In question period, Liberal leader Bob Rae asked about a $21,000 cheque Del Mastro wrote to voter-contact firm Holinshed Research during the 2008 election, and a Postmedia-Ottawa Citizen report that documents at Elections Canada show that the firm did 630 hours of voter calls for that money — work that does not appear on Del Mastro’s expense statement.
Del Mastro yelled at Rae in anger as he spoke.
“The member who is heckling me now is the member who promised just a couple of days ago to reveal all, that he would answer all the contradictions,” said Rae. “I would like to ask the prime minister if he has the answer to these questions.”
Harper replied that Del Mastro “has submitted all of his information to Elections Canada. In fact, that report was certified several years ago. The member of Parliament not only won that election but has since won a subsequent election. He serves his constituents and this House honourably, and I think we all should treat each other with a little more consideration than that.”
Court documents filed in March show Elections Canada is investigating Del Mastro for allegedly exceeding his spending limit during the 2008 campaign and exceeding his personal donation limit.
The charges have not been proven in court. On the weekend, Del Mastro told media in Peterborough that he would come forward this week with documents that clarify the situation, but on Wednesday, he stayed in his chair in the House, and Conservatives defending him referred only to documents that Del Mastro filed in 2008.
NDP MP Charlie Angus asked Del Mastro to step down.
“What we are dealing with is a $21,000 bill that the Conservatives claim is a non-bill,” he said. “Around this bill, we have personal cheques, cancelled cheques and refunded cheques. And, we have an investigation, lawsuits and court files. These are serious issues. I am asking that the member for Peterborough do the right thing and stand up and say that he will step down while this investigation is underway.”
Ottawa-Nepean MP Pierre Poilievre responded by calling on the NDP to vote with the government on the budget bill Wednesday.
“We on this side of the House are focused on jobs, growth and long-term prosperity, no matter how hard the opposition members try to distract from that economic agenda,” he said.
Liberal MP Scott Andrews remarked that having Poilievre respond, rather than Del Mastro, showed that the government “has traded in its old ethics spokesperson and got a used one out for a test drive,” and asked him to explain the $21,000.
“The honourable member has followed all of the rules,” said Poilievre. “He has submitted the documents. They have been audited and verified. He has not heard anything to the contrary from Elections Canada.”
Del Mastro told CBC TV on Tuesday that his campaign paid the voter-contact firm $21,000 by mistake, and the money was refunded.
“The campaign never incurred a $21,000 expenditure from Holinshed research,” he said. “Did not.”
Records in a small-claims case and on file at Elections Canada appear to show that Del Mastro’s campaign did stop payment on an $11,000 cheque issued to Holinshed, but not on a $10,000 cheque. Holinshed apparently refunded $10,000 from the $21,000 personal cheque it received from Del Mastro, which would mean the firm received $21,000, combined, from Del Mastro and the campaign.
He has not explained why he and his campaign paid that money to the firm, pointing instead to a $1,575 payment shown in the Elections Canada receipts.
“As I’ve indicated, the campaign did hire Mr. [Frank] Hall and his company and was invoiced $1,500 for a limited amount of work they did during the campaign,” Del Mastro told CBC. “That is reflected in our campaign [records] and I was refunded for that.”
Del Mastro has not explained why he and his campaign appear to have paid Holinshed $21,000.
Original Article
Source: ottawa citizen
Author: STEPHEN MAHER AND GLEN McGREGOR
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