Tory-gate hits 30K mark

There’s at least $30,000 of public money for Tory party work in the Ed Byrne statement of facts, according to the official opposition. 

They popped out a news release yesterday that included a table of other PC party spending in the Byrne fraud and bribery conviction case.  The local media haven’t touched this angle of the story at all, oddly enough.

This money isn’t covered by the restitution order, contrary to the claim of former PC Party president – and current deputy Premier – Kathy Dunderdale.  She told the legislature her party was prepared to pay the money back (she meant the 3K from St. Barbe) but decided against it because Byrne had been ordered to pay it back.

Makes you wonder who gave Dunderdale and her colleagues the really bad advice.  Anyone who read the decision by Judge Mark Pike would have known the difference. It’s pretty obvious.

Of course, the Byrne agreed statement only covers a portion of the total.  According to the agreed statement, Byrne received a total of $501,507 in constituency allowance payments with the bulk of it coming in FY 2001, 2002 and 2003.

Byrne only copped to paying back $117,300 which, according to the statement, seems to be what he took for himself. The rest is pretty much a black hole.  The public has no idea where their money went. 

All the Tory party spending  detailed below  isn’t in the restitution order.  No one knows how much more there is since the government and the chief electoral officer  - himself a former president of the Tory Party - are refusing to investigate.

Tory Trevor Taylor, elected in the other by-election in January 2001, called the whole sordid mess in the House dating back to 2000 “dirt and filth”,  a“serious stain on the political face of Newfoundland and Labrador.”

He’s absolutely right, of course.

But then Taylor voted against an investigation into the large chunks of the mess that haven’t been looked at by the police and that will likely keep going unexplored as long as Taylor and his colleagues have their way.

And it’s not like Taylor is unaware of the legal niceties of all this.  Get a load of his comments about the $30K:

The only piece that is within the purview of the Chief Electoral Officer, as far as I know, is the $3,000 that was spent on the St. Barbe campaign in the by-election of 2001. That is the only thing that he has authority to look at. He has no authority to go and look at how some funds may or may not have been sourced from constituency allowance and then utilized to conduct research for the PC Party of Newfoundland and Labrador. That is where the RNC came in. That is where the courts came in. That is where the Auditor General came in. That is who has responsibility for that. [Emphasis added]

Somebody has been doing their research into reasons why not to go looking, evidently.

At the end of it all, the most apt description of what’s been happening with Tory-gate came, ironically enough from Ross Wiseman.  The guy who got elected as a Liberal and then crossed the floor said this:

I am not supporting this motion because it reeks of cheap politics. It is partisan politics of its worst.

He’s right but not in the way he seems to have intended.  The sordid mess began as partisan politics at its worst, continued as partisan politics at its worst – as the Byrne case now makes plain, stayed the course of cheap partisan politics in June 2006 and now remains exactly where it has been:  in the political gutter.

Wiseman, Taylor and their 34 colleagues ensured that by continuing to oppose an investigation that would root out all the rot, no matter what party it was in.

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-  Gus Coombs received a payment of approximately $2,000 from Edward Byrne for an expense he incurred while running as a candidate in the 1999 Provincial Election

$2000

Page 10, paragraph 31

-  A cheque was located showing that Gus Coombs receive a cheque for $3,600.

$3600

Page 10, paragraph 32

-  Wayne Clark stated that around that time in 2001, he was assisting in running a byelection campaign for Wally Young in the district of St. Barbe. Wayne Clark stated that, at that time, he did receive a payment for his services and expenses and it would have been for approximately $3,000.

$3000

Page 11, paragraph 35

-  Charles White stated that they billed the PC Party $10,000 and they received two payments in the form of personal cheques from Edward Byrne. One payment was for $4,000 and one payment of $5,000 and they wrote off the remaining $1,000.

$9000

Page 11, paragraph 42

-  Gina Steele had worked as a receptionist in the PC Party Office.

