OfficiallyScrewed.com

Via Bourque.com:

Well, the Axworthy vs. Vellacott race is getting more juicy by the hour. A sworn affidavit was produced by an ex Liberal who swears under oath that the voice making the phone call was George Laliberte.

I have listened very closely and for several times to the CBC Six O’Clock News broadcast of Thursday, january 19, 2006, as available from the website: http://www.cbc.ca/sask and confirm to the best of my knowledge and belief that the voice of the call-in person stating allegations against Maurice Vellacott in the telecast of the open and public debate between Wanuskewin Federal Election Candidates was that of George laliberte, who is well known to me.

Well the case is heating up with this sworn statement. If Tom Hengen is correct in his testimonial, then it was, indeed, a good friend of Liberal Chris Axworthy who made the baseless accusations directly from the Liberal candidates Headquarters.

Well it looks like it is finally getting out into the press.

Saskatoon Star Phoenix (a CanWest paper) is now reporting on the Vellacott/Axworthy story.

During a StarPhoenix viewing of the tape provided by Vellacott, a caller asked him, “Maurice, did you used to be a Liberal candidate at one time?” Before Vellacott could answer, he went on to ask “Were you also removed from (a local church) because you were charged with sexual assault on your secretary?”

Vellacott said he has never been accused by any woman of sexual assault and has said he was never a pastor at the church or ever attended the church.

Vellacott, who was taken aback by the comment during the forum, requested the name and number of the candidate from Shaw Cable.

Axworthy has said he would investigate the matter.

“Certainly if these allegations are true, I would react to them very quickly,” he said. “We’ll investigate, we’ll find out whether the allegations are true, and we’ll make sure that if anybody did something of that sort they will not participate in our campaign in the future.”

Axworthy himself, who was present at the forum, said he heard the caller question Vellacott about sexual harassment at a church.

I actually got a call from Maurice Vellacott himself a few minutes ago and he also confirmed that the press release pretty much says it all. I haven’t heard back from Axworthy’s office yet, but I did email them this afternoon.

SDA is actually IN Saskatchewan and is posting that local radio has Axworthy stating he is unaware of this but if it is found that the call came from his office he will take immediate action.

I wonder why George Laliberte is no longer the Civic Co-ordinator for the Pleasant Hill community association for Pleasant Hill. He was (via google cached pages) but is not anymore.

I just heard on CFRA that a huge breaking story is hitting the wires about a televised debate phone in interview show on the Shaw Cable network for the riding of Saskatoon-Wanuskewin.

During the debate show, a caller called in and accused Conservative Candidate Maurice Vellacott of sexual assault on a church secretary. Vellacott, immediately asked for the name and number of the caller for legal action and they had an idea of who this person was. I didn’t catch the name, but it was in the news brief. The campaign volunteer who apparently made the call is George Laliberte. When they ran a reverse lookup of the number, they came up with the Liberal campaign headquarters of Chris Axworthy.

i.e. a Liberal supporter at the Liberal campaign HQ accused on public TV, the CPC candidate of sexual assault on live television. There was no 7 second delay to cut the statement off. So many heard it.

This should be interesting. Stay Tuned. We will get all the links once MSM gets it out there.

Addendum – 12:56pm EST

I left voicemail with the program director asking for more information on this. The newsbrief was read by Lowell Green (one of my favourites to listen to) in the last hour of his 9am to 12pm weekday show. Next news cast on CFRA is at 1pm. Hopefully, they elabourate in this segment. You can listen via the internet.

Addendum – 01:00pm EST

The news is now on Vellacott’s website. Click Here to open the word document download.

Here is a snippit.

After the cable show ended, Vellacott was handed the requested phone number by Shaw Cable producer Gracie Field. Upon arrival back at his campaign office he was told that a person had reported in and was 100% confident that it was the voice of George Laliberte. The caller maliciously and falsely accused Vellacott of being “removed from North Park Church because you were charged with sexual assault” on his church secretary. Laliberte is a friend of Chris Axworthy’s and apparently owes Axworthy some favours. When the 1-306-956-2570 number provided by the Shaw Cable staff member was dialed, it was found to be Chris Axworthy’s campaign office phone number. At that time Laliberte could not be reached at his home number of 1-306-[removed by author]

Addendum – 02:13pm EST

This is now being picked up by the MSM. Nealenews.com is linking to an article entitled
Liberal Campaign Caught Falsely Accusing Conservative Candidate of Sexual Abuse

Here come’s the MSM to pick up the torch.

Addendum – 05:20pm EST

I called Shaw Cable in Saskatoon to talk to Gracie Field. A gentleman answered her phone and, basically, confirmed the number in the release was what they gave Vellacott.

I also called Vellacott’s office but they have nothing to add at this time. I wonder what Axworth’s people are drumming up for the print.

Oh, and for those who live in the Pleasant Hill area of Saskatoon, you should all get more involved and get to know some of the others helping out in your municipality. *nudge nudge wink wink*

Not even 24 hours after urging NDP supporters to vote Liberal in one riding, Buzz Hargrove has urged Les Quebecois to vote for the Bloc. Talk about three faced.

Buzz came out endorsing the Bloc, and thus, a separatist view. For the PM’s most vocal non MP supporter to come out and promote a separatist party is not looking good for Martin. How could he possibly defend Buzz Hargrove’s statements? I’m not so sure he can. The man just told people to vote for the Bloc…

The party that wants to separate…

From Canada…

We’re not making this up.

We’re not allowed to do that.

As we have stated before, strategic voting is not to any persons benefit. Two detailed reasons why are:

a) you take money out of your favourite party’s coffers. Approximately $1.75/year per vote. If you consider that you just gave it to another party, that’s a $3.50 swing annually. Multiply that by 4 to 5 years and you are up over $175,000 for every 10,000 votes that swing. That buys a lot of commercials and road signs for the next election.

b) Your party, no matter what size, has a strong voice in a minority government. This is the case no matter who wins. Your party negotiates with their seats in many cases and for best representation, the more seats the better. Why give away a small part of that power without anything in return? This is what you are doing if you vote strategically.

I guess what I am trying to say is don’t listen to Buzz Hargrove. He is a union leader, not your party leader.

Stick with the one who brung ya.

Via Bourque.ca

Liberal Joe Volpe, MP for Eglinton-Lawrence in Toronto, is in trouble again after documents revealed he took a limo ride from Toronto to Buffalo for over $1000 at our expense. This on the heals of his $138 pizza lunch.

Leaked documents detail a 12 1/2-hour trip to the nearby U.S. city last March that included an $850 fare, $127.50 tip and $68.43 in GST for a total cost of $1,045.93.

Another 10 1/2-hour trip to an undisclosed location from Pearson airport cost $522

Let’s see how the average citizen might get to Buffalo.

Option A) Via Rail – Our illustrious rail transit system. A round trip to buffalo costs anywhere from $74 to $88 dollars from my work at ViaRail. Note: you should click “view all stations” over the list to select the Buffalo options as they do not appear in the common stations drop down list. I tried both Buffalo stops and dates from as early as one day away to way out in the end of February and the pricing was, basically, the same.

Option B) Car Rental – I went to National Car Rental’s website for two reasons. One they are a very reputable company, and two, they offer one way drop offs. I priced a one day rental of their most luxurious car for a one way with a drop off in Buffalo, and a second with the return of the vehicle back in Toronto. The one way with drop off cost just under $400 (with taxes) and the round trip was significantly lower at $122.76.

(click to enlarge)

Option C) Helicoptor – ok, maybe the average citizen wouldn’t do this, but I just HAD to price it out. I called a company in Toronto just north of the airport called National Helicoptor Tours and they told me for a four seater helicoptor the going rate is ~$900 an hour which includes fuel and pilot. A one way trip to St. Catherines is about 45 minutes so Buffalo would be roughly an hour is what they told me. This would put the round trip at about $2200-$2500 with tip and down time while at whatever meeting he had in Buffalo.

In any case, I think Volpe took us for a ride. I worked in an executive role for several years and even I rented cars, took cabs, took the train to and from Montreal, and once….just once…was lucky enough to ride in a Lear Jet. It was cheaper for 8 of us to travel in it than to buy 8 round trip tickets to Chicago. But even that trip was well priced out and the best option was taken.

Hey Volpe, you’re just an average Joe put in your position by average Joes. How you spend your MP salary is your business. How you spend our tax dollars is ours.

Eglinton-Lawrence needs to send him a message on January 23rd telling him what they think of his limo rides.

Via Bourque.com,

The Toronto Star has an article in which Paul Martin calls to NDP voters to vote strategically.

“There’s got to be a coalition of progressive voters,” Martin said in an interview with CBC TV yesterday.

“I think that that is the position that an awful lot of people who support the NDP are going to find themselves in. If they vote NDP, then obviously that’s not a progressive vote that’s going to win out, and the option to that is Stephen Harper, and I think a lot of people are going to take that into account.”

In my opinion, this circumvents the whole electoral process. We have many parties, we vote for the party whose platform we like best, and send the MP’s to Ottawa. Once there, it is up to all the parties to work together to decide on issues. Coalitions can be formed, sides taken on specific issues and votes, etc.

By Paul Martin calling for NDP voters to think about who the leader will be is a slap in the face to our intelligence and to our system of government. We do NOT vote for the leader of a country, Mr. Martin. You of all people should know that. You took over office without one citizen’s ballot cast for you to be our Prime Minister. This country’s system is a parliamentary one. We send our representative. If you don’t believe me, take a look at your ballot come election day. I guarantee you will never get a ballot that shows every party leader’s name on it. (Yes, some of you do vote for Martin or Harper, but you do so because you live in their riding).

Nuff said. I’m sick of the spin in this election. Can we not just get to Monday already?

I swear, she is going to become one of my favourite columnists. Sheila Copps has written another article dropping an election bomb. In her article Parties counting pennies–Elections Canada says Liberals in debt as they head into the final weeks of the campaign she lists some of the information posted at Elections Canada.

According to Elections Canada, in their last annual filing, the Liberal Party of Canada was $34,818,257.32 in debt, by way of 13 bank loans. The Bloc Quebecois has more than $10 million in outstanding loans, mostly from the Caisse Desjardins. The NDP has several modest loans outstanding, totalling a little more than $3 million. The Conservatives are debt-free.

The Liberal Party says the figure is inaccurate and that it is much lower. Even if they haven’t counted recent donations, I am really appreciating this one.

Knowing the party with the spit and polish commercials is in the hole and the party with the frugal, visually lacklustre, albeit informative, ads is in the black. I like the idea of the one in the black spending our tax dollars.

I have a suggestion for Paul Martin. Why not move the Liberal Party Of Canada legally to the Carribean? Do you know what the tax savings could be????…Oh wait…you do.