The sad story of Bruce Carson

[Rick]

UH OH....

Looks as though Harper (or at least his right hand man and former Chief of Staff Guy Giorno) did know as far back as 2008 according to multiple letters sent to the Ethics Commissioner.

Stephen Harper's former chief of staff wrote to the federal ethics commissioner in 2008 about then prime ministerial adviser Bruce Carson, now under investigation for alleged influence-peddling and illegal lobbying, CBC News has learned.

Sources tell CBC that Harper's top aide, Guy Giorno, wrote at least two formal letters about Carson to ethics commissioner Mary Dawson in the space of only a few months.

Giorno is currently the Conservatives' national election campaign director.

Not long after Giorno contacted the ethics commissioner, sources say, a third letter about Carson was sent to Dawson, that one from a senior deputy minister in the Harper government.

All three letters pre-dated Carson's current problems by two years.

Last month, the Prime Minister's Office called in the Mounties to investigate allegations Carson may have illegally lobbied the government in 2010 on behalf of a water-filter company employing his girlfriend, a 22-year-old former prostitute.

When that story broke, Harper and his senior staff all said they had no prior inkling there was anything amiss about Carson.

The relative hail of mail to the ethics commissioner about Carson in 2008 adds another bizarre twist to the unfolding saga of the convicted fraudster who became one of Harper's most trusted advisers.

The fact two of those letters came from Harper's then chief of staff is also bound to raise new questions about how much the prime minister knew of his former aide.

Harper has said he was aware only that Carson had been sent to jail and disbarred as a lawyer for fraud more than 30 years ago.

The prime minister said he was under the impression Carson had since become an upstanding citizen with an exemplary career in government and politics.

In fact, by the time Carson became a senior adviser to Harper in 2006, he had been convicted on another three counts of fraud, had gone bankrupt twice and was repeatedly in arrears on his taxes up to and including the time he was working in the Prime Minister's Office.

Exactly what prompted Harper's former chief of staff to contact the ethics commissioner about Carson in 2008 remains a mystery.

Giorno did not respond to requests for an interview, and the ethics commissioner is prohibited by law from discussing the details of any such correspondence.

Rest of the story here

Edited April 21, 2011 by Rick

[betsy]

UH OH....

Looks as though Harper (or at least his right hand man and former Chief of Staff Guy Giorno) did know as far back as 2008 according to multiple letters sent to the Ethics Commissioner.

Rest of the story here

The Liberals are desperately trying to change the channel right after Ignatieff's big boo-boo interview with Mansbridge.

With that latest dug-up dirt in their desperate scramble to take the spotlight away from the word COALITION, the biggest question is:

WHAT'S THE COMPLAINT IN THE LETTER ABOUT? As far as I know, nobody knows yet.

If the complaints were serious in nature, what was the response by the Ethics Commissioner? Why do we hear about that only now?

Anyway, perhaps this Giorno-complaint was nothing more than a feud with Carson. There seemed to have been some kind of rivalry between the two, what more with their history in Queen's, according to my sourced article from McLean's.

According to the friend, Carson’s influence in the PMO began to wane with the arrival of Guy Giorno, Harper’s new chief of staff, in the summer of 2008. “When Giorno came in, Carson wasn’t long for this world. They had a history from Queen’s Park, and Giorno didn’t like him. He turned Carson’s office into a meeting room and started restricting his access to the Prime Minister. Carson got the hint and left.” (Giorno didn’t respond to requests for comment.)

Edited April 21, 2011 by betsy

[jbg]

OK I'm gonna get on my soapbox right now because I'm sure you're all dying to know what I think.

I think the one thing we can all agree on is that Harper did a pretty bad job screening this guy to become one of his advisers. According to a CBC article, Harper says all he knew about Carson was that he had been disbarred from practising law because of fraud, and served time in jail. All this happened thirty years ago. If that's not enough in and of itself, here's an excerpt from My link.

In fact, by the time Carson became a senior adviser to Harper in 2006, he had been convicted on another three counts of fraud, had gone bankrupt twice and was repeatedly in arrears on his taxes up to and including the time he was working in the Prime Minister's Office.

You gotta admit, it's kinda funny, at least superficially, that this guy would get vetted out so many simple jobs just based on his record, yet he was able to secure a pretty good and exclusive gig with high-level government.

I agree with the gist of your post. But why does Conrad Black still have a following?

[Tilter]

I agree with the gist of your post. But why does Conrad Black still have a following?

I think his "following" are all IRS & FBI :lol:

[Scotty]

UH OH....

Looks as though Harper (or at least his right hand man and former Chief of Staff Guy Giorno) did know as far back as 2008 according to multiple letters sent to the Ethics Commissioner.

Looks like they acted very responsibly and with great respect for the rules and law. After Carson was hired on a temporary contract they realized that the potential existed for a conflict of interest as he was only on a leave of abscence from his other job. They isolated him from all items which could bear on his employer, notified the CPCO that Carson was no longer to be contacted with regard to the budget, and did all this on their own, without any outsider even suspecting there might have been any opportunity for a conflict. In other words, they acted exactly as we would have wanted them to.

Globe and Mail