Did Criminal Allegations Contribute to United Way's $3 Million Campaign Shortfall?

At breakfast Thursday, United Way of the Lower Mainland President, Michael McKnight, did not utter a word about criminal allegations swirling around United Way. He was speaking to over 1,000 people on at the United Way breakfast awards ceremony at the Westin Bayshore Hotel. The early morning breakfast was to recognize the 5,000 volunteers, 56,000 donors, and 1,100 workplaces involved in last fall’s United Way fundraising campaign.

Truth is though, United Way fell almost $3 million dollars short of this year’s $34 million goal. They raised $31.2 million.

McKnight may not be solely to blame for the shortfall though. For one thing, he inherited baggage from former United Way CEO, Ron Dumouchelle. Dumouchelle left United Way shortly after a woman surfaced documented evidence of persistent fraud in a police report written when Dumouchelle lodged a complaint against her with the Vancouver Police. Dumouchelle lodged the complaint in an apparent attempt to stop her from making a Report on United Way available to donors. Dumouchelle stated in an internal document that if donors got even “a whiff” of scandal, it could reduce donations.

On the first page of the police report, major United Way donors were named as witnesses in the case: Canada Safeway, Revenue Canada, Canadian Red Cross, Canada Post, Westminster Savings, even the President of the Toronto Dominion Bank. But woman calls this an exercise in “public mischief”, claiming that there was never any evidence of criminal conduct on her part. Indeed Constable St. Amant wrote in his report that he and Dumouchelle agreed that this was “not a criminal matter.”

When having the woman treated like a criminal failed and she invoked her right to remain silent, a new tactic was employed against the woman. She was targeted for a VPD “Car 87” psychiatric visit under what she alleges – and the paper trail lends support to her allegations — were fraudulent pretenses. This tactic led to accusations of “political psychiatry” by Canadians Opposing Political Psychiatry. Although Dumouchelle left United Way — no reason given publicly — these allegations didn’t leave with him.

This case of alleged fraudulent evidence and political psychiatry dates back to Dec. 2002 — but what a difference five years makes. Now that anybody can publish on internet news sites, this story finally caught up with United Way during their fall 2007 fund raising campaign.

Another political psychiatry case exposed during this campaign causedembarrassment for United Way. It was a political psychiatry case that Chris Kelly, the United Way Board member who made the speech kicking off the fund raising Campaign, has been sitting on for years in his role as Superintendent of the Vancouver School Board. The School Board had allegedly used political psychiatry to counter criticism of their handling of bullying complaints, and Kelly, upon taking the job as Superintendent, appears to have done diddley squat to resolve one particularly scandalous case. Also Kelly has apparently done nothing to ensure that the evidence of fraud against School Board employees in this political psychiatry case is investigated; he has allowed all staff involved to remain unscathed.

But it gets worse: Kelly has knowingly concealed from parents the fact that the VSB’s failure to take responsibility for it’s employment of political psychiatry has resulted in a global boycott of Vancouver School Board high school diplomas. A victim of VSB political psychiatry caught up with Kelly during the campaign and requested his resignation as a United Way Board member. Not the best guy for United Way to be promoting as a “visionary” on their website.

And then there was the embarrassing interview given to the Vancouver Sun during the United Way Campaign by an earnest middle class man and his equally earnest wife. The man said he used to be a loyal supporter of United Way -- until his mother left United Way some money in her will. When an issue regarding the will came up, he was hurt by how quickly United Way sicced their lawyers on him. He's finished giving to United Way, he said. He and his wife now give only to charities with no paid staff. This is the sort of "whiff" that United Way can't afford to have donors get in the middle of a fund raising Campaign.

The woman who alleges she became the victim of fraud during efforts to stop the dissemination of a Report on United Way, believes $31.2 million is a large enough wad for United Way to take away from their recent Campaign. “They should be able to get by on that", In fact, she believes that setting unrealistically high campaign goals is what got United Way into trouble in her case. In an internal document dated the week police were on her, Dumouchelle revealed that he was under pressure as United Way was $600,000 short of that year’s campaign goal.

McKnight faced an almost $3 million shortfall. Imagine the pressure he felt.

