It's anyone guess what Joe Volpe is doing in the wake of this latest scandal, but I know what I think.

Posted by: Steve Janke at 10:37 AM | Comments (21) | Add Comment
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Joe Volpe has begun to publish what he promises to be a monthly list of donors:

Winnipeg, June 9, 2006 - The Honourable Joe Volpe, Member of Parliament for Eglinton-Lawrence and Liberal leadership candidate, announced he is releasing an updated list of contributors to his leadership campaign. “I believe that we need to be as transparent as possible during this leadership process. I have said, that I intend to set the bar higher. Although Elections Canada and the Liberal Party do not require it, we will release my lists of donors, on a monthly basis.” said Mr. Volpe.

Mr. Volpe released a list showing over $58,000 of new donations that have been received by his campaign since the last filing. “I will release an updated list of donors on my website www.joevolpe.ca, monthly and I will be asking the Liberal Party of Canada to also post this information on the Liberal Party web site.” Volpe added.

Here is the list (recreated here because, well, just in case someone tries to sneak in a change):

Joe Volpe seems to depend a lot on support from the Italian-Canadian community. About two-thirds of the names are Italian. Of course, it might simply be that he is tapping into his traditional supporters first, and that as time goes by, we'll be able to see a shift as Volpe drums up support from across other ethnic groups. It'll be interesting to see how those monthly reports work out.

Posted by: Steve Janke at 07:51 AM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
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Petitions are great. Not because they are always effective -- they often aren't directly. But because of the way they undermine the target and limit his freedom to act. A petition demanding that Joe Volpe abort his leadership bid in light of the donation controversy means that should Volpe decide to bow out now, he will do so with the implication that he was chased out. If he had bowed out before the petition was started (as well as all the other criticism), he could have avoided that association, one that will follow him to end of his (possibly dramatically shortened) political career.

But enough thinking. More signing!

Note that the petition is open to Liberal Party supporters. As I am not a supporter, I have not signed it. Please keep it honest. And anyway, if you support the Conservatives, you probably want Volpe to stay as long as possible.

Posted by: Steve Janke at 11:24 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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In a sign that Joe Volpe has not been able to put the donations controversy behind him, Sukh Dhaliwal, the Liberal MP for Newton-North Delta, has withdrawn his support for Volpe.

More at Public Eye Online.

Posted by: Steve Janke at 03:41 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Well, it's been a couple of days since the controversy over Liberal Party leadership candidate Joe Volpe's odd donations (including thousands from several young children of drug company executives) boiled over. One of the casualties was a parody website, YouthForVolpe.ca, a wickedly funny send-up of the sort of people who would use children to evade political funding limits. On the word of the Volpe campaign manager, the website was shutdown by the Canadian Internet Registration Authority.

I wrote on the terrible precedent this sets, where criticism of political figures can be silenced. Many other bloggers did the same.

I have just gone through each of the candidates' websites, and not a single one of them has acknowledged the actions of Joe Volpe, either in support of free speech and so critical of Volpe's actions, or supportive of Volpe.

Obviously, these candidates, each of whom would like to be prime minister one day, would rather not take a stand.

That's not good enough, not on this issue, not for me.

So I've written to each of them:

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing to each of you as the registered candidates for the Liberal leadership campaign in search of an answer to the question, "Are you in support of political free speech?"

In the recent controversy surrounding candidate Joe Volpe's campaign donations, a parody website www.YouthForVolpe.ca was created. The site was careful not to attribute any actions, real or imaginary, to Mr Volpe. The site was created by the Apotex executives to entice children to donate to Mr Volpe's campaign -- or at least that was the joke. There were no quotes from Mr Volpe, real or imaginary, nor any attributed actions, even as innocuous as saying Mr Volpe appreciates all the help he can get. Mr Volpe was essentially a passive backdrop to the satire.

In my mind, it is hard to claim defamation when the remarks in question don't actually say anything about the subject claiming defamation.

But even if it cuts it close, doesn't political freedom require the greatest possible latitude, the most generous interpretation, in order to maintain a healthy democracy?

The Volpe campaign was successful in having the site shut down on the basis that it was defamatory. To many people, that is a chilling action. Will you, as a Liberal leadership candidate, take a stand to say that shutting down such a site is unacceptable, or at the very least, an over-reaction?

What can we expect of the the current crop of Liberal leadership candidates when the media and the public at large find themselves at odds with them? Are you willing to say that criticism has a special place in political discourse, and that the actions of Mr Volpe and his team were heavy-handed?

