Accountability meeting

Another interesting notice has come across my desk. It seems the provincial secretary, Darlene Lawson, will be holding an accountability meeting during the lunch break at provincial council, held at the Metropolitan Hotel, 108 Chestnut Street. The news I received states that meeting will run between 12:15 to 1:15 p.m. this Saturday, room TBA.

Apparently the meeting will take questions regarding the Ontario Cornerstone Leadership Corporation — known colloquially as Cornerstone Corp.  — from the floor to be answered by Lawson.

Sounds like it will be a fun lunch.

How to incur a 7 Million Dollar Debt

As many members know, this weekend is Provincial Council, the second highest decision making body in the Ontario New Democratic Party, and it is just below a convention in stature. It is public knowledge that the party has a substantial debt on its books from the previous three Ontario general election campaigns, totalling approximately 3 million dollars. It has come to my attention, that party insiders Gissel Yanez and Penny Marno are allegedly trying to add another 4 million dollars to that debt, to finance this year’s general election campaign. Both provincial executive and provincial council will be voting on the campaign budget at this weekend’s meetings. Serious questions have to be asked, and if a budget is presented with this type of financial mismanagement, than it has to be defeated.

For a detailed look at where this debt came from, please read my earlier post, “A history of financial mismanagement.” The first question that has to be asked, is where is the money coming from?  What lending institution would lend money to an organization with little chance of paying off its debt? The party still has not eliminated the debt from the 1999 general election! A sure sign of financial mismanagement, or at least incompetence.

Like an unending nightmare, the names Penny Marno, and Rob Milling keep coming up. This husband and wife team live in a multi-million dollar home on Heathdale Road in Forrest Hill. If one looks at how much money the party has paid these two individuals over the past decade, the sum would be close to 2.5 million dollars, or almost all the incurred debt of the past 12-years. Both Marno and Milling have been put on contract with the party, and undoubtedly, helped Yanez to put together this budget proposal. Considering the party does not even have enough resources to support sitting MPPs, how can a budget that will apparently saddle the party with a 7 million dollar debt be justified?  Where will this money be spent? Could the geniuses behind our worst political defeats since the party’s founding be using it to create large teams of phone canvassers to repeatedly call NDP supporters just to get a little bit of cash? Who knows, as this budget was crafted in secrecy, and will likely be rushed through with little debate at council this weekend.

It is clear this party is fast resembling a sinking ship.  It has come to my attention that the Federal NDP have packed-up and left their 101 Richmond St E. office space, and now rent space at the Toronto Star building at the base of Yonge Street.  Even the Feds apparently do not want to be painted with the apparent taint coming out of provincial office and Queen’s Park. Also, Gissel Yanez was spotted removing internal documents from provincial office, in a Conrad-Black- like fashion, and then headed straight to Queen’s Park’s paper shredding machines, likely in an attempt to thwart a forensic audit into the party’s finances. It did not do Black much help, and it likely will not help either.

History seems to be repeating itself, with mostly the same cast of characters still running the show. Of course, after everything blows-up in their faces, Yanez, Marno and Milling likely will not accept responsibility.  No, they just conveniently blame the provincial secretary, as they did in 2007 with Diane O’Reggio being scape-goated and removed from her position. Probably, they will do it again, this time scape-goating Darlene Lawson. In both cases, the provincial secretary is merely a pawn in their game, and is quite disposable.

Will the party membership allow such an apparently disastrous budget to be passed this weekend?  I hope not, because if it is, the 7 million dollar debt that results from it, will be the final nail in the Ontario NDP’s coffin, and one has to wonder how that will effect the fortunes of its sister organization: the New Democratic Party of Canada.

Provincial Council: a time for questioning

With Provincial Council being held this weekend, at the Metropolitan Hotel, 108 Chestnut Street, it is time to start questioning what is going on with the Ontario NDP. This gathering is a rare opportunity for the party’s members to pose questions to the people running it.

Below is a suggested list of questions that need to be asked, and more importantly, truthfully answered.