Alberta Human Rights Commission "Applying Saudi Values" in Canada

Last week, Ezra Levant called the Alberta Human Rights Commission every name in the book: a" kangeroo court"; "part Kafka, part Stalin"; a "joke", a "sick joke"; a "pseudo-court like Judge Judy". Levant, publisher of the Western Standard, said it was "perverted" that a so-called human rights commission was violating his human rights. Levant even called one of the human rights officers a "thug", to her face.

More than a few Canadians in the blogosphere have something to say to Levant: "You're right." Truepeers, a blogger at Covenant Zone says the Levant case has left him feeling "ashamed to be Canadian".

"We have a tradition of free speech in Canada," Levant told the Commission, after being hauled in front of it for the "political crime" of publishing cartoons critical of the Prophet Mohammed in 2006.

The cartoons, originally published in a newspaper in Denmark, became a lightening rod for tension between the Western tradition of free speech and the insistence by Muslim clerics that Islam's prophet Mohammad be protected from criticism. The Western Standard was one of many publications around the world which published the cartoons as a political statement that free speech would not stop for religion.

"It was the proudest moment of my public life," Levant told the Commission.

The complaint against Levant was lodged by a Saudi-trained imam, Syed Soharwardy. Levant told the Commission that Soharwardy is "a radical Muslim imam, who was trained at an officially anti-semitic university in Saudi Arabia who has called for sharia law to govern Canada".

On the Commission's official form, Soharwardy entered "religious beliefs" in the box requiring him to identify the "Grounds" for his complaint. Levant's response to Soharwardy was, "A secular government bureaucracy has essentially been hijacked by a radical Muslim imam. It's being used to further his fatwa against these cartoons."

For a publisher to be called to the Human Rights Commission to be interrogated about political or religious views expressed is a violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Levant pointed out. "This commission is applying Saudi values, not Canadian values."

Levant reminded the Commission that even Alan Borovoy, the prominent Canadian civil libertarian who helped set up Human Rights Commissions in Canada in the 1960s and 70s, believes that the Commission is overstepping their mandate in acting as a press censor. Borovoy wrote, in regard to the complaint against the Western Standard, that being a censor was "hardly the role we had envisioned for human rights commissions. There should be no
question of the right to publish the impugned cartoons."

Human Rights Commissions are quasi-judicial bodies set up to arbitrate rental and employment disputes, where a person believes they had been discriminated against based on race or gender.

Levant videotaped his appearance in front of the Commission as he intends to use it when he takes his battle with the Commission to "real" court. The Commission's "human rights officer" initially objected, then asked that the videotape be kept confidential. Levant later noted on his website that it came as no surprise that a censor would prefer to operate "in the dark." He then put the videotape on YouTube. It's a hit.

And on Levant's comparison of the Alberta Human Rights Commission and a Judge Judy pseudo-court, Judge Judy came out on top. "...Judge Judy actually was a judge whereas none of the commission's panelists are judges, and some aren't even lawyers," Levant said. "And, unlike the commission, Judge Judy believes in freedom of speech."

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Read about another human rights case:
United Way Implicated in Political Psychiatry Comparable to China

Candidates Endorsed by Author of "Poor Bashing" Win Seats on Carnegie Center Board of Directors

The Left got organized to get trusted comrades elected to two vacant positions on the Board of Directors of the Carnegie Center this evening. That’s the same Board that homeless Bill Simpson was elected to in June 2007, only to be banished two weeks later to the sidewalk by the City of Vancouver, denied access to Board meetings as punishment for exercising his right to freedom of expression.

Jean Swanson, author of "Poor-Bashing: The Politics of Exclusion" and an organizer with the Carnegie Center Action Project [CCAP] to end homelessness, sent an email about the election to volunteers on the CCAP mailing list. Swanson, an American ex-pat who spoke to a UN representative about the issue of homelessness in Vancouver but apparently found no time to speak up about the "exclusion" of homeless Bill Simpson from the Center from which she organizes, gave recipients of her email not so subtle hints about who to vote for:

”Hey CCAP folks. A Carnegie board election is coming up, for 2 people, and our very own CCAPer, Rolf Auer, the famous letter to the editor and article writer, is running.”