She stated that she had received a personal cheque of $1500 from Edward Byrne around the fall of 2000. She stated that Edward Byrne had given her the cheque because he felt bad about her being let go from her job around September 2000.

$1500

Page 12-13, paragraph 46

-  Vernon Smith stated he did some work for Edward Byrne and the PC Party around December of 1999. Vernon Smith stated he believed he was paid about $4,000 for this work. Vernon Smith was shown a copy of a personal cheque of Edward Byrne dated December 22, 1999, in the amount of $4,025 which was made payable to him. Vernon Smith acknowledged that

He received this cheque and that it was his signature on the back of the cheque.

$4,025

Page 13-14, paragraph 51

-  Noella Hynes acknowledged being given $1,500 by Edward Byrne. Noella Hynes stated that she had been promised a job by Edward Byrne so she quit the job that she had been working at, only to find out that there was no job with the PC Party. She said that Edward Byrne gave her $1,500 to help her out until she got another job.

$1500

Page 14, paragraph 14

-  Derek Connolly stated he did work for Edward Byrne and the PC Party, but he had been paid by Government issued cheques. Derek

Connolly acknowledged he did receive a personal cheque from Edward Byrne for $1,200, but could not remember for what purpose.

$1200

Page 14, paragraph 61

-  Supporting documents attached to a claim was an invoice in the amount of $3,944.21 from Canadian Helicopters. The invoice was dated January 10, 2001, and the flight date was January 3, 2001.

(this trip would have been for organizing by-elections on the Northern Peninsula)

$3,944.21

Page  17, paragraph 73

Total: $29,769.21

Disquieting similarities

Via labradore, a disquieting trend among certain people leaving comments on various websites over time.

1.  During the Cameron Inquiry when the Premier raised a stink about the way Madam Justice Margaret Cameron was conducting the inquiry:

“another waste of our tax money.”

2.  From 2007, when a question was raised about giving extra cash to the New Democrats even though they’d lost one of their two seats in the legislature:

“Waste of tax dollars.”

3.  On Tory-gate:

“… an investigation will be a complete waste of money!”

The same refrain has been used constantly, like from April 22 and the longer string of comments from the question of the day over at voice of the cabinet minister.

labradore didn’t get ‘em all yet, though.

4.  How about a federal Tory talking point about the Mulroney-Schreiber affair?  Across the country, the faithful deployed their talking points to newspaper letters pages and online comments in droves all with the same refrain:

“waste of money”

5.  Does anyone remember the Tory Talking Point when the whole House of Assembly scandal first broke open and some of us called for a public inquiry into the whole mess?

Well, there was a line that started right at the beginning, namely that Danny Williams was responsible for rooting out the bad stuff.

It was there on Day Two.  That was the day the rest of us found out about it.  Day One was actually the date on which Ed Byrne told the Premier the Auditor General was poking into Byrne’s allowances.

That same theme was also there when they announced the appointment of what became the Green Commission:

In light of recent findings of the Auditor General into the finances of the House of Assembly, Premier Danny Williams today announced that his government will build upon the successful reforms already implemented since forming government.

And that theme continues right down to the latest revelations about public money funnelled illegally and improperly to pay for Tory party operations between 2000 and 2003. Try Trevor Taylor from the debate on a motion to appoint an investigation into the sordid mess. 

Taylor voted against looking into what he described as “filth” but not before he went back to the Tory Talking Point Number One:

none of this would have uncovered and laid bare before the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, had it not been for the election of 2003 when Premier Williams and this government were installed in this place as the government.

But what was Talking Point Number Two, the one used to deal with calls for a public inquiry?

Take a guess.

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Tory-gate: the opinion columns version

From the Saturday Telegram, Russell Wangersky’s column:

In fact,  [chief electoral officer Paul] Reynolds defends the spending by saying that even if the under-the-table cash were added to the declared funding, "neither the PC candidate nor the party would have exceeded the legislated expenditure limits for the electoral district in that byelection."

That's not the point.

The point is how did $3,000 in spending end up off the books, and could there be other off-book spending in the province's elections?