Or is criticism of our leaders not a Liberal value?

I look forward to your thoughts on the matter.

Best wishes,
Steve Janke
(aka Angry in the Great White North)

P.S. All responses (or lack thereof) are subject to publication. All responses will be published without any editing.

I'll post the responses as I get them.

Will they respond? I'm not sure, but I'm not hopeful. It might make for an interesting discussion tomorrow on Charles Adler's radio program. I'll be on around 3:30pm eastern to discuss the Volpe situation, his takedown of the website, and the role of satirical free speech in politics.

You can find links to the live internet broadcast at CharlesAdler.com

Posted by: Steve Janke at 12:58 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
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Those words were spoken by the Chinese ambassador to Canada in October of 2003, speaking to the Canada-China Legislative Association.

For most people who know anything about China, the towering hypocrisy makes one's skin crawl. Chinese prisons are filled with people who offered "good-natured criticism", many of whom will suffer the fate of being executed so that their organs can be harvested and sold on the black market.

But Canada is better, right? Canadians understand the importance of free speech, especially the freedom to criticize and to dissent, right?

I know one group of Canadians who seem to have a problem with this -- Joe Volpe and his Liberal leadership campaign team.

When the Joe Volpe campaign was caught accepting thousands and thousands of dollars in donations from families, including children, each family headed by an executive of the generic drug manufacturer Apotex, people immediately cried foul, accusing Volpe and his people of accepting a corporate donation far in excess of the legal limit by hiding the money in individual donations.

Of course, it was the use of children as donation mules that drove the story.

So Mike Hunt created a parody site, www.youthforvolpe.ca. It featured hilarious send-ups of earnest children glad to have the chance to send money Volpe's way:

"Joe Volpe's deep commitment to integrity inspired me to support his campaign! I borrowed $5,400 from my parents in a manner compliant with all campaign finance regulations as they then existed." -Ann Lee, age 4, Calgary

That site was shut down by Volpe's people (it has since re-appeared under a different address):

Mr. Volpe's campaign had the site shut down without knowing, it seems, who put it up: "Hi Everyone," wrote Brenden Johnstone, who is with the Volpe campaign, in an e-mail to other leadership campaigns. "There has been concern about how the issue of the Volpe donations was reflecting on the leadership race.

"My Office has had the website suspended through CIRA [Canadian Internet Registration Authority] and CDNS [Canadian Domain Name Services] and it will be down as soon as 6 p.m. I think the issue with the website has been dealt with. . . ."

CIRA acted on the basis of "defamation":

When the website creator discovered the site had been removed, an email was sent to the registrar asking why the actions were taken. The registrar advised the site creator that it had violated Article 3.1 Paragraph (h) (i) and (ii) of CIRA Policies which allow CIRA to suspend a domain name. The rules say CIRA may suspend a domain if the site is directly or indirectly, defaming or contributing to the defamation of any other Person or unlawfully discriminating or contributing to the unlawful discrimination of any other Person.

Defamation is the act of injuring the reputation of another person through false statements. I dare say Volpe had done plenty of injury to himself -- to blame a parody site and then have it shut down shows him to be as oblivious to his situation as he is disdainful of freedom of speech.

And where was the defamation? The site was "Youth for Volpe" -- the joke was that a third party (a group from Apotex) was enticing children to donate to their favourite candidate, not of Volpe himself tricking children into giving him money.

If the people at Apotex were the targets of defamatory statements, then why did Brenden Johnstone of the Volpe campaign get involved? The people at Apotex can afford their own lawyers. Johnstone answers the question in his own email, and strikes at the heart of the matter:

There has been concern about how the issue of the Volpe donations was reflecting on the leadership race. [emphasis added]

The issue was the donations, not the website. In other words, the website amplified the issue, but did not create it.

But then that is the role of political humour, to bring into sharp focus the actions of public figures, especially those who would wield great responsibility over our lives. If every politician took action like Volpe, there would be no political cartoonists working in Canada. Volpe's actions (and I attribute the actions of his team to him personally, since he is their boss) are abhorrent in a democracy. Volpe has shown himself to value personal power over the rights and freedoms of citizens in this country. Subjected to a joke aimed squarely at the actions he took in accepting and then defending questionable donations, he attacked the person making the joke, perhaps hoping to quell further discussion. The 18th century German satirist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg said, "A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents."