Rolf Auer wrote in "The Long Haul", the now defunct newspaper published by End Legislated Poverty, a Vancouver organization Swanson helped found, and he knows her well. He continues to write letters to the editor of the Carnegie Newsletter, cookie-cutter left-wing letters. It’s doubtful that Auer can be counted on to protect the right of Bill Simpson and other Carnegie members to freedom of expression. Last summer, the Carnegie Newsletter published a letter of support Auer had written for Paul Taylor after a campaign was launched by Carnegie members to curb Taylor's power as editor of the Newsletter when he admitted libeling Bill Simpson. Taylor had written a column claiming that Simpson had written blog material that was “sadistic” and had relied on fraud to get elected to the Board -- the libel was written after Simpson supporters began agitating about his barring from Carnegie for freedom of expression.

Swanson continued in her e-mail:

“Sandra Pronteau is also running. She is active in Raise the Rates and is going to be part of the Poverty Olympics on Feb. 3.”

Pronteau is part of the group of activists Swanson is involved with, activists who have been publicly agitating for higher welfare rates.

At tonight's meeting, Pronteau, an aboriginal woman with long dark hair, in her thirties, with four children, said she wanted to see the "ongoing trafficking" of drugs outside the building addressed. She closed by saying, "Poverty is another issue that I totally support, and homelessness."

Auer, a tall, bald, middle aged caucasion, was nominated by Paul Taylor. In his brief election speech, Auer said he had been an "anti-poverty activist" for over 10 years. He expressed concern about gentrification on the Downtown Eastside: "I want to see the neighborhood saved and do everything in my power to see that that happens."

Neither Auer or Pronteau mentioned the elephant on the table: the barring of duly elected Board member Bill Simpson from the Carnegie building for daring to operate a website which "features links" to the Downtown Eastside Enquirer blog which has criticized Carnegie.

Both Auer and Pronteau were elected to the Board.


See related article, "CBC Interviews Bill Simpson", at:
http://downtowneastsideenquirer.blogspot.com/2008/01/cbc-radio-interviews-bill-simpson.html

Is Art Bell Hinting at a Come-Back?

When Art Bell, long time host of the “Coast to Coast” radio show which attracts up to ten million listeners a night, announced his retirement on his July 1, 2007 show, he knew that his listeners had heard this before. So he emphasized, “This time it’s for real though. It’s for real.”

But now, six months later, Bell’s retirement is not sounding so permanent.

On the night of Jan 4, 2008, Bell was sitting in for George Noory who was on holidays. Nothing odd about that, as Bell had said when announcing his retirement that he would occasionally fill in or do a special. What was odd was Bell’s response when a caller popped the question: ‘When are you coming back?’ Bell explained that he had done the show for years and was spending time with his family. “I’m in a break here,” he said.

A break? That doesn’t sound like permanent retirement.

The caller told Bell that he didn’t think the hosts who had replaced him were taking the show in the direction he had intended. “If they’re taking it in a direction that listeners don’t want," Bell responded, "they won’t be here because the ratings will fall.” He added calmly, “Time will tell.”

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Related story, "Art Bell Retires from Coast to Coast Radio" at: " at:

Chris Laird Passes Away

Chris Laird, a long time Downtown Eastside resident and former Carnegie Board member, passed away today at St. Paul's hospital.

Laird had suffered from health problems for years after his doctor repeatedly failed to diagnose his diabetes.

He was a nice guy.

Comment Published on CNN About Parallels Between Blog Burning by Vancouver and Saudi Arabian Governments

Carnegie Board member, Rachel Davis, notified the DTES Enquirer of a CNN piece by Hala Gorani, "Friends Stand Up for Jailed Blogger", about a jailed blogger in Saudi Arabia. There are parallels between this case and the Bill Simpson case. The following comment by the DTES Enquirer was left on
Inside the Middle East, Gorani's blog on the CNN website.


The jailing of a blogger in Saudi Arabia for criticizing the government is not that different from what has happened in Canada.

Police were called by Vancouver City government staff and managers on citizens believed to be associated with the Downtown Eastside Enquirer blog which criticized City government supervisors and managers. In fact a comment remains on the DTES Enquirer blog from Vancouver Police Detective Mark Fenton requesting that someone from the blog contact him.

One suspected blogger received a visit from a police detective at his home. The detective admitted that no charges would be laid as it had been determined that the content of the blog was not false, but he issued a warning that he had grave concerns about the content of the blog.

Even a homeless Vancouver man, William “Bill” Simpson, received an email from a Vancouver police officer who wanted to speak to him about the content of the Downtown Eastside Enquirer blog on which he was