1. Who owns 101 Richmond Street East, and why is the party paying rent on a building that it supposedly owns? Does a forensic audit need to be undertaken to uncover the facts behind Cornerstone Corporation, which supposedly actually owns the building?
2. Has the party settled the outstanding grievances with the Provincial Office fundraising staff?
3. Why was Merv Richards fired and then recently re-hired?
4. Why was Penny Marno hired to do anything in the party, since she has not proven to be effective at any job she was given?
5. How does the party plan to finance the next election campaign?
6. Why is there no constitutionally mandated convention this year, yet the party is spending the same amount of money, that would have been spent on a convention, holding a 50th Anniversary Workshop on the last weekend of April?
7. Why is the funding formula for riding associations still so lopsided in favour of the central party?

There are obviously more questions that can be asked, but this is a good starting point. For more suggestions, just read earlier posts, and the questions will come fast and furious to you.

Ontario Cornerstone Leadership Corporation: What’s in a name?

When it comes to Cornerstone, what’s in a name? For years, party members have been trying to find out information about the commonly referred to Cornerstone Corp. Every time they request information about it, they get rebuffed with non-answers. Well, finally, a few of my sources came through with some basic information about Cornerstone, that should never have been hidden from the party’s general membership, let alone its executive.

Now we know, finally, such basic information as the corporation’s name: Ontario Cornerstone Leadership Corporation!

This company purchased 101 Richmond Street East on June 7, 2007 for $2,950,000. The purchase date is interesting because it is one year before the Cornerstone Campaign ends. So it begs these questions: Did the party continue to fundraise after this date on behalf of this corporation? Did the NDP issue tax receipts for post 2007 donations that really went to the new corporation? And, did the party continue to solicit donations from unsuspecting donors under the pretense of buying a building, which had already been purchased by the new corporation? Was the party doing work for a corporation, and using its resources and staff for that corporation, without properly accounting for it?

It is known from Cornerstone Campaign literature that by the time the building was purchased, approximately $3.1 million was raised, presumably by the campaign (or possibly by the new corporation). This raises several new questions: Why did the fundraising campaign, to purchase 101 Richmond Street East, continue? Why did the Ontario NDP continue to spend approximately $2 million it could not afford on staff and resources for the Cornerstone Campaign? Does the extra money raised appear as income on the party’s books?

It is also known that at least one union, CUPE, thought it was making a donation to the Ontario NDP, not buying shares in the Ontario Cornerstone Leadership Corporation. Were union donations made after the purchase of the building made to the NDP or to the new Corporation? What do the Ontario NDP books show?

It seems, from the fundraising literature published between 2005 to 2008, that the Ontario NDP and not the Ontario Cornerstone Leadership Corporation was fundraising to buy the building. Additionally, it was Cornerstone Corp and not the Ontario New Democratic Party that made the purchase. Why did the Ontario Cornerstone Leadership Corporation shirk from its responsibility for paying its own fundraising expenditures after 2007, and continue to have the party subsidize these costs? Was the Ontario NDP making “charitable” donations to the new corporation after 2007?

According to president Clifford, the Ontario NDP owns the class ‘A’ shares in the corporation, which should mean that the party’s members are shareholders, authorized to receive annual reports, to vote at an AGM and elect members to the corporation’s board. This has never happened.

Party members are still in the dark about the Ontario Cornerstone Leadership Corporation. Fuelling this opaque display of corporate governance, is the party’s provincial executive. Each member of the provincial executive has a responsibility to ensure that they have done what they can to verify that the party has acted legally, and in good faith, in relation to the Ontario Cornerstone Leadership Corporation. Almost all executive members have failed in this regard.

It is interesting to note that in 2008 the tax assessed value for 101 Richmond Street East was approximately $4.8 million. In 2010 it was roughly $4.2 million.

Another question that begs to be asked is, where did money raised for the building’s wheelchair accessibility fund go? After 2007, when unions such as OPSEU donated $100,000 to the accessibility fund, was this money collected by the Ontario NDP or by the new Corporation?

Getting answers from the party’s leader, Andrea Horwarth, and its president, Sandra Clifford — a member of the Ontario Cornerstone Leadership Corporation’s board of directors — has been almost as painful as getting teeth pulled. Just to get information on what entity owns the provincial party’s headquarters at 101 Richmond Street has taken a long time, and did not come through official channels, as would be normal if everything was presented in good faith to the party’s membership.