Volpe's actions against the website, and the support he received from CIRA, should be denounced in the strongest possible terms, especially by those who use the Internet as a means of political and personal expression. I hope people reading this take the time to register their anger. Don't stop, though, with an email to Volpe. Get in touch with your MP to point out that you feel that your freedoms have been diminished by this action. Get in touch with the editor of your favourite newspaper or your favourite talkradio personality. Tell that person you expect him or her to take a stand when political speech is being threatened.

They, of all people, ought to understand just how precious that freedom is. Their livelihoods depend on it.

Which brings me full circle. Why did I choose to quote the Chinese ambassador? There have been plenty of far more worthy people throughout history who have spoken words in defense of political dissent than this hypocritical ChiCom mouthpiece.

The reason is the delicious irony. Present when the ambassador delivered his remarks was the Vice-Chair of the CCLA, a man dedicated to improving relations with the Mao's dictatorship. It was our very own Joe Volpe. Part of his job was to help the Chinese improve their attitude towards human rights and political freedoms. Instead, it looks like Volpe was the one getting advice.

List of bloggers calling Volpe out on a censorship charge:

• Stephen Taylor
• Dust My Broom
• The Daily Bayonet
• A Frank Perspective on Politics
• Left Wing = Hate
• Canadian Christian Conservative
• Blue Blogging Soapbox
• Larry Borsato
• bound by gravity
• Wolfevillewatch
• Blind Mind's Eye
• Civitatensis
• Random Bytes
• Abandoned Stuff
• The New American Citizen
• Generalized Nonsense
• Spiderman's Web
• Uncle Meat
• little green footballs
• Captain's Quarters
• slashdot
• boing boing
• Canadian internet sleaze
• Rob Hyndman
• Jay Currie
• Generation Zel! Radio

Send me a link and I'll add you to the list.

Posted by: Steve Janke at 01:35 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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Let's recap.

People who want to see Joe Volpe as the next Liberal Party leader use children to write cheques in the amount of thousands of dollars and so evade donation limits:

Two 11-year-olds donated $10,800 to Joe Volpe's Liberal leadership campaign, and their 14-year-old brother gave another $5,400.

The sums were from children of former Apotex Inc. vice-president Allen Shechtman and were among the 20 donations totalling $108,000 to Mr. Volpe's campaign from five current and former executives of the firm and 15 of their family members.

Liberals in Joe Volpe's camp think there is nothing wrong with this:

Earlier, however, Mr. Volpe's national campaign co-ordinator, Scarborough MP Jim Karygiannis, insisted that nothing was wrong with the donations from 11-year-olds, and noted that it is legal for children of any age to donate to an election campaign.Mr. Volpe's spokesman, Corey Hobbs, said Monday that all the donations are in full compliance with the law, and that none will be returned.

Indeed, Volpe is ready to sue anyone who criticizes him:

Yesterday, Mr. Volpe's lawyer, Steven Polak, sent a letter to [New Democratic Party MP Pat Martin] demanding that he retract “false, malicious, and slanderous statements about Mr. Volpe and contributions to his leadership campaign.”

The Liberal Party itself thinks using children as money-laundering mules is just good campaigning:

The national Liberal Party said yesterday it has no reason to investigate donations to leadership candidate Joe Volpe from current and former executives of a generic drug firm and their relatives.

While other parties criticized the donations, national director Steven MacKinnon said the Liberal Party has not made any inquiries with the donors.

"Elections Canada regulates contributions to leadership candidates. The Liberal Party does not," Mr. MacKinnon said.

He said donors to political parties must be Canadian citizens -- in fact landed immigrants can also donate -- and must contribute their own money. "Until we have a reason to believe that neither of those is the case, no action is warranted."

This isn't just about Joe Volpe. It is about the Liberal Party as a whole. There are many who are critical of Volpe, but many more who are not (or at least not until the bad press started), including those in key executive positions.

This is the Liberal Party attitude towards children.

When Communications Director Scott Reid criticized the Conservative plan to give money to parents of children, he worried that Canadian parents would be irresponsible and spend the money on "beer and popcorn".

I guess he was right after all. He just didn't go far enough. I mean, Liberal parents are likely to spend money in the childrens' names on beer, popcorn, and sleazy leadership campaigns.

Too bad there is no way to keep the childcare cheques from going to irresponsible Liberal parents.

Oh well.

