Richard Ciano, a founding partner of Campaign Research Inc., the company that conducted telephone polling calls in Mr. Cotler’s Montreal riding of Mount Royal suggesting Mr. Cotler was retiring and a byelection was imminent, was national vice-president of the Conservative Party of Canada from its founding convention in 2005 until 2008.
Mr. Ciano, who did not return a telephone call from The Hill Times on Thursday, is currently running for election as president of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario. His campaign blog states he was also a member of the national Conservative Party’s governing council, serving Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) as the party was in transition from Official Opposition to government following the 2006 federal election.
Mr. Scheer (Regina-Qu’Appelle, Sask.) has come under criticism from the NDP following his ruling dismissing Mr. Cotler’s claim the telephone campaign violated his privilege as an MP. NDP House Leader Joe Comartin (Windsor-Tecumseh, Ont.) and NDP MP Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre, Man.) said Mr. Scheer should have recused himself from the ruling and allowed the Commons Deputy Speaker, NDP MP Denise Savoie (Victoria, B.C.), to take his place for the arguments and adjudication of Mr. Cotler’s case.
Mr. Scheer ruled that while the actions of the polling firm, Campaign Research Inc., were “reprehensible,” there was no evidence the campaign, which Mr. Cotler said had his constituents in turmoil and confusion over the status of their MP, prevented him from doing his Parliamentary work.
The Ottawa Citizen reported this week that Campaign Research was paid by Mr. Scheer’s campaign a total of $8,199 for polling and voter identification work during the federal election last May. The firm performed a total of $389,890 worth of polling and voter identification work for 39 Conservative candidate campaigns in total, including Mr. Scheer’s.
Campaign Research was founded in 2003 by Mr. Ciano and Nick Kouvalis, another Conservative backroomer who managed Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s winning campaign. According to Mr. Ciano’s website, he was also Mr. Ford’s pollster and chief strategist and previously served as Government House Leader Peter Van Loan’s (York-Simcoe, Ont.) 2004 election campaign manager.
Mr. Van Loan has defended the action, arguing against Mr. Cotler’s point of privilege on Nov. 29: “What he is asking you, Mr. Speaker, to do here is prevent people from being able to speak the truth. When they were asked, ‘Why are you making this call?’, ‘There are rumours that there might be a byelection,’ was the true answer.” Mr. Van Loan said it comes down to “freedom of speech” and “the fact is that this has been going on as long as politics in this country. It is a normal part of politics in this country and it is not a kind of speech that should begin to be chilled at this point.”
Mr. Cotler, who posted a carefully worded challenge to Mr. Scheer’s ruling Thursday on HuffingtonPost.ca, declined to criticize Mr. Scheer’s ruling in an interview with The Hill Times on Thursday, or comment on the NDP position that Mr. Scheer should have recused himself from the case.
But he said had he won his argument, he was prepared to call Mr. Ciano and Mr. Kouvalis, to the Procedure and House Affairs Committee to defend the campaign their firm mounted in his riding.
Mr. Scheer identified the firm in his ruling, and Mr. Cotler’s office emailed The Hill Times a screen-capture depiction of the Montreal number where the harassing calls originated. A voice-mail response at the number, which The Hill Times called, identified its affiliation with Campaign Research, advising the caller to either send an email to CampaignResearch.ca or mail a letter to the address for the firm’s Ottawa location, near Parliament Hill.
“If the Speaker had ruled that there was a prima facie breach of privilege I was already prepared to move the motion. That was the first thing I was going to do, that the matter be referred to the House committee on procedure,” Mr. Cotler told The Hill Times.
“Then, the House committee on procedure would have made the determination as to whom they would have called as witnesses. I believe that we would have, in that context, invited the people from this group to come before us and present their case.”
Mr. Cotler would not comment directly on Mr. Scheer’s decision, though last Tuesday after Mr. Scheer made the ruling, Mr. Cotler served notice he would raise questions about it at a later point.
“I’m always careful to look at the procedures,” Mr. Cotler said, referring to the official House manual of procedure and practice.
“It says that the Speaker has an obligation to be impartial and an obligation to appear to be impartial. It also says that a Member, i.e. myself, cannot make an allegation that the Speaker may not be such. So therefore, all I can tell you is what his obligation is, I can’t make comment on it,” Mr Cotler said.
Mr. Martin, however, told The Hill Times the information that has been learned about Campaign Research since Mr. Scheer’s ruling makes it clear that the Saskatchewan MP, elected to the Speaker’s chair for the first time last June, should have step aside and allowed Ms. Savoie to hear Mr. Cotler’s case.
“Scheer found himself in a very uncomfortable if not untenable situation, but the obvious choice was to recuse himself,” Mr. Martin said. “Obviously his credibility has taken a hit over this.”
Origin
Source: Hill Times
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