It is still unclear how the Ontario NDP controls the Ontario Cornerstone Leadership Corporation, or vice versa, and what liabilities might that entail.

What is clear is that Andrea Horwarth’s silence on these issues is deafening. As the web of possible deceit continues under her reign, it is about time she took a leadership role in resolving these issues. At least now, with no thanks to Horwath, unions and party membership finally know the business entity’s name that they are shareholders in: the Ontario Cornerstone Leadership Corporation.

Update:
29 September 2011 2100 EDT
The corporate information file with the Ontario Ministry of Government Services has been made available. Here is a link to it that includes the corporation’s name, date it started functioning November 2005, and who sits on its board.

Reorganizing for the legislative session

The response to the blog has been growing by leaps and bounds. I am overwhelmed with the amount of information flooding in.

Please keep your information and comments coming, as they will be added in a more compact digest form.

As the legislative recess ends, it’s time to reorganize the blog. Look for the new format when Queen’s Park is back in session next week.

A history of financial mismanagement

1999 seems to be year zero when it comes to the debt bomb that faces the Ontario New Democratic Party (ONDP). During the first Ontario general election campaign, fought under then new leader Howard Hampton, the party descended into a debt-pit that they have not ascended from. At the end of the 1999 fiscal year, the party was 1.14 million dollars in debt. In 2011, the debt is somewhere in the range of 3 million dollars. How could this financial malpractice occur? Many of the usual suspects mentioned on this blog previously had a part in making this financial mess.

Rob Milling, Penny Marno’s husband, was the campaign director for the 1999 campaign: the first one, in a long time, that saw the party not achieving official party status. He ran a campaign that created a large debt. Some people, looking back, claim that maybe the disastrous campaign, that left the party with only eight seats, was a reaction to the former Bob Rae-lead ONDP government earlier in the decade, and not necessarily a reflection on Milling’s campaign skills. I disagree with this assumption, because of his record in the following two general elections. But the mold was set, as the party now scrambled to make up the debt he caused.

During the four years between the next election, the party continued to pay for organizing staff that it could not afford. This kept adding to the already high debt. Although fundraising efforts brought the debt down to about $600,000 by the end of 2002, the debt after the 2003 campaign grew to over 2.5 million dollars. Again, the campaign was under Milling’s watch, but the new factor in this debt was his wife, Penny Marno, who became the party’s director of organization during this time.

Marno hired extra staff, for most of 2003, in anticipation of a general election. Part of the problem with finances was related to staffing. Beginning with a decision to keep five semi-permanent staff organizers, immediately after the 1999 election campaign, only further hobbled the party’s finances. Usually, after previous campaigns in the 1980s and 1990s, staff were terminated after an election campaign, but this did not fully occur. Between 1999 to 2003, as many as five organizers were retained, with each one having a salary in the $70,000 range approximately. That was money that the party did not really have. It became obvious in the later half of 2002 that the party could have hired temporary contract workers for about half that amount, still paying a fair wage, and doubled its field workers leading up to the election. Since that was not done, Marno hired the extra workers, while still paying the relatively high salaries to the semi-permanent organizers. In total, the five organizers were costing the party about $350,000 a year, for questionable value on the dollar, as it was seen in most circles of the party that these organizers were not effective. The 2003 election results speak for themselves, and added further proof to the ineffectual organizing occurring in the party. Marno’s decision to hire pre-election staff made the financial situation worse. It certainly had the feeling of a “make work project.”

The party’s executive were beginning to understand the financial issues’ enormity, when it became rather difficult to obtain a campaign loan for the 2003 election. The executive’s finance committee started producing plans to mitigate the losses, and bring the party back to solvency. The problem was, that they were hampered every time they tried to get approval for any of their suggestions, prior to the election.