The good news is that we have avoided having the Liberal Party implement a nationalized daycare plan. Imagine being compelled to trust these people and their lackeys and supporters with our children.

"OK, children. Today for arts and crafts, we're going to make Liberal campaign buttons! See, volunteer labour does not count againt donation limits. Who can say 'donation'? Very good!"

It's a chilling thought.

More Volpe creepiness: Not just a guy who takes candy (and campaign cheques) from a child, but an enemy of free speech too.

Posted by: Steve Janke at 11:01 AM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
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From the 1968 movie, "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang", the Child Catcher:

From the 2006 Liberal leadership race, Joe Volpe:

This bit of fun was inspired by Youth for Volpe.

Posted by: Steve Janke at 10:38 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Though not from the editorial board, Toronto Star columnist (and Liberal Party booster) James Travers thinks Joe Volpe needs to go, and to me that pretty much means Joe Volpe can't count on the Toronto Star for help:

In a more perfect Liberal leadership contest, Joe Volpe would quit now while Carolyn Bennett struggles to the last ballot on the first weekend in December. By doing the right things for the right reasons, Volpe would help the party shake its past even as Bennett charts its future.

A Liberal party that finally exhausted public patience with serial scandals cannot afford to let a whiff of odour waft around the leadership. That would only boost Conservatives who are doing everything possible - including the transparent stunt of taking Liberals to court over the Quebec advertising horror - to remind voters about the party's affinity for the cookie jar.

Transparent stunt? Well, I did say Travers was a Liberal Party man. Still, he's right about the fact that the Liberals have to appear squeaky clean. Anything less, and they'll never be able to escape that stench of corruption.

Liberal supporters will spin Volpe's troubles as being blown out of proportion, that Volpe is not being given the benefit of the doubt, that everyone plays the "limits" game (and they do). But those with at least some honesty like James Travers (who I suspect has more than just some honesty) will realize that Joe Volpe represents all that is bad about the Liberal Party. That rules are meant to be pushed to the edge. That anything is justified if it means winning. That scandal can be avoided by simply acting offended, as if being Liberal means one can do no wrong.

Joe Volpe's actions, and the response so far, plays into every bad stereotype. And worse yet, he is reinforcing the notion that the Liberal Party is made up of competing crime families -- there's Joe Volpe and the generic drug manufacturers, here's Scott Brison and the Bay Street crowd -- which is so ironic given Joe Volpe's Italian-Canadian roots and his hypersensitivity to mobster parallels.

Hopefully Volpe will listen to Travers. More likely, he'll resist until he can't resist any more, and the Liberals will have a very bitter and angry ex-leadership candidate on their hands.

Can't say I feel too sorry for them.

Update: Several Liberal bloggers are demanding that "sleazy" Joe Volpe immediately exit the leadership race. Will the list grow? Stay tuned for updates:

• Views from the Left: "Sleazy Joe Must Go"
• A View from the Left: "Get Out of the Race, Volpe"
• Battle of the Grits: "I always thought Volpe was a dirty politician..."
• Bob the Red: "Joe, Joe, Joe"

Posted by: Steve Janke at 09:00 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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The story of Joe Volpe playing some sort of inverted Santa Claus and accepting gifts from children is interesting:

The national Liberal Party said yesterday it has no reason to investigate donations to leadership candidate Joe Volpe from current and former executives of a generic drug firm and their relatives, but some Liberal MPs said they have qualms about accepting money from minors.

Mr. Volpe has received donations of $5,400 each from five current and former executives of Apotex Inc. and 15 of their relatives, including some who are under 18.

But the real interesting thing here is not that Volpe and his supporters are playing fast and loose with the rules. It's about who is giving the money:

Apotex chairman Barry Sherman, his wife Honey, and four of his children each donated $5,400, as did Apotex president Jack Kay, his wife Patricia, and two of his children.

A former vice-president of Apotex, Allen Shechtman, his wife Mary, and three of his children, also donated $5,400. Mr. Shechtman told The Globe on Monday that not all of the donors are adults, but did not specify their ages. He did not return a telephone call yesterday.