Could there be?  A look at the information already in the public domain suggests  there was.

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Two charged with 73 election finance violations

Hang on, there.

Don’t get excited.

It isn’t Tory-gate. 

The mayor of Vaughan, Ontario and her husband have been charged with election expense violations following an investigation:

Vaughan Mayor Linda Jackson and her husband, Mario Campese, have been formally charged with violations of election finance rules in the run-up to her narrow 2006 victory against former mayor Michael Di Biase.

Jackson was served with 68 charges at her home yesterday afternoon by a representative of independent prosecutor Timothy Wilkin, who was hired by Vaughan City Council to determine whether such charges should be laid under the Municipal Elections Act.

Her husband, who served as her campaign manager, also faces five charges, including accepting illegal cash contributions.

How sad could it be when a small city in Ontario has higher election finance ethics standards than the entire province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

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Freedom from Information: another missing report by Bill Marshall

Coincidence of coincidences.

Your humble e-scribbler mentions Bill Marshall in jest in a post that connects back to the whole Ed Byrne Tory-gate spending scandal.

As it turns out, on the very same day that Danny Williams decided to tell the world about the auditor general’s investigation of Ed Byrne back in June 2006  justice minister Tom Marshall released government’s response to the Lamer commission report into wrongful convictions.  Williams had known of the AG investigation since the middle of the day before he made it public, apparently, but that’s another story.

Anyway…

June 21, 2006.

Gee.

And right there in the middle of the release is an announcement that former cabinet minister and retired supreme court judge Bill Marshall would be running a review of the Crown prosecutor’s office, as Antonio Lamer recommended:

Establishing an independent review of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions is one of the recommendations Minister [Tom] Marshall [no relation to Bill] said government will implement immediately.  Commissioner Lamer recommends that an independent review be called to ensure that steps have been taken or will be taken to eliminate the "Crown culture" that contributed to the wrongful conviction of Gregory Parsons, and was also evident in the prosecution of Randy Druken. 

"This is an important recommendation on which government must act immediately and we are pleased that retired Court of Appeal Justice, William Marshall, will immediately head up the review," said Minister Marshall. "The review will be very thorough, independent and at arms length; it will examine resources, training, morale and the systemic issues identified in the report." [bold and italics added]

Immediately head up the review but not immediately finish the thing, as it turns out.

Just  a few weeks shy of three years after Bill Marshall immediately headed up the review into Lamer’s recommendation 18, there’s no apparent sign the work of the government’s favourite Grand Inquisitor is anywhere near done. [the link in the picture is dead]
 
Perhaps the former Supreme Court Justice and Tory cabinet minister has been too busy with another review, this one of inland fisheries. 

The second one was a sort of star chamber, since the whole thing was never announced. 
Indeed, government has never revealed either the scope of inland fisheries probe or when Marshall started work on it.  Opposition House leader Kelvin Parsons asked a question in the House about an access to information request that wanted to find out some basic stuff about the judge’s inquest – like how much it had cost so far – but the minister answered with a mere two sentences:

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the review being undertaken by retired Judge William Marshall, I believe the review is not completed to this point. Obviously, the information could not be disclosed until we have the results of the review.

That, dear friends, is all we know of that one.

So now we have it:

Two investigations.

Same guy, running both.

Zero results.

Unknown costs.

And it’s not like Bill Marshall isn’t popular when it comes to the current administration. 

Way back in October 2003, the guy who started campaigning for the premier’s job in the now infamous St. Barbe by-election appointed Bill Marshall as sort of a watchdog:

Bill Marshall, a recently retired Appeal Court judge and former PC cabinet minister, will act as the liaison between Williams and departing premier Roger Grimes. 

Liberals warned against new contracts 

Williams says the outgoing Liberal government should not make any plans for spending announcements. 

"I don't expect them to do that, "he says. "That would be irresponsible for an outgoing government that, no longer has a mandate to take those kind of actions. So, I'm trusting that Mr. Grimes and his government will do the honourable thing, and I expect them to do that."