Shortly after the disastrous 2003 campaign, the finance committee proposed the now infamous funding formula for sharing revenue between the provincial office and the riding associations. Under the formula, revenue generated from membership sales, and donations made to a riding association, would be split, with 90 percent going to provincial office, and the remaining 10 percent going to the riding. That formula, originally brought in for only the 2004 fiscal year, was an attempt to reduce the party’s debt as quickly as possible. It was never revoked, and thereafter, acted as a disincentive for ridings to do membership drives. As a demonstration of its ill-effects on membership drives, the membership in the party is now fully half of the 35,000 members it had in 2003, and the resulting revenue those memberships generated. In addition, cost-cutting measures were not properly implemented, and the debt actually grew, even when the party was practically getting 100 percent of all proceeds from donations and membership dues. Seemingly, Marno was responsible for much of this, as well as the provincial secretary at that time, Diane O’Reggio.

Between Marno and O’Reggio, cost savings were never fully implemented, against the wishes of the finance committee, and even the executive. With the debt growing, it became clear to the members of the finance committee that even more drastic measures were needed, including reigning in the costs of holding convention and provincial council. The quarterly provincial council meetings were reduced to three meetings a year. Convention, however, caused the biggest problem. It was recommended by the finance committee to find a way to cheaply run convention, so that it just did the bare necessities that were needed to allow the party to legally function: mainly, electing the executive and passing motions. The practice of inviting and paying guest speakers was expensive and unnecessary, and it was pointed out that a “no-frills” convention could be conducted similar to a larger version of a council meeting. In the end, Marno seems to have overruled the finance committee and executive, when she organized the 2004 convention along the lines of the previous costly conventions. As usual, the media was not that interested in the convention, and a major reason given for holding a full-scale convention was that it would attract media.

Seeing that the party was being trapped in a debt-spiral, bankruptcy was first discussed at this time as a possible solution. It was discussed, but never really made it on to the table for serious discussion. At this time, the idea of buying a building, to have an asset to leverage for bank loans, became a top-level idea. It would be another three-years before a building was bought, but even that did not stop the precipitous slide into debt.

The finance committee’s prognostications from almost eight-years ago seem to be turning into a real nightmare in the present. And now there is ample evidence that Marno is yet again planning an expensive non-convention convention at the end of April, purportedly spending approximately $500,000 on a needlessly expensive vanity banquet and workshops. Obviously she and the rest of the party have not learned the lessons of the past decade, which can be summed up as “don’t spend, what you don’t have.”

Balance a budget in Heels? The party cannot balance its books, even on a level surface with flat footwear, how can they claim financial managerial competence of the province’s books? The ONDP’s Gong Show continues to get stranger and stranger with every passing month.

The anti-Labour party

For 45 years New Democrats inside and outside the labour movement have worked together to improve the lives of working people – we’ve shared the struggles for Medicare, decent pensions, educational opportunities for our kids, fair labour legislation, workplace health and safety and countless other battles.

It’s the same struggle; sometimes in the legislature, sometimes at the bargaining table.

–from the “Union Leadership” section of the Spring 2006 Cornerstone Campaign brochure.

One would think that the party, theoretically at least, that represents organized labour, would honour collective agreements, and be a fair labour practices employer: nothing further from the truth can be demonstrated. It seems that working at either the ONDP’s provincial office, or its Queen’s Park legislative office, is an affront to fair-labour practices, and quite the toxic work atmosphere.

Over the past few years, reports of this apparent toxicity have been fuelled not only by persistent rumours of maltreatment of lower echelon staffers but documented by an endless stream of labour complaints to unions, WSIB and the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal. The result can only be described as an embarrassment for Labour-minded MPPS and union locals alike.

If it was not already clear a year ago, last week or yesterday, it will become clear now that the party pays lip-service to upholding good labour standards. Andrea Horwath’s sanctimonious support for workers, seems to not include the Ontario New Democratic Party’s employees. How far this hypocrisy goes, and whether it also includes other MPPs, party officials, and affiliated unions should become clear as readers post their personal stories here.

Lately, the ONDP’s labour practice record is a large blight on the party. It brings into question the core values the ONDP promotes: the defenders of workers and fair labour practices. It also seriously brings into question the new leader’s authenticity, since she has campaigned across the province preaching the glories of unions in the work place and condemns the Liberals, PCs, large corporations and small businesses alike for unfair labour practices.

