Conservatives aren't even trying to cover up the teamwork taking place between industry, politicians and Canada Proud. Don't call it collusion though.
Some of you may remember Terrance Oakey from the last Ontario Provincial election. He leveraged his position as President of Merit Canada to donate $50,000 to Ontario Proud and encourage other property developers to do the same. (1)
Now, Oakey is back. Merit Canada has donated $45,000 to Canada Proud. (2) Not only that, Paul Mannix of Coril Holdings has donated $100,000 to Canada Proud ($50,000 personally and $50,000 from his company).
Tying Oakey to Mannix is former Conservative MP and interim leader Rona Ambrose. She sits on the board of Coril. As you can see from the photo provided, Oakey knows Ambrose from his days lobbying the Harper government and possibly from his time working for Stephen Harper. (3)
Of course, the connections don't stop there. Oakey is a partner at government relations firm One. Who does Oakey work with? None other than Hamish Marshall. (4)
If you're not familiar with Marshall, he previously worked for Rebel Media. More importantly, Marshall is Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer's campaign manager.
So we follow the money from Paul Mannix and Oakey to Canada Proud. Canada Proud supports efforts to elect conservative politicians like Andrew Scheer who is managed by Hamish Marshall who is a partner with Oakey at One.
So how could Mannix and Oakey potentially benefit from electing a Conservative government? Like in Ontario, laws favorable to industry and developers could be very profitable.
One of the companies held by Coril is Triovest, a commercial real estate property with over 380 properties across Canada, a company that could benefit from the right government in Ottawa. This is just like the situation in Ontario where Ford introduced a number of pieces of legislation that could help property developers like Mattamy Homes' Peter Gilgan pocket millions more in profits.
If anyone doubts this is a possibility, you should know that Oakey and Merit have lobbied government officials and Conservative MPs more than 250 times in the last several years. (5) Oakey was also a frequent visitor to government officials during the Harper years.
"The Merit lobbyist, Terrance Oakey, has a long history with the Progressive Conservative party and its successor Conservative party dating to at least 1999, when he was a special assistant to Joe Clark. He has been a special assistant to the party’s national director, worked in the national party’s communications department and was a researcher in Harper’s opposition office.
Merit is an advocate for an “open shop,”. It actively competes against unionized construction crews.
As Merit’s man in Ottawa, Oakey had 117 meetings with public officeholders on the bill between November 2011 and 2014, but it’s his level of access which sets him apart.
He had 13 meetings with Hiebert, but also 12 meetings with Harper’s (since departed) director of stakeholder relations, Alykhan Velshi, as well as a meeting with Rachal Curran, Harper’s director of policy. Harper’s former chief of staff Nigel Wright attended one of the meetings with Hiebert and Velshi. Oakey also had a separate tête-à-tête with Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird.
On the other side, the Canadian Labour Congress says the closest it got to Harper’s office in lobbying against the bill was an early 2013 phone conversation between then-president Ken Georgetti and Wright. Georgetti raised it briefly with the prime minister in an unrelated meeting."
"The CLC was told there was no time for a face-to-face meeting.
“This guy (Oakey) had open access to the PMO, but for the labour movement, the PMO is a closed door,’’ said CLC official Danny Mallett."
"Merit, according to the CFRA, did not disclose its financial statements, major contributors, bylaws, board member or membership policies but Oakey told the Star all his funding comes from the eight organizations, with Alberta leading the way, although he put no dollar figure on it."
All of this may not meet the insufficient definition of collusion contained in Canadian law but it sure stinks. At a minimum, the RCMP should be called in to investigate possible collusion between Canada Proud and the Scheer campaign.
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