The whole thing was just another of the nasty, mean-spirited, petty, small-minded, miserable  little insinuations about others that Danny Williams likes to make, as we have come to learn.

As it also turns out, the guy who started his latest political life as the Premier’s watchdog has, in his retirement, become a sort of Tory Torquemada – if you will plant your tongue firmly in cheek – ready, nay eager, to take on any investigation, inquiry or inquisition that needs to be done.

Too bad he apparently can’t finish them.

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Tory-gate: former electoral officer supports spending probe

Paul Reynolds’ predecessor knows that to do.

Former chief electoral officer Chuck Furey says that he’d have appointed a retired judge to investigate the St. Barbe by-election.

Furey, a former Liberal cabinet minister, now lives in Dominica.  Furey was Danny Williams’ pick for the chief electoral officer three years ago.  At the time of Furey’s appointment, Williams’ new release described the OCEO job like this:

The Chief Electoral Officer operates under the Elections Act 1991 and is responsible for exercising general direction and supervision over the administrative conduct of elections and enforcing fairness, impartiality and compliance with the act.

Williams handed the job to former Tory party president Paul Reynolds when Furey resigned. The news release at the time Williams announced Reynolds as his choice  described the office’s responsibilities with exactly the same words.

The release didn’t include Reynolds’ extensive pedigree with the province’s Tory party in the release.

For reasons that should be obvious, Furey’s comments virtually guarantee there won’t be an investigation into campaign finance irregularities in at least one by-election held since 2000.

For reasons that should be even more obvious, Furey’s advice is sound.  In a situation where there is a question of irregularities – especially a question of irregularities involving the party the chief electoral officer is tied to – the most sensible thing to do is call in an independent person and have them sort through the mess.

Anything else – anything else  - gives the controversy legs.

Refusing to investigate, especially using a preposterous series of excuses, just looks suspicious.

After all,  if things really were as innocuous, limited and uneventful as Reynolds claims, then why not have some impartial investigator have a look?

Just don’t look to get Witch-hunt Willie Marshall on the case.  He’s already busy with a sooper- sekrit investigation that he apparently hasn’t finished yet and the government refuses to talk about.

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Tory-gate shocker: Williams backs hand-picked chief electoral officer

What else would we expect the Premier to do but back the guy he picked for the job?

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Tory-gate: Making wrong a right

1. labradore does the usual fine job of documenting the Progressive Conservative Party’s reliance on paid campaign staff.  Note especially the relatively heavy amounts spent in certain districts in certain elections.

Paying staff isn’t the problem.

Paying them with stolen money would be.

Paying them with money improperly obtained (but not stolen) would be especially if that money – as in the St. Barbe case – was never reported publicly as required by law.

No one can claim there were no rules this time out.

2.  The curious nature of former PC party president – and current chief electoral officer – Paul Reynold’s reliance on false information to justify his refusal to investigate the (alleged) election spending wrongdoing.

We know, as an incontrovertible matter of fact, that the election finance reports filed by the Progressive Conservatives for the 2001 by-election are wrong.  Contrary to the Elections Act, 1991, they do not include all party spending on the by-election.

That’s been established in the agreed statement of facts coming out of the recent conviction of former party leader Ed Byrne’s recent conviction for fraud and corruption.

It’s implicit in his curious statement, linked above.

Why they don’t is a matter to be determined.

Then Reynold’s relies on documents he knows to be wrong to justify doing nothing:

The reports filed on behalf of the PC candidate in the 2001 by-election and by the party indicated election expenses totaling $17,362. Even including the amount of $3,000 identified in the statement of facts released with respect to the Ed Byrne criminal proceedings, neither the PC candidate nor the party would have exceeded the legislated expenditure limits for the electoral district in that by-election.

That might be true if we knew that the $3,000 was all the illegal spending involved.

But we don’t.

and we don’t know because Reynolds is refusing to do his job.

