UPDATE: After reading about this scandal, I immediately tuned into the state-run news media as well as Liberal*Vision CTV Newsnet for the latest on this scandal. NOTHING! NADA! Not a thing said about it. So far, that new Gov-Gen hasn’t changed anything in this country of mine. Fingers crossed!
A Canadian company with extremely close ties to the Liberal Party and several Liberals is under scrutiny for getting seemingly excessive and often untendered contracts under the Liberals, including one polling company tied to the company, EKOS, which constantly does those polls we constantly see in the media, which constantly marvel at the popularity of the Liberal Party and the weird inability of the Conservatives to get any traction in polls.
This news was discovered by Conservative MP Dean Allison, a member of the House public accounts committee.
He says in an Ottawa Citizen article:
“When you look at numbers like that, those are astronomical,” Mr. Allison said yesterday. “Everyone knew that (Earnscliffe) was the prime minister’s government in waiting. That is incredible. That’s amazing.”
WHY, yes! Yes it is. But you know what’s more amazing? Liberal-left voters including much of the media in Canada will largely ignore it—bury it.
The Auditor-General —that’s the chief scrutinizer of the government’s finances—has already said (in 2004) “This is such a blatant misuse of public funds… It is shocking…Words escape me” regarding the sponsorship scandal—and that was before she knew very much at all. And just look at all those EKOS polls showing the monumental Liberal Party popularity now!
$10M in federal funds go to firm linked to PM
The Earnscliffe Strategy Group, an Ottawa consulting firm with close political ties to Prime Minister Paul Martin, has received more than $10 million in federal government money since the Liberals took power, new documents show.
And another Ottawa polling firm that has sometimes worked with Earnscliffe received more than $61 million in the same period.
Ottawa-based EKOS Research was awarded more than 1,600 contracts over the 11 1/2-year period, mostly for public opinion research.
The work was done for various departments, agencies and Crown corporations.
Records tabled in the House of Commons on Monday show that Earnscliffe and its affiliates have received 269 contracts, amendments and standing offers since 1993.
During Mr. Martin’s years as finance minister, his department repeatedly hired Earnscliffe to do polling and focus groups and provide communications advice, often in advance of federal budgets.
The new records show that Earnscliffe received just under $2 million from the Finance Department alone.
[…] Most of the finance work was done by Earnscliffe senior partners David Herle, who ran Mr. Martin’s 1990 leadership bid, and Elly Alboim, a former CBC producer.
The records released this week show the firm also received $849,000 in contracts and amendments from Health Canada, more than half of which were untendered. In 16 of 25 cases, Earnscliffe was determined to be the only firm capable of doing work described as “strategic communication advice” or “other professional services not otherwise specified.”
It received another $1 million from the Natural Resources Department.
Before Mr. Martin became prime minister, many of his closest advisers worked at Earnscliffe, and some referred to the Elgin Street firm as “the PMO-in-waiting.”
Mike Robinson, one of Mr. Martin’s longest serving advisers, was a founding partner. Scott Reid, Mr. Martin’s current director of communications, is also an Earnscliffe alumnus.
I liked this last tidbit that reporter Glen McGregor of The Ottawa Citizen threw in to the article:
Doubtless, the search for Earnscliffe records was conducted carefully to avoid a repeat of last year’s fiasco, when the government dramatically lowballed the value of grants and contracts awarded to Canada Steamship Lines, the shipping company once controlled by Mr. Martin and now run by his sons.
The initial government reply to an order paper question claimed CSL and its subsidiaries had received only $137,000 worth of contracts, grants and other largesse. Later, the government was forced to admit the figure was $161 million.
…Because that has also been completely forgotten and buried in the media and in the minds of liberal Canadians.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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