To better understand what is happening here, there are two completely different unions representing the ONDP’s staff. They are then sub-divided into three separate ONDP bargaining units: Queen’s Park staff with OPSEU; constituency office staff with COPE 343; and provincial office staff also with COPE 343.

Queen’s Park Staff
Well I guess being high on the totem pole has its advantages. Queen’s Park staff are arguably the best treated workforce in the ONDP, because they have a relatively strong union. However, these employees have not been without their own set of labour issues.

1. The stories of how Tabuns, Kormos, Marchese and DiNovo have allegedly treated their staff are well-known. DiNovo firing her entire staff, not once, but twice. The second-time being on Labour Day, while she was Labour Critic, when she fired them by text. While the single OPSEU employee received a good settlement, the COPE 343 workers basically got nothing.

2. Employees are kept on a series of contracts, sometimes as little as two weeks in duration, only to be renewed on the last day of each contract.

3. Using non-OPSEU staff to conduct OPSEU collective agreement duties.

4. One of the most exploitive practices is orchestrated by certain MPPs who have decided not to hire an Executive Assistant (EA), so as to conserve their budgets. In some cases they allegedly coerce administrative staff, who are paid significantly lower than EAs, to handle EA and legislative duties on top of their administrative duties and without the due compensation. You would think that OPSEU would care about this, but do they really?

More to follow on these labour issues as I review submissions by Queen’s Park staffers.

“The government’s changes to the employment standards complaint process will expose vulnerable workers to increased employer intimidation and exploitation,” said Marchese.

“Workers in Ontario deserve effective employment standards – not exploitive ones.”

— Rosario Marchese press release “Remove exploitive anti-worker provisions from law: NDP”, August 6, 2010.

Constituency Office Staff
Lower on the food chain are Constituency Assistants, or CAs. They are responsible for keeping their politician active in the community, giving them a local presence and overseeing constituent casework. Though treated better than provincial office staff, certain MPPs are well-known to exploit these workers as a “privilege of Office.”

1. Certain MPPs routinely force CAs to do work that is in contravention of parliamentary ethics, legislation and the collective agreement. CAs are forced to do riding association work, party work, and work for other candidates at other levels of government in addition to the duties listed in their job descriptions, on their own time and often spending their own money and with the threat of their jobs and livelihood at stake.

2. Volunteers are enlisted to do constituency staff work covered by the collective agreement.

3. COPE can be described best as a “company union.” Not only does it represent ONDP workers, it is an affiliated member organization of the ONDP. As such, it should come as no surprise that missing deadlines, not filing grievances, and purposefully obscuring information and rights open to employees is all standard COPE treatment of its member Locals. This situation is not dissimilar to complaints against COPE across the country. COPE 491 is but one example.

“’When will the McGuinty government bring fairness back to labour relations in this province and support anti-scab legislation?” asked Horwath during today’s Question Period.

“But in Ontario, we have a government that sides with companies that use scabs, that says to these companies that it’s okay to do that,’ she added.

Later this afternoon, Horwath will join the 84 striking workers, who belong to United Steelworkers Local 1-500, on their picket line. This week, the workers have been joined by members of the Canadian Autoworkers and other union in a three-day show of support organized by the Ontario Federation of Labour.

–Horwath Press Release on Branford’s Engineered Coated Products strike September 16, 2010

Provincial Office Staff
Disposable is the only way to describe how ONDP provincial office staff have been treated by the party.

1. Apparently staffers, that were COPE members, began asking questions about their union status, in March 2010, after Salome Cerqueira (technically a Queen’s Park employee Special Advisor to the Leader, but working at the ONDP Provincial Office) allegedly threatened to fire the fundraising staff and told them they had no job protection. With the help of Federal NDP candidate Susan Wallace, COPE 343 investigated the situation, the union discovered that all the workers at provincial office were covered by the collective agreement and had been paying dues since the last contract negotiations … in 2003.