In the Byrne case,  we only have a partial accounting of the Byrne case.  We only know where about roughly where $173,000 went when in fact Byrne received the better part of a half million in the years between 2001, 2002, 2003.  Coincidentally, those are the years leading up to the 2003 general election.  There were also a few by-elections in there as well, including the one in St. Barbe which the Provincial Conservatives campaigned so hard to win.

They fought so hard that their new leader – acclaimed the day after the by-election vote – used it as an example of the turning tide of Tory fortunes.  heck, the new leader even spent pretty much all the campaign driving around in his Winnebago campaigning for the party.

But that is digression.

We know how much money went astray in the Byrne case.

We don’t know where it went.

We don’t because the chief electoral officer is using any excuse at his disposal to avoid investigating his old political party.

He said we didn’t need an investigation because they guy that won, won a second time so things must be okay.

Now he’s telling us that documents that he knows are wrong can actually be right, as long as it means he doesn’t have to investigate his old friends.

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The ghost of Richard Squires: party work with public money

According to the statement of facts in the Ed Byrne case, members of the House of Assembly were reimbursed for expenses incurred while representing their constituents.

In other words, work for a particular political party wouldn’t be covered by the expense accounts.

Here’s paragraph six of the agreed statement:

6. When MHAs incur out of pocket expenses while representing their constituents, they are later reimbursed for these costs from the House of Assembly’s Financial Accounts. During the time period in question, the IEC set the rules on eligible and ineligible expenses, per diem rates, general expense guidelines and actual expense limits related to Travel and Constituency Allowance (TCA) claims.

As outlined by the IEC in its annual report,

“Each Member (of the House of Assembly) is entitled to an accountable constituency allowance. This allowance is for the payment of expenditures incurred in the performance of constituency business and may cover such items as office rental, equipment, supplies, secretarial and other support services, informational material such as newspapers, advertising, purchase of flags, pins, etc.”

That’s one of the reasons why the whole section of the statement dealing with work done by the local law firm White, Ottenheimer, Baker is odd.

Charles White – senior partner with the firm – insists that in 2000 the firm did work for the Progressive Conservative Party for which it billed $10,000. The solicitor who did the work – now provincial Court Judge John Joy also insisted he did work for the party – not the opposition office – on some constitutional issue related to the fishery.

Lawyers aren’t known for being sloppy with their language so when White says that it was the PC Party – and not the opposition office as Byrne is noted as saying – you have to take notice of it.

Charles White confirmed that the law firm did some work for the PC Party in 2000 and that John Joy was the lawyer who did the work. He said they were engaged to do the study by Edward Byrne but the PC Party was their client.

One of the other reasons to look somewhat quizzically at the whole affair is how White says the firm got paid: two personal cheques from Ed Byrne. Not cheques from the party directly; not even cash from the party treasurer, but two personal cheques from the party leader at the time.

Charles White stated that they billed the PC Party $10,000 and they received two payments in the form of personal cheques from Edward
Byrne. One payment was for $4,000 and one payment of $5,000 and they wrote off the remaining $1,000. Charles White stated that this was the only work their law firm did on Edward Byrne's behalf.

When shown two cancelled cheques from Byrne, White confirmed those were the ones received and cashed by the form for work White and Joy say was done for the party.

In the party contributions reports for the calendar year 2000, the chief electoral office shows that Ed Byrne and his wife made donations to the Progressive Conservative Party totalling less than $7,000.

On top of that for the fiscal year ending in 2000, there’s no expense item for the PC Party that comes anywhere close to $10,000, at least not where one might expect to find it.

Now if the report is for the year ending in March 2001 - which would include most of 2000 – there is a PC caucus expense reported of slightly more than $47,000 but that’s pretty clearly attributed to supporting caucus expenses.

It isn’t for what White, Ottenheimer and Baker believed was party work. besides, if the party paid the expense, then why did Byrne bill his legislature accounts for it and pay the tab with a cheque drawn on his own personal accounts.

