Accusations of Ignatieff clarified

Sent out today from the Ignatieff Campaign to clarify the accusations against Ignatieff.

September 26, 2006

VIA E-MAIL

Steve McKinnon
Executive Director
Liberal Party of Canada
81 Metcalf Street, Suite 400
Ottawa, ON
K1P 6M8

Re: Complaint filed against Michael Ignatieff Leadership Campaign

Mr. McKinnon:
Late yesterday, we obtained a copy of the allegations against the Michael Ignatieff Leadership Campaign (“Ignatieff Campaign”) filed with Nikki Holland, RRO for Ontario earlier in the day. We have since reviewed all memberships cited in that document. Of the 60 memberships cited, we have confirmed that only three were signed up by the Ignatieff Campaign. The remainder either pre-date the leadership contest, were signed up through competing campaigns, or took out their memberships independent of the leadership contest. The deceased member cited joined the Party with a five-year membership in 2004, prior to Michael’s involvement in Etobicoke-Lakeshore.

I have attached a file outlining our detailed findings.

The complaint also attached a number of signed statements, alleging that “fees were kindly paid for by the Michael Ignatieff leadership campaign”. As you will see from an examination of the membership lists, all of these memberships pre-date the leadership contest, making it impossible for this to be the case.

Of the three memberships signed up by the Ignatieff Campaign still at issue, none fall within the purview of the Leadership Expenses Committee, as no allegations of misspending by the Ignatieff Campaign have been made. These three memberships are properly the jurisdiction of the regional challenge process, which deadline passed last Friday, before this complaint was filed. I personally signed up two of these members and can confirm that they paid their own membership fees. The third is a senior woman who suggests that her membership was paid by another member of her senior’s club, not the Ignatieff Campaign.

I feel compelled to add one point. The Ignatieff Campaign did not receive a copy of the complaint from the Party itself, despite our request. We were left to defend against these baseless allegations without knowledge of them, when we could have reviewed and defended within an hour of receiving a copy. It was only at the end of the day, after media filing deadlines, that we were sent a copy by a third party. The result was harm to the Ignatieff Campaign in advance of delegate selection meetings, and harm to the Liberal Party of Canada.

While we support the process the Liberal Party has in place to handle such allegations, the moment the media becomes aware of them, it is incumbent on the Party to provide the affected campaign(s) with the tools necessary to respond to the allegations.

I trust our analysis will be confirmed through the Party’s review and I await your findings.

Most sincerely,
Sachin Aggarwal
Chief Agent and National Director of Operations
Michael Ignatieff Leadership Campaign
cc. Michael Eizenga, President, LPC
cc. Nikki Holland, RRO Ontario
cc. David Pretlove, Executive Director, LPC(O)
cc. Leadership Expenses Committee