For whom would you vote? We rest our case!

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post, "Saint Boniface, Manitoba election update - it's a tie!"

Mr. Simard has been hard at work knocking on doors every day and night and weekends. But, the riding keeps growing! :) you will be contacted have no fear! He is the best man for the job, no doubt about it!
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Dear Anonymous: Thank you very much for writing.

A few years ago when Mr. Simard was the Member for Saint Boniface we arranged to meet with him in his Constituency Office. We found him to be polite, receptive and respectful.

Anonymous sources had provided internal documents on the operations of the Canadian taxpayer financed Manitoba Metis Federation which we believed raised significant questions about the spending of public funds and possible malfeasance. Through a series of meetings the Manitoba Auditor General's Office had been made aware of their existence but declined to take action because:

(1) the preponderence of the Federation's annual funding of approximately $23-25 million (over 90%) comes from Ottawa)

(2) it claimed it did not have sufficent resources to undertake all the provincial audits it should

(3) the MAGO was only prepared to get involved in a joint audit if their federal counterparts took the lead which we assumed to mean were prepared to incurr most of the costs

We subsequently requested Manitoba's Auditor General's Office turn the documentation over to staff from the Auitor General of Canada which it did. Somewhere in this we became aware Winnipeg lawyer Murray Trachtenberg who represents the MMF had written to a Manitoba Justice official requesting the material be relinquished to him which it was. www.ptlaw.mb.ca, mtrachtenberg@ptlaw.mb.ca

This raised the question, given the aforementioned, what are the ground rules by which the Office of Canada's Auditor General operates in such cases?

That was the query we posed to Mr. Simard in our one-on-one. To his credit he followed through on the request and even though the information provided didn't answer the question, which remains unresolved to this day, at least he tried. The Federation later launched a defamation lawsuit against the precursor site CyberSmokeSignals.

Fast forward to last summer when my attorney contacted Ms Glover via e-mail, who happens to be our joint Member of Parliament, requesting a meeting. It's worth noting at the time she was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. The lawyer took pains to make it clear we did not expect her to take sides or even comment for that matter. Rather, it was to be a briefing session to update her - period!

The result? An e-mail letter from one of Ms Glover's Assistants saying she was not prepared to discuss the case until in was no longer before the courts.

Now we ask, for whom would you vote? We rest our case.

Sincerely,
Clare L. Pieuk