The line item for professional fees – where you’d expect to find a party expense for legal work – there is only a flat $2,500.

And since we know Byrne billed the $10,000 for White, Ottenheimer Baker to the account covering his constituency and travel bills as the member of the legislature for Kilbride, the whole thing doesn’t appear to be very clear at all.

Now just to be sure, there’s no indication that the old Tory chambers, the PCJ nor any of its barristers and solicitors involved in the firm did anything wrong; nor is there any reason to suspect them of anything.

The problem here is on the party side and the pretty obvious inconsistency with its reports, as presented by the elections office, and required by law under the Elections Acts.

The whole thing looks like something straight out of the old days when political leaders kept their personal accounts in one pants pocket and the party ones in the other.

All this goes a long way to undermining the claim of the current chief electoral officer – and former Tory party president - Paul Reynolds that everything is tickety-boo with election finance reports from his office.

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Charlie White/John Joy (Work done by Ottenheimer White and Green)

38. On June 4, 2001, a travel and constituency allowance claim in the amount of $9,000 was submitted by Edward J. Byrne. Attached to this claim was a generic receipt for a payment of $9,000 to Charlie White for contractual work done on behalf of the official opposition of which Edward Byrne's behalf. There was a signature "Charlie White" on the receipt. A recap dated June 4, 2001, shows that Edward Byrne was paid $9,000 for this claim.

39. On September 22, 2000, a Travel and Constituency Allowance Claim in the amount of $10,000 was submitted by Edward J. Byrne. Attached to this claim was a generic receipt dated September 20, 2000, for a payment of $10,000 to John Joy for research conducted on behalf of the Official Opposition. There was a signature "John Joy" on this generic receipt. A recap generated on September 22, 2000, showed a payment of $10,000 to Edward Byrne for this claim.

40. Charles White is a senior partner in the law firm of White, Ottenheimer and Baker. John Joy is now a Provincial Court Judge in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, but in 2000 was also a lawyer in the firm.

41. On August 7, 2007, one of the investigators spoke with His Honour Judge John Joy by telephone. Judge Joy advised that when he was a lawyer in the law firm of White, Ottenheimer and Baker he had done some work for the PC Party in relation to a constitutional issue regarding the food fishery in Newfoundland and Labrador. Judge Joy said he couldn't recall signing any receipt. The investigator e-mailed Judge Joy a copy of the generic receipt. Judge Joy responded that he had never seen the generic receipt before and that it definitely wasn't his signature on the document. Judge Joy stated that he personally did not receive $10,000.

42. On August 15, 2007, the investigators interviewed Charles White. Charles White confirmed that the law firm did some work for the PC Party in 2000 and that John Joy was the lawyer who did the work. He said they were engaged to do the study by Edward Byrne but the PC Party was their client. Edward Byrne maintains that this work was done for the Official Opposition. Charles White stated that they billed the PC Party $10,000 and they received two payments in the form of personal cheques from Edward Byrne. One payment was for $4,000 and one payment of $5,000 and they wrote off the remaining $1,000. Charles White stated that this was the only work their law firm did on Edward Byrne's behalf.

43. Charles White was shown copies of the two personal cheques from Edward Byrne made payable to White, Ottenheimer and Baker. Charles White confirmed that these were copies of the cheques they had received. Charles White was also shown the generic receipt for $9,000 which was purportedly signed “Charlie White”. Charles White stated that he had never seen that document before and that it wasn't his signature on the document. Charles White was then shown the generic receipt pertaining to the $10,000 amount that John Joy was supposed to have received. Charles White stated that he knew John Joy's signature and the signature “John Joy” on the receipt was definitely not his signature.

44. Edward Byrne received $10,000 as a result of submitting the receipt purporting to bear the signature of John Joy. Although the receipt bearing the signature of Charles White is also apparently false, Charles White acknowledges that there was work done by their firm, and there was a payment of $9,000 as stated in the receipt.

More partisan business with public money ?