2. All workers employed by the ONDP between 2003, and the present, are likely owed some sort of benefits or retroactive pay. This includes anyone who had been on contract, temporary-hire, fired, quit or was a campaign worker on any of the two general election campaigns. The Party, nor COPE 343, has made any effort to reimburse past employees, let alone current employees.

3. Since March 2010, COPE 343 apparently has made no efforts to renegotiate a new contract. With COPE’s purported reputation and history, staff at provincial office do not stand a chance of getting anything they are owed. Ostensibly, COPE’s standard practice, will likely mean they will stall as long as they can, and then try and negotiate with the workers by offering them concessions that were already theirs to begin with. Management must be lucky to have them.

4. Many employees at Provincial Office had been evidently kept on contract or designated as “temporary” or “acting” positions for years.

5. Contrary to the collective agreement, past employees, like the organizers, who had been laid off, were reputedly never given the chance to apply for subsequent positions as they became available, such as Salome Cerqueira’s position. Many of these former employees remain unemployed.

6. Adding further insult to injury, it appears that Penny Marno, the ONDP’s former Director of Organization, which is a management position, is alleged to have been the COPE bargaining unit’s UNION STEWARD (for those that do not know what a union steward is, they are employees, that represent their fellow workers in discussions with both the union and the employer). If true, this was an obvious conflict of interest that was not dealt with. In fact, she apparently continued in that role, even when she no longer worked for the party (she was terminated as the Director of Organization in the spring of 2009. She was recently hired on a contract basis, presumably for organizing the 50th Anniversary banquet, and the accompanying workshops in late April).

7. COPE members, both present and past, along with central campaign workers from the past two Ontario General Elections, are likely owed significant retroactive benefits and back-pay, or even their dues refunded. The reason being, as outlined in some of this blog’s comments, is that allegedly the party kept these permanent workers on part-time contracts, extending sometimes for a period of years, in apparent contravention of the collective agreement. According to the agreement, supposedly these workers should have signed to full-time contracts after a certain number of months on the job, and thereby received benefits and vacation pay. Instead, the party and the union allegedly did not inform these workers that they had these rights until last spring, when some of these workers started asking for help with a wayward manager. That is when this issue became known. At the time, the Provincial Secretary claimed that she was in negotiations over this apparent breach of the collective agreement. However, as of today, it appears nothing has changed, and the outstanding issues have not been resolved with the bargaining unit.

What is clear, is that Horwath’s seeming disregard for the welfare and security of her own employees, collective agreements and bargaining rights is in keeping with her apparently drastic shift to the political right, made conspicuous by her “Knows business is not a four letter word” campaign slogan, pro-tax cuts and her seemingly new alliance with Tim Hudak, who admits “Andrea and I are practically neighbours, we’ve got some similar backgrounds.”

The days when the New Democratic Party could call itself the party of Labour are long gone and have been relegated to the past, somewhere between Tommy Douglas and “Your Grandfather’s NDP.”

Cornerstone: the ONDP’s Tombstone?

Well sports-fans, you likely encountered the name Cornerstone in either my posts, or in the comments section. In this post, I will consolidate most of that information in one place and add some new information.

Cornerstone Corp. was an attempt to own a building in the mid-2000s – the corporation still exists – so that the party would have an asset, to obtain campaign loans during elections. One of the big questions on this blog is who owns the ONDP HQ building on Richmond St East? Supposedly, it’s not the party. Cornerstone Corp., would appear to be an unseemly scam of some sort, but since its books are never reviewed by the party’s executive, which is the duly elected body that should be looking into this, we won’t know, unless, an outside forensic audit is conducted. As many commenters on this blog have pointed out , “follow the money.”

Now we know, from some recently discovered documents, which entities were involved in establishing Cornerstone, and some of the members of its board of directors. We have a document that makes a reference to CUPE being one of the unions involved in Cornerstone. In one of the paragraphs, seen here on page 5 , it mentions that CUPE thought they were giving a donation, but found out that they had become a shareholder in Cornerstone. Here’s a quote from that section:

[March 18, 2008]

The Ontario NDP Cornerstone Campaign shows zero expenditure against the $100,000 budget. In actual fact, that money was spent but we have subsequently learned that instead of making a donation as we had originally anticipated and approved, we have in fact been given shares in a corporation for our money. This requires a change in the way we account for this expenditure.

