April 27, 2005
ETHICS? WHAT ETHICS?
AN OPEN LETTER TO STEPHEN HARPER AND PETER MACKAY
from Marjaleena Repo
Dear Sirs,
You ceaselessly point your fingers at the Liberal
government members in the House of Commons and
pontificate about their ethical misdeeds, alleged and
real. You demand that they come clean, confess to their
malfeasance and accept punishment, long before the
Gomery Commission is able to present its findings of
fact and recommendations.
Now you want to force the whole country through an
early and expensive election because of the ethical
failures of the Paul Martin government! But who are
you two to talk about ethics and "moral authority?"
Are you not staring yourself blind at the speck in the
government's eye, while ignoring -- and hoping that no
one else would notice either – the beam in your own?
Let's take a quick look at your own documentable lack
of ethics:
You, Peter MacKay, signed an agreement with PC
leadership candidate David Orchard at the convention in
May 2003, the main plank of which was that you would NOT
merge with the Canadian Alliance and that you would
uphold the constitution of the PC Party in order to
PREVENT a takeover by the Alliance. (The PC party had
adopted in 1999 a constitutional clause which required
that the party would run candidates in all ridings in
every federal election.) Your agreement with David
Orchard and your signature on it enabled you to become
the leader of the party.
After the signing of the deal, you shook hands with
Mr. Orchard and said that together the two of you would
build up the PC party. Then you promptly broke the
agreement and railroaded your party into oblivion, with
the relentless prodding and eager co-operation of
Stephen Harper and your various political and financial
supporters. At no time did you ask for nor did you
receive permission from your party to break the
agreement with Mr. Orchard and to proceed to do the very
opposite; and you only "consulted" us party members
through our decision-making bodies WELL AFTER you had
signed an agreement with Stephen Harper to liquidate the
PC Party which you were constitutionally obligated to
defend and uphold. You were helped in this treachery
by Stephen Harper whose Canadian Alliance members were
urged to join the PC Party merely to vote it out of
existence. After thousands did so, you and your assorted
allies concocted a phony approval process -- with no
debate allowed at any level of decision making! --
producing approval rates for the merger that are usually
found only in dictatorships. This whole process was
accurately described by Progressive Conservative senator
Lowell Murray as "a coup d'etat."
After having destroyed your party and utterly
breached your signed agreement with Mr. Orchard -- which
surely should have given you as a MP, a lawyer and an
officer of the court some pause! -- you and Stephen
Harper have grabbed $70,000 of David Orchard's campaign
funds, funds to which you are not legally entitled. The
Conservative Party has held on to these funds for a
year and a half, while according to the legal
contract Mr. Orchard signed as a leadership candidate he
was to have them returned to him in 48 hours! The
Conservative Party, under your combined leadership, has
in effect stolen Mr. Orchard's campaign donations,
forcing him to take your party to court. You have thus
defrauded the 257 donors to the Orchard campaign whose
money you have put in your party coffers. Your party has
formally conceded that the monies are owed to David
Orchard, but is refusing to return them, in a "might
makes right" fashion. You have no claim to these
funds and you both know it!
Canadians need to know that your party that claims to
be the Canadian citizens' ethical watchdog is led by two
dishonest and unethical individuals, who deserve to be
called scoundrels.
Canadians need to know how a lawyer can sign a
contract that gives him immense benefits, and then
proceed to break it as if it never existed. Explain that
if you can!
Canadians need to know that David Orchard's campaign
funds will be returned to him without delay, with
interest, legal fees, and a huge apology. (Presently
your party is paying high legal fees to merely stall on
giving Mr. Orchard back his campaign donations. Do your
members know that this is how you handle their funds?)
As you wish the next election to be about political
ethics, it will most certainly be about your ethics as
well. As the saying goes, "What is sauce for the goose,
is sauce for the gander." It seems that with your
immoral and unethical actions, you have cooked your
goose, for a long time to come.
Sincerely,
Marjaleena Repo
Saskatchewan vice-president and Management Committee
member of the PC Party of Canada, 2002-2003
President, PC Riding Association, Blackstrap, SK,
2000-2002
Senior Advisor for David Orchard in the 2003 leadership
race
P.S. To refresh your memory – and to wake up your
dormant conscience – MacKay-Orchard agreement, photos of
the signing and legal documents regarding Orchard's
funds can be found on
http://www.davidorchard.com/.
Marjaleena Repo
201 Elm Street
Saskatoon, SK
S7J 0G8
306-244-9724
mrepo@sasktel.net
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