This, according to a Vancouver Sun column/new story this morning, which no other paper or news outlet has picked up as far as I can tell, because, I suspect, it’s not about a Conservative, which are judged by a much higher standard in the liberal-left media as we are constantly reminded.
Cabinet minister’s firms got campaign funds
Daphne Bramham
Federal Liberal Multiculturalism Minister Raymond Chan funnelled $4,900 from his 2004 election campaign into his own companies, and another $3,600 to the treasurer of one of those companies, a Vancouver Sun investigation has revealed.
Chan’s campaign paid $3,400 to Greenwood Academy and Grand Canadian Academy for advertising. Chan, MP for Richmond, owns Greenwood Academy through a company called Grand Canadian. The school is in Nanjing, China. All of its students are Chinese citizens. Hardly the place a Canadian politician would go looking for votes.
[…] Greenwood’s treasurer, Klement Mui, was also paid $3,600 by the campaign for undisclosed services rendered in May and June of 2004.
Yet another Chan company, Global Business, was paid $1,500 for rent, heat and light.
So according to the story, it seems approximately one out of every ten dollars in tax-deductible campaign donations went right into the Liberal Party’s Raymond Chan’s business pockets.
But of course being a Liberal Party minister, he was party to trips abroad and used them to his advantage too.
[… ] But that’s not the end of the story for Chan and the Nanjing school
After his re-election, Chan was appointed secretary of state for multiculturalism. He had been secretary of state for the Asia-Pacific before he lost in the 2000 election.
As multiculturalism minister, Chan was back on the Asia circuit and his first major trip was to China in January 2005 with the Team Canada trade mission. There, among other things, Chan helped open doors for Michael Lo and Queenie Tin, the principals in Kingston Education Group.
The New Westminster-based Kingston group operates Lansbridge University, a private college with branches in Chan’s Richmond riding and another in New Brunswick. It also operates home-stay, high school programs for Chinese students in Burnaby, Markham and Niagara Falls, Ont.
In China, Chan toured Beijing University with Lo and Tin and was there for the signing of a contract between Beijing University and the Kingston group to offer joint on-line Master of Business Administration courses.
The Kingston group also signed a letter of intent with Shanghai Sibo Polytechnic College to promote academic cooperation and exchange.
And the story goes on in more detail. So it seems from the story as if Chan used taxpayer-funded trips to China (at massive expense) to conduct business that would profit him personally, to say nothing of glorifying his stature in China and amongst the Chinese community back home.
Unfortunately, the columnist/reporter, Daphne Bramham, then concludes her reportage by making a wildly open-ended assertion at the very end of her column/news story which is totally reckless in my opinion. This is another case in which leaving an editorial bit out of a story would have better informed Canadians.
But in these waiting days before Justice John Gomery reports on the millions of dollars misspent on advertising contracts in Quebec, a few thousand bucks here or there to the folks in Ottawa might just seem like chump change.
And the sad truth may very well be that this is the way the game is played in Canada.
Perhaps that’s the way the old mainstream media does the journalism game in Canada. And it’s equally irresponsible. But let me tell you this: When the Liberal Party of Canada and its members are constantly involved in alleged criminal activity and others (Liberals) are convicted of criminal activity, and there are official inquiries going on into Liberal Party corruption and the Auditor-General is investigating possible Liberal Party government fraud and at least severely inappropriate use of taxpayer funds, and at least five top Liberal Party appointees have stepped down—some for gross violations of Canadians’ trust and some for worse, you don’t tar every political party with it. You tar the Liberal Party with it. It’s an important distinction in a democracy. And I think that’s the way it’s done in Canada by responsible journalists.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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