Conservative Reps Flee Reporters after Secret Meeting

Tell me it doesn’t leave you with a dirty taste in their mouth, and the feeling of being unclean, when official representatives of Canada’s governing party secretly plan meetings and then sneak down the back stairs of hotels to avoid the media. In fact, for me, it conjures up thoughts of Watergate and the Nixon era in America.

On Friday information finally surfaced about the affidavit and resulting search warrant used to take documents and computer equipment from Conservative party headquarters in Ottawa.

The affidavit and the warrant that were used by Elections Canada to conduct the three-day search, seeking evidence of alleged election fraud, were unsealed on Friday. Instead of all 700 pages, only 70 pages of material were released to television networks by the Conservative party and Ryan Sparrow, a party spokesman, refused to explain when contacted by The Globe and Mail, why the Conservatives released only a portion of the documents.

According to a CTV report, the portions of the affidavit handed do not reveal much more about the case than was already known, but it does confirm that the search was not related to a lawsuit launched against Elections Canada by the Conservatives. Instead the warrant was related to a so called “In and Out” scheme that allegedly allowed the party to list the cost of national campaign ads as local ads and in doing so claim additional tax refunds while circumventing election spending limits by more than a million dollars during their 2006 campaign.

According to the Globe and Mail, “In releasing the abridged version of the documents to select media, the party hoped to give Mr. Sparrow, campaign organizer Doug Finley and party lawyer Paul Lepsoe a chance to explain the Tory point of view.”

“In the end, the plan went horribly awry.”

“On Saturday Mr. Sparrow called a number of reporters to ask them to come to meetings that had been scheduled for yesterday at the Lord Elgin Hotel in downtown Ottawa saying it "would be worth their while."

“But media outlets not among those invited got wind of the meetings …began to ask what was going on. When one reporter asked in an e-mail about the news conference, Mr. Sparrow replied: "No conference, not sure where you got that from."

“Shortly after, the Liberals found out about the briefings and advised all of the Ottawa press gallery, some of whom were quite miffed to find they had been excluded. When they threatened to show up at the Lord Elgin, despite the lack of an invitation, the meeting was secretly moved to the Sheraton.”

“The first briefing for select television outlets took place but, by then, the excluded reporters found out the new location and began to stake out the hotel. That led the Tories to cancel all subsequent briefings, including the one they had planned with The Globe.”

“Mr. Sparrow, Mr. Finley and Mr. Lepsoe fled from the Sheraton down a back set of stairs.”

I ask you, what has Canada become?

The government of Canada is quickly building a long resume of very questionable and perhaps even illegal activities.

The firing of Canada’s nuclear regulator because she did her job and made the Minister to whom she reported “look bad”.

An audio tape clearly identifying that the Prime Minister was aware of some kind of financial offer to the late MP Chuck Cadman in return for his vote in the House of Commons.

Attempting to blame the military for acting on its own with prisoner exchanges in Afghanistan, the equivalent of accusing them of no longer being under government control.

Ramming through immigration legislation, hidden inside the budget bill, that would allow the Conservative Minister to cherry pick which individuals or “types” of applicants will be reviewed for entry into Canada and which will be denied a chance to enter the Country.

Tabling censorship legislation (though they don’t call it that) which will leave it up to the governing party to decide which television programs or movies are “offensive” and denying much needed tax breaks to those they judge unworthy.

Now we find ourselves witnessing the RCMP and Elections Canada raiding Conservative headquarters. We see a PM claiming the 3 days of removing files and computers was not a raid but a “visit”. And we have party representatives attempting to hand pick which media will cover the story then running down the back stairs of a secret meeting location to escape reporters who want to provide the public with answers.

As one columnist put it recently, “The only difference between Canada and a Banana Republic is Canada’s inability to grow bananas.”