Bernard "Barry" Sherman of Apotex is a well known name. Apotex is a maker of generic drugs, and as such, is involved in intense lobbying. "Intense" is definitely a word used to describe Barry Sherman:

Sherman's tactics have made him infamous in the industry. Everyone has a Barry Sherman story. His associates praise his brilliance and integrity. His detractors say he has a chip on his shoulder, that he's paranoid, bombastic, opportunistic. Paul Lucas, president of Glaxo Wellcome Inc., the Canadian arm of Glaxo Wellcome PLC, the world's largest pharmaceutical company, calls Sherman's conspiracy theories "ludicrous." Apotex and Novopharm together control the Canadian generic market in what amounts to an oligopoly, Lucas argues. Even Dan [Leslie Dan, the chairman of the generic goliath Novopharm Ltd], who juggles his personal dislike for Sherman with the interests they share as independent generic manufacturers, says Sherman's litigious, bulldog approach has not been constructive for the sector.

Physician and pharmaceutical entrepreneur Morton Shulman, who has tussled with Apotex several times over the years, has called Sherman "the only person I have ever met with no redeeming features whatsoever."

Nice company Volpe keeps. To be fair, Sherman has some choice words for his competitors too, and as a generic drug manufacturer, his products, which can sell for nearly 20% less than the brand name drugs, have saved the health care system millions.

But then, profitability is what drives the big multi-nationals to find new drugs.

Still, Sherman is more than just a guy looking to make more affordable drugs. He pushes the envelope and gets in trouble for it. Remember that fellow Shechtman who also gave money to Volpe (along with his wife and his three kids, not all of whom were adults)? Shechtman was described as a former VP of Apotex. So two families are donating to Volpe?

Turns out it is the same family, and that Shechtman and Sherman are as close as only two guys who have had run-ins with the FBI can be:

There was also that small clash with the FBI and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration over a mail-order scheme Sherman engaged in with his brother-in-law, Allen Shechtman. It involved a Bahamas-based company called Medicine Club International Inc., which mailed Apotex-manufactured generic drugs, including generic Prozac and Deprenyl, from Canada to 500,000 households in the United States without prescription. The FBI was allegedly tipped off by U.S. drug manufacturers, no fans of Sherman.

In 1995, Medicine Club pleaded guilty to one count of illegal interstate commerce and was fined $500,000 (U.S.) for selling drugs without approval. It was also forced to pay $339,000 for investigative costs.

So Shechtman and Sherman are brothers-in-law and partners in crime. Eleven members of this extended family has signed cheques to Volpe for $5,400 each.

For a guy who is so hyper-sensitive to jokes relating the Liberals to organized crime, Joe Volpe really doesn't make an effort to avoid the whole "crime family" thing.

But back to the issue of generic drugs and patent protection. Do you think Joe Volpe is going to promote a particular position when it comes to generic drugs?

Bill C-91 was passed by the Mulroney Conservatives in 1993, and it extended patent protection for name brand drugs to twenty years. In part, it was done as a realignment of Canadian laws to meet NAFTA obligations. The Liberals opposed the legislation intensely. True to form, though, when they formed the government in 1993, the Liberals became strong supporters of C-91. This was because the name brand manufacturers are headquartered in Quebec, and any law that guaranteed their profitability was a sure vote-getter in Quebec.

Principles be dammed when votes are to be had, right?

C-91 required that the effect of the new law be reviewed in 1997. By then the Liberals were in power, and so had an opportunity to kill the bill and make it easier for Canadian generic drug manufacturers to make their knock-offs.

The review in 1997 was conducted by David Dingwall, then the Minister of Health, and the end result is that C-91 is still the law of the land today.

Of course, we all remember David Dingwall for getting in trouble in 2005 for accepting $350,000 in continency fees as a lobbyist from Bioniche. Bioniche is, as it turns out, a pharmaceutical company with original discoveries to protect, including drug discoveries.

I'm not passing judgment on C-91. But the money involved in the realm of pharmaceutical patents is huge, and it looks like the players are shopping for potential ministers and prime ministers that can be counted upon to push their side of the debate. And these people are not satisfied with the ethical or financial strengths of their positions -- the stakes are too great. They are willing to throw lots of money around to make sure the right people are convinced the the righteousness of their position.

Liberal David Dingwall was a friend of the name-brand manufacturers, and was caught pulling a $350,000 cookie out of the cookie jar.

Today it looks like the generic drug manufacturers have found another Liberal, leadership candidate Joe Volpe, willing to argue the other side.

Seems like there are no right answers, or even principled positions, when it comes to the Liberal Party. On any issue, you are likely to find a senior member of the party who will take up your cause -- for consideration, of course. And when you don't have principles, accepting money from children is easy.

Posted by: Steve Janke at 09:18 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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