This is one hell of an accusation! How can anyone be certain this was hush money? How will that accounting firm respond?
By ROSS ROMANIUK, WINNIPEG SUN
A discovery of a possible “hush payout” from Elections Manitoba to an auditing firm that probed an illegal NDP election financing scheme has prompted the opposition Tories to demand a public inquiry.
The Conservatives said Friday they’ve been given a document that suggests a cheque for $32,500 — issued in mid-2005 by Elections Manitoba to the firm of Hamilton & Asselstine — was a “big hush payout” to keep the auditors quiet about what they had discovered a few years earlier while investigating rebates received by the New Democrats based on falsified 1999 election returns.
Tory Leader Hugh McFadyen said it’s unclear who leaked the information to his party, which has long sought answers for the public about the NDP’s falsified campaign documents — a scheme for which it later repaid $76,000 in unjustified 1999 election rebates to the public purse.
“What we do know is that it’s clearly somebody with access to the whole file, because they had a copy of not just the cheque, but also the two cheque stubs,” he said, adding the phrase “big hush payout” on the leaked document is a troubling matter that needs to be investigated under the public’s scrutiny.
“The suggestion is that the payment was in order to maintain the silence of the audit firm, and what they had discovered regarding illegal NDP schemes.”
The Tories, as well, say the public must be given answers before this fall’s vote on Elections Manitoba’s move in 2003 to part ways with the contracted auditor following what McFadyen described as the NDP’s “bullying” of the independent election overseers to do so after he began probing.
NDP cabinet minister Dave Chomiak brushed aside the Tories’ concerns and calls for an inquiry.
“It’s a cheque. Elections Manitoba paid its consultant, yes. Hello — that happened! To stamp ‘hush money’ on it to make allegations is typical of Hugh McFadyen and the Tories,” said Chomiak, minister of innovation, energy and mines. “They’re hanging onto cheap politics, which is to attack credibility and honesty.”
