indicated that they want an election, that there will be an election but there are by-elections to win first. Asked whether his indecisiveness will make him look weak to Canadians, Dion non-answered that his job isn’t to respond to the Prime Minister’s taunts but to replace him.

The opposition leader asserted that this is the most partisan government for some time and reflected a non-partisan tone claiming that while the Liberals are the party of multiculturalism and the Charter that no party has a monopoly on that. Similarly, on the topic of national unity, Dion responded that a right-wing government doesn’t make him feel less Canadian and that the Prime Minister should set a non-partisan tone on the unity file.

Despite these concessions, irresponsibility was the charge that Dion laid against the Prime Minister during the press conference and said that the PM’s tactics in the 39th Parliament were “unacceptable”.

Stephane Dion has had over 40 opportunities to offer more than words on the “unacceptable” state of Parliament.  Will he stop fishing and finally cut bait?

CH panel: Fall election?

Today I was on a panel with Mike Crawley, the President of the Ontario wing of the Liberal Party of Canada and with Wayne Marston, NDP MP from Hamilton East–Stoney Creek. We were chatting about a possible fall election and the dysfunction of the Ethics committee.

Click here to watch

Which NDP and Bloc candidate filings are under review by Elections Canada?

Today Marc Mayrand of Elections Canada hinted at the Ethics committee that filings from other parties were also under review by his organization that oversees elections. Currently, Elections Canada claims that the Conservative Party has run afoul of the Elections Act by the shifting of so-called expenses from the national campaign to the local campaigns. However, Elections Canada is only focusing their brutish efforts on the Conservative Party.

I decided to look into this and found that Elections Canada actually discloses via “creative” querying of their database which candidate filings are under review. If we access the contributions and expenses database on the Elections Canada website, we can compare submitted vs. reviewed filings from all candidates. There are discrepancies between both lists suggesting that Elections Canada is actively reviewing a number of filings from candidates of the 2006 General Election.

Data as submitted:

vs. data as reviewed:

Here is the NDP in BC:
Data as submitted:

Data as reviewed:

Nathan Cullen, Libby Davies, and Malcolm James are not on the “data as reviewed by Elections Canada” list while they are on the “data as submitted list”. These NDPers seem to have election filings that are under active review by Elections Canada.

NDP in New Brunswick:
Data as submitted:

Data as reviewed:

Alice Finnamore, Neil Gardner, and Yvon Godin seem to have filings that are under active review by Elections Canada.

NDP in Saskatchewan:
Data as submitted:

Data as reviewed:

Elgin Wayne Wyatt’s name is discrepant between filings submitted to and filings reviewed by Elections Canada suggesting this candidate’s filing is under active review by Elections Canada.

NDP in Ontario:
Data as submitted:


Data as reviewed:


Nirvan Balkissoon, Olivia Chow, Ed Chudak, and Sid Ryan have submitted their filings to Elections Canada but EC has not finished reviewing them meaning they have been flagged for some reason.

NDP in Quebec:
Data as submitted:

Data as reviewed:

Robert Donnelly, Anne Lesvesque, Isabelle Maguire, Ehsan Mohammadian, and Stephane Ricard have not had the reviews of their candidate filings completed by Elections Canada.

NDP in Alberta, Manitoba, Yukon, NWT, Nunavut, PEI, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador:
no discrepancy between lists

The Bloc Quebecois only has one candidate from the last election that appears to be under active review by Elections Canada. Diane Bourgeois, according to the EC website, has submitted her candidate filing, however, its review has not been completed.

BQ in Quebec:
Data as submitted:

Data as reviewed: