Dear Sirs,

You ceaselessly point your fingers at the Liberal government members in the House of Commons and pontificate about their ethical misdeeds, alleged and real. You demand that they come clean, confess to their malfeasance and accept punishment, long before the Gomery Commission is able to present its recommendations and sanctions.

Now you want to force the whole country through an early and expensive election because of the ethical failures of the Paul Martin government! But who are you two to talk about ethics and "moral authority"? Are you not staring yourself blind at the speck in the government's eye, while ignoring — and hoping that no one else would notice either — the beam in your own?

Let's take a quick look at your own documentable lack of ethics:

You, Peter MacKay, signed an agreement with PC leadership candidate David Orchard at the convention in May 2003, the main plank of which was that you would NOT merge with the Canadian Alliance and that you would uphold the constitution of the PC Party in order to PREVENT a takeover by the Alliance. (The PC party had adopted in 1999 a constitutional clause which required that the party would run candidates in all ridings in every federal election,) Your agreement with David Orchard and your signature on it enabled you to become the leader of the party.

After the signing of the deal, you shook hands with Mr. Orchard and said that together the two of you would build up the PC party. Then you promptly broke the agreement and railroaded your party into oblivion, with the relentless prodding and eager co-operation of Stephen Harper and your various political and financial supporters. At no time did you ask for nor did you receive permission from your party to break the agreement with Orchard and to proceed to do the very opposite; and you only "consulted" us party members through our decision-making bodies WELL AFTER you had signed an agreement with Stephen Harper to liquidate the PC Party which you were constitutionally obligated to defend and uphold. You were helped in this treachery by Stephen Harper whose Canadian Alliance members were urged to join the PC Party merely to vote it out of existence. After thousands did so, you and your assorted allies concocted a phony approval process — with no debate allowed at any level of decisionmaking! — producing approval rates for the merger that are usually found only in dictatorships. This whole process was accurately described by Progressive Conservative senator Lowell Murray as "a coup d'etat."

After having destroyed your party and utterly breached your signed agreement with Mr. Orchard — which surely should have given you as an MP, a lawyer and an officer of the court some pause! — you and Stephen Harper have grabbed $70,000 of David Orchard's campaign funds, funds to which you are not legally entitled. The Conservative Party has held on to these funds for a year and a half, while according to the legal contract Mr. Orchard signed as a leadership candidate he was to have them returned to him in 48 hours! The Conservative Party, under your combined leadership, has in effect stolen Orchard's campaign donations, forcing him to take your party to court. You have thus defrauded the 257 donors to the Orchard campaign whose money you have put in your party coffers. Your party has formally conceded that the monies are owed to Orchard, but is refusing to return them, in a "might makes right" fashion. You have no claim to these funds and you both know it!

Canadians need to know that your party that claims to be the Canadian citizens' ethical watchdog is led by two dishonest and unethical individuals, who deserve to be called scoundrels.

Canadians need to know how a lawyer can sign a contract that gives him immense benefits, and then proceed to break it as if it never existed. Explain that if you can!

Canadians need to know that David Orchard's campaign funds will be returned to him without delay, with interest, legal fees, and a huge apology. (Presently your party is paying high legal fees to merely stall on giving Orchard back his campaign donations. Do your members know that this is how you handle their funds?)

As you wish the next election to be about political ethics, it will most certainly be about your ethics as well. As the saying goes, "What is sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander." It seems that with your immoral and unethical actions, you have cooked your goose, for a long time to come.

Marjaleena Repo

Saskatchewan vice-president and Management Committee member of the PC Party of Canada, 2002-2003
President, PC Riding Association, Blackstrap, SK, 2000-2002
Senior Advisor for David Orchard in the 2003 leadership race

P.S. To refresh your memory — and to wake up your dormant conscience — MacKay-Orchard agreement, photos of the signing and legal documents regarding Orchard's funds can be found on www.davidorchard.com.

Marjaleena Repo
201 Elm Street
Saskatoon, SK
S7J 0G8
(306-244-9724
mrepo@sasktel.net

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