It appears the Provincial Conservatives fought two by-elections on the Great Northern Peninsula in 2001 with public money.

CBC News has already reported a payment of $3,000 to a party organizer for work on the St. Barbe by-election. There was another by-election at the same time in The Straits and White Bay North.

Following is another extract from the agreed statements of facts in the Ed Byrne case. This entry came under a section concerning double- and triple-billings for the same expenses.

Note in this case that the invoice involved is for almost $4,000 and covers what appears to be the lease of a helicopter from Canadian Helicopters on January 3, 2001. There may be other helicopter leases; in the agreed statement, note that the CHC officials is said to have confirmed only once invoice for a specific amount. There’s no discussion of other invoices and that’s likely because police investigators were looking for specific types of activities.

The by-elections in the two districts started on January 8, 2001 but the work to prepare was already well under way before that. The Tories had nominees in place by December 2000 and on January 3, 2001 they issued a news release for a nomination vote on the 10th of January.

Here’s that release, for the record, just to give an indication of the level of activity going on over the holidays in late 2000 and early 2001 :

PC nomination meetings in
The Straits & White Bay North

January 3, 2001 — The Newfoundland and Labrador Progressive Conservative Party and The Straits & White Bay North PC District Association today announced details of the nomination meetings to select the Party's candidate in the upcoming provincial by-election (for which the government has not yet set a date).

Voting will take place on Wednesday, January 10 between 5:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. at the following three locations:

• the Vinland Motel at St. Anthony;
• the May Flower Motel at Roddickton;
• the Straits Development Association office at Shoal Cove East.

The three people seeking the Progressive Conservative nomination in The Straits & White Bay North are as follows:

• Ford Mitchelmore
• Ward Samson
• Trevor Taylor

For further information, please contact Annette Genge, President of The Straits & White Bay North PC District Association at (709) 454-0062.

- 30 -

Now other than that by-election, there doesn’t appear to have been any opposition caucus activity at the time - other than related to the by-election - that might have warranted a helicopter charter for one day.

While we’ll keep digging into this to see if anyone will confirm the itinerary and other details for the charter, it seems a pretty curious coincidence in timing that CHC billed Ed Byrne, opposition party leader, for a helicopter at around the same time as everyone was gearing up for a by-election fight.

Byrne billed the flight to his travel and constituency allowance account, which he’d be entitled to do as opposition leader at the time the trip took place. Note as well, that in this section of the agreed statement the problem police pointed to was not that Byrne billed for the flight but that he billed for it more than once.

They weren’t as concerned with the propriety of the spending as much as the business of billing for the same service multiple times and thereby committing a fraud.

Here’s the extract from the agreed statement of facts:

Canadian Helicopters

72. On April 25, 2001, a travel and constituency allowance claim in the amount of $6,210.83 was submitted by Edward J. Byrne. One of the supporting documents attached to this claim was an invoice in the amount of $3,944.21 from Canadian Helicopters. The invoice was dated January 10, 2001, and the flight date was January 3, 2001. A recap dated April 25, 2001, shows that Edward Byrne received a payment of $6,210.83.

73. An undated travel and constituency allowance claim for the period May 1, 2001, in the amount of $25,086.86 was submitted by Edward J. Byrne. One of the supporting documents attached to this claim was a photocopy of the same invoice in the amount of $3,944.21 from Canadian Helicopters that had been submitted with Edward Byrne’s April 25, 2001, claim. A recap dated June 19, 2001, shows that Edward Byrne received a payment of $25,086.86.

74. On October 12, 2001, a travel and constituency allowance claim in the amount of $3,944.21 was submitted by Edward J. Byrne. Attached as supporting documentation to this claim was a photocopy of the same invoice in the amount of $3,944.21 from Canadian Helicopters which Edward Byrne had previously submitted on his April 25, 2001, and his May 1, 2001, claims. A recap dated October 12, 2001, shows that Edward Byrne did receive a payment of $3,944.21.