Therefore, this expenditure has,created an asset for us, which is shown on the Balance Sheet under the General Investments line.

So it begs the question, who owns shares in Cornerstone, and were they told that was what they were donating into? Another interesting Cornerstone document includes this one, which reveals that OPSEU donated $100,000 to a Cornerstone accessibility fund campaign, where they outline who has shares in Cornerstone:

[From the December 10, 2008 OPSEU Executive Board Meeting Minutes]

Cornerstone ONDP Building Accessibility Fund
The building of the Ontario New Democratic Party (ONDP) is in need of some major renovations to make it accessible. Both the front entrance and a special washroom will be at the top of the list.
The building is owned by the ONDP and several Unions [USW, CUPE, SEIU, UFCW, CEP, OSSTF, and others] through a building corporation, for which they have received shares. OPSEU would receive shares for its contribution and also recognition for its contribution to the accessibility fund on a plaque placed in the front hall.

Well it is obvious to anyone that has visited 1o1 Richmond Street East, that the building is still not wheelchair accessible. Also, the mentioned plaque still has not been installed in the main foyer of the building. This picture, taken recently, shows this to be true. So two major questions arise from the lack of wheelchair accessibility: 1) Where did the money go for these improvements; and 2) How can a union make a $100,000 donation without contravening Election Ontario rules? Do these unions’ rank and file members know that their dues are going towards a seemingly poor financial investment? Finding information about how Cornerstone Corporation works, is a lesson in opaque processes. Which is why I would be surprised if the general membership of the ONDP and these unions really know what they got into.

One of the few public documents regarding the Cornerstone Campaign, is this one that lists some of the people that chaired the campaign. These Campaign Co-Chairs – many of whom have sat, at one time or another, on the Cornerstone Corporation board of directors – were listed in the Spring of 2006, including:

Mary Atfiled
Sandra Clifford
Donald Eady
Ruth Grier
Felicite Stars
Stephen Thomas
Paulette Tracey
Lynn Williams

Also, besides Michael Lewis, I know that Susan Barkley also sat on the Cornerstone board of directors from 2006 to at least 2009, according to her Facebook Election page.

As noted in some of the comments, Cornerstone is looking, more and more, like a Ponzi scheme, where only the top of the pyramid makes money, and the bottom feeders get nothing. Case in point, there are several witnesses to an event that involved the “Cornerstone off-site project”, which apparently meant the addition of a second story to an important ONDP official’s house in Etobicoke–Lakeshore. That kind of pay-off would seemingly not pass the smell test, and would seem to indicate that both the leadership of the party and the corporation’s board of directors have lost the ability to judge right from wrong.

As far as finances go, it also makes little sense. Take this quote from the Cornerstone Campaign Canvassers Speaking Notes:

Cornerstone Business Case
Ridings will continue to get a portion of funds from membership and direct mail. The money raised for the Cornerstone Campaign will be dedicated to pay for a new party headquarters and it will fund the pre-election and 2007 election.

As many of you know, the 2007 election was funded from a re-mortgaging of 101 Richmond St. E.

Here’s a look at the state of the finances of the party from about one-year ago. Note that proper information about rental property income and rent paid do not seem to be adequately disclosed. This points out that it seems that the ONDP does not actually own their headquarters, which supposedly was the reason that Cornerstone Campaign existed.

Here are some reported numbers to play with from January 2010–-April 2010:

TOTAL INCOME 1,033,712.00

TOTAL EXPENSES $1,069,960.00

@ Jord~there is no mention of rental income or asset shares. However, the numbers still seem astonishing:

OFFICE ADMINISTRATION
Equipment Lease & Maintenance $14,976.36
Office Supplies $11,774.81
Information Technology $40,711.42
Rent $31,400.01 (works out to $7,850.25 per month)
Insurance $13,466.40
Facility Costs $3,308.34
Telephone & Conference $16,127.51
Postage & Courier $16,609.91
Car $159.33

TOTAL OFFICE ADMINISTRATION $148,534.09 (Spent on 4 months!) That is one expensive bureaucracy moving a whole lot of paper.

But it gets better.

Here are the overall totals:

Total Expenses in 4 months $1,134,306.28
Total Expenses Budgeted 12 months $1,079,960.00

This means, after the first third of the year, we had already spent %105.03 over budget and had overspent for the year by $54,346.28!

But here is the real kicker:

GENERAL DONATIONs received $22,427.00
But what had been budgeted for $287,000.00
Meaning just within the first 4 months we already had a $264,573.00 shortfall.

The party is spending money we do not have and likely have no prospect of obtaining. Cornerstone, instead of being the party’s supposed financial saviour, is looking like it just might be its tombstone.

Update:
29 September 2011 2100 EDT
An audio recording has been sent to me that was recorded back in February, it has Diane O’Reggio explaining what Cornerstone is, and who sits on its board. At about the 8:55 mark, she lists the board members, most of whom also have or are sitting members of the ONDP executive, including Darlene Lawson, and Sandra Clifford.ONDP Cornerstone Presentation to Council 2011-02-26

Top Ten… Part 6

It is time to reveal numero uno in the “Gong Show Sweepstakes.” None other than the “esteemed” Chief-of-Staff of the Ontario New Democratic Party’s Queen’s Park caucus, Ms. Gissel Yanez: for creating the illusion in her own mind that she IS the Party.

In honour of Black History Month

It’s  Black History Month. A time to reflect on past struggles,  or presently in the Ontario NDP’s case, going through the month like an Alzheimer’s patient that forgot that racism is still a bad thing.  Yes, I am talking about an insidious form of racism – complained about for years within the party and yet constantly ignored – that is practiced by people that believe they are against racism, but casually practiced in their meetings and selection processes.

Many of my sources have told me how the ONDP seems to have always practiced a form of discrimination against it’s “equity” caucuses. One way this occurs, whether by intention or otherwise, is that visible minority candidates are rarely, if ever, given a chance to run in an NDP-friendly riding. They are usually only allowed to run in the “hinterland” suburban ridings, and then narrowly campaign as a (fill-in-the-blank)-racial candidate. That may explain why the Liberals seem to have a caucus that is multi-ethnic: they allow visible minorities to run in winnable ridings, and they run as general candidates that happen to be from a visible minority, not as hyphenated candidates. Constantly setting-up these visible minority candidates for failure seems to be the ONDP’s modus operandi.

Another sign that there seems to be an underlying racism, is how visible minorities are treated in the ONDP’s governing bodies.  As soon as members from these “equity” caucuses  start to criticize the-powers-that-be, the result is almost always an admonishment of some sort. Racial epithets are not unleashed publicly – at least not at executive or council meetings – but what happens is that these members become isolated, and treated much differently than the mostly white males and females that sit on these governing bodies.

The Yvette Blackburn incident, from last spring, has become infamous in party circles.  Luckily there were at least ten observers in the room to witness the executive’s finest hour. According to the many observers that witnessed the meeting, actions against her seemed to be disproportionally focused on her. In this period, Blackburn’s main concern on executive was asking questions about Cornerstone Corp. At this meeting, the executive was made aware of an email sent from the president to the secretary and sent accidentally to another black executive member where the president made her intentions “to go after these people.”  The president’s allies – four or five white males, prepared and briefed – began a four-hour attack on Blackburn, taking rests to allow their fellow colleagues to take over. Blackburn was accused of everything from being friends on Facebook with Bob Rae, to being an anonymous anti-NDP blogger, to being the source of leaks to other parties. After four-hours, Blackburn pushed back by threatening a human rights suit. When she was asked to rescind the threat, she was voted off the executive.  In the scrum that ensued afterward, the black representative of the LGBT Committee was shocked, because the members of his executive had been living under a similar litigation threat, for about a year, from one of their own; albeit, a white member. When they approached the provincial executive, for help, no action was taken.

Since this is Black History Month, I would like to remind readers  that the ONDP does not have a “Black Caucus”.  An attempt last year to launch one was crushed by the party.  J.S. Woodsworth would be rolling in his grave if knew how Blacks were allegedly treated in the party.