From: brewnoser2@gmail.com   
      
   [ Just a reminder on who Dmitri Soudas is/was: ]   
      
   In 2009 Soudas was forced to apologize for providing incorrect information to   
   Prime Minister Stephen Harper regarding statements attributed to Liberal   
   leader Michael Ignatieff.  At the G8 on the world stage, Harper was obliged to   
   retract his statements    
   about domestic political matters in the midst of a meeting surrounding the   
   world's current economic crisis.   
      
   On March 30, 2014, Soudas was told to step down or be fired as Executive   
   Director after allegedly trying to interfere with his fiancee Eve Adams'   
   nomination to be the Conservative Party of Canada's candidate in the riding of   
   Oakville North—Burlington.   
   ________________________________________   
      
   Macleans   
      
   Mulcair’s secret meetings with the Tories   
      
   NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair was in discussions in 2007 to join the Conservative   
   party as a senior adviser to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, discussions that   
   several sources, including former senior Harper staffers, say   
   was the first step in securing Mulcair to run as a Conservative candidate in   
   2008.   
   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^   
      
   The negotiations between the Conservative government and the man who is today   
   leader of the left-leaning official Opposition allegedly broke down over   
   money: Mulcair wanted nearly double what Harper’s office offered, two   
   'sources' tell Maclean’s.   
      
   Contacted today for comment, Mulcair says conversations about an advisory role   
   with the government did occur, but talks broke down, not over money, but over   
   the Conservatives’ environmental policies.  Mulcair at the time had recently   
   resigned as    
   environment minister in Jean Charest’s Quebec Liberal government.   
      
   Mulcair says he was first approached by Quebec Conservative MP Lawrence Cannon   
   in 2006 to join the party, and that discussions focused on joining the   
   National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, a government advisory   
   agency.  Mulcair says he    
   followed up with Cannon’s chief of staff, Paul Therrien, and, finally, with   
   Harper’s office.   
      
   “My last exchange was with then chief of staff Ian Brodie, who was also   
   looking at an advisory position.  The only subject was Kyoto and climate   
   change.  He made it clear that my support for Kyoto would have to change.    
   That, for me, was out of the    
   question.  This was our last conversation.  Our talks broke off on climate   
   change,” Mulcair tells Maclean’s. (Cannon, currently Canada’s ambassador   
   to France, didn’t respond to a request for comment.)   
      
   According to 'sources', Mulcair contacted senior Prime Minister’s Office   
   (PMO) staff to request a meeting with Harper in early 2007.  Brodie briefed   
   the Prime Minister and had several of the initial conversations with   
   Mulcair.   Brodie passed the file    
   to Harper’s press secretary, Dimitri Soudas, who was tasked with negotiating   
   Mulcair’s title and salary.   
      
   “All had been agreed upon.  He would be a senior adviser to the Prime   
   Minister on the Environment, and would run for us in the next election.    
   Everything was pretty much agreed to,” Soudas said Monday.  The Prime   
   Minister was briefed on these    
   negotiations, Soudas adds.   
      
   The sticking point, Soudas says, was salary.  Soudas says he was authorized to   
   go up to $180,000 a year without getting prior authorization from Harper.    
   “He told me he wanted $300,000 a year and that was his bottom line and,   
   basically, I got back to    
   him, saying I couldn’t go higher that $180,000, and I never heard back from   
   him ever again. Two or three months later, he made the jump to the NDP,”   
   Soudas, who has since left the Conservatives, tells Maclean’s.   
      
   Mulcair denies negotiating with Soudas. “I absolutely never spoke with Mr.   
   Soudas at the time,” he says. “I had no intention of running for the   
   Conservatives.   
      
   “At the time, I was also weighing a substantial offer from a top law firm to   
   join their environment section that was well beyond anything available in   
   public service or with a party.  More to the point, though, money was never   
   the issue, because I was    
   still interested in serving my fellow citizens.”   
      
   Mulcair joined the NDP in April 2007.  Five months later, he won a by-election   
   in the Montreal riding of Outremont.    By winning his seat in the 2008   
   election, he became the first NDP MP to be elected in Quebec in a general   
   election.  He was re-elected    
   in 2011.   
      
   His federal political success was due in part to Mulcair’s green-friendly   
   narrative.   
      
   A longtime provincial politician in his native Quebec, he served as   
   environment minister in Jean Charest’s government from 2003 to 2006.  “He   
   resigned from cabinet on a matter of principle after he refused to sign an   
   order that would have transferred    
   lands in Mont Orford Provincial Park to private condominium developers,”   
   reads his NDP biography, in part.   
      
   The Conservative government’s environmental stance was well-known in 2007.    
   As leader of a minority government—the Conservatives first assumed office in   
   February 2006—Harper had already distanced his government from the   
   country’s commitments to    
   the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty aiming to reduce global   
   greenhouse-gas emissions.   
      
   Recruiting Mulcair to the CPC would have been a coup for the party, which had   
   few roots in Quebec and even fewer in its biggest city.  “Montreal was a bit   
   of a desert for us,” Soudas says.   Mulcair was an ideal candidate: a   
   fluently bilingual    
   Montrealer, he was also known for his deftness with a sound bite and general   
   ferocity against political foes.   
      
   This last bit was apparently enough to turn off Quebec Conservatives at the   
   time.  “He had this aura around him. Everyone was wary about him because of   
   his attitude and temperament,” a former Conservative organizer in Quebec   
   told Maclean’s.   
      
   Maclean’s first heard of Mulcair’s negotiations with the PMO several   
   months ago, but was only able to confirm the details recently.  (¬‿¬)凸   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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