75. Upon review of the personal banking record of Edward Byrne seized from Newfoundland and Labrador Credit Union (NLCU), only one personal cheque of Ed Byrne in the amount of $3,944.21 being paid to Canadian Helicopters was located.

76. On October 12, 2007, Janice Tipple of Canadian Helicopters was interviewed.

Copies of the 3 invoices that Edward Byrne had submitted were faxed to her to review.

On October 16, 2007, Janice Tipple of Canadian Helicopters advised the investigators that that there was only one $3,944.21 invoice from Canadian Helicopters to Edward Byrne and that the others were duplicates.

77. Edward Byrne had in effect claimed and was reimbursed for this $3,944.21 invoice from Canadian Helicopters 3 times, resulting in an overpayment of $7,888.42.

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For the record: The Tory Organizer and the Swirling Scandal

From the agreed statement of facts in the Ed Byrne fraud and bribery conviction, the sections related to Wayne Clarke, a Provincial Conservative party organizer who figured prominently in David Cochrane’s story about the St. Barbe by-election in January 2001. [Note: bolding is added; SRBP notations are in square brackets]

Wayne Clarke

34. Two receipts were submitted by Edward Byrne as part of Constituency expenses in relation to Wayne Clark.

1) An undated expense claim for the period of May 2001 in the amount of
$25,086.86 was submitted by Edward J. Byrne. Attached to this expense claim was a handwritten generic receipt in the name of Wayne Clarke for an amount of $3,000. This generic receipt stated that it was for payment for work done in the district of Kilbride. The signature "Wayne Clarke" was on this receipt. A recap, dated June 19, 2001, shows payment of $25,086.86 to Edward Byrne as a result of this claim. [SRBP: The by-election finished on 30 Jan 01. This invoicing is at least five months later.]

2) On February 11, 2003, a travel and constituency allowance claim in the
amount of $10,669.75 was submitted by Edward J. Byrne. Attached to this claim was a generic receipt for a payment of $5,000 to Wayne Clarke for a research project. The signature "Wayne Clarke" appeared on the receipt. A recap dated February 14, 2003, shows that Edward Byrne was paid $10,669.75 for this claim.

35. Wayne Clarke was identified as being an individual who had been involved with the PC Party for several years. On August 1, 2007, Wayne Clarke was interviewed by the investigator and shown the first generic receipt for $3,000. He stated it was his signature on the receipt; however, he never did any work in the district of Kilbride.

Wayne Clark stated that around that time in 2001, he was assisting in running a by-election campaign for Wally Young in the district of St. Barbe. Wayne Clark stated that, at that time, he did receive a payment for his services and expenses and it would have been for approximately $3,000. [SRBP: Six months later is not necessarily “around that time” but it is interesting to note the acknowledgement of the signature and the payment for work on the by-election. Notice as well that in this instance, there is no indication of who paid Clarke. He is merely noted as saying that he was paid for his work. In other instances in the agreed statement, the auditors were able to match personal cheques from Byrne to individuals doing political work. In this instance, there is no reference to such a cheque.]

36. Upon next being shown the generic receipt in his name for the $5,000 amount for a research project, Wayne Clark stated that he had never seen that document before nor did he receive $5,000. Wayne Clark stated that he never did any research project for the PC Party at that time. Wayne Clark stated that the signature on the receipt was definitely not his. Wayne Clark did receive $1,700 from Edward Byrne. [SRBP: Note that this incident took place in early 2003 and relates to work done by Clarke for the Provincial Conservative Party at some unspecified time prior. The nature of the work is also unspecified.

37. Edward Byrne was reimbursed for the amounts as a result of these fraudulent claims. Of the $8,000 claimed, $3,000 of this was for work that was actually performed by Wayne Clark, but not as part of constituency work. [SRBP: This is a curious conclusion. The paragraph immediately preceding it confirms that in addition to $3,000, Clarke received $1,700 from Byrne in 2003. That puts the total he received as being $4,700 of the $8,000 billed. we don’t know what the second payment was for.]

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