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Dexter Calls on Paul Martin to Suspend NS Liberal Party President From National Executive |
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Written by NDP News Release
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Monday, 09 January 2006 |
NDP Leader Darrell Dexter has written Prime Minister Paul Martin and President of the Liberal Party of Canada Mike Eizenga to ask them to suspend the president of the Nova Scotia Liberal Party from the party's national executive. Both Martin and Eizenga have said that they will hold party members to the "highest of ethical standards" and that members will be held responsible for illegal and inappropriate actions.
The Nova Scotia Liberal Party representative should be suspended because the provincial party has decided to resume the practice of using illegally and inappropriately raised funds, voting at its last convention to use a million dollars raised by the kickback scheme to pay for election campaigns and other party activities.
"The trust fund scandal has hung over the reputation of the Liberal party in Nova Scotia for decades," says Dexter. "Paul Martin more than anyone in this country should know how important it is that the public sees the ethical standards he talks about enforced."
During the 1970s money from more than five hundred companies doing business with the Nova Scotia government was placed in a secret Liberal party trust fund. Those contributions investigated by the RCMP was illegal. Despite this the party made the decision not to investigate the legality of the remaining donations, and to keep most of the money.
"If Mr. Martin and Mr. Eizenga are sincere, if they really want the electorate to believe that the days of scandal and corruption are over, then they would remove the Nova Scotia President from the national executive until this mess is cleaned up."
Dexter notes that although Jean Chrétien told Nova Scotia audience in 1990 that the sources of the illegally collected Liberal trust funds should be opened up to public scrutiny, the provincial Liberal party has failed to do this.
"Either Paul Martin believes in enforcing ethical standards or he doesn't," says Dexter. "It's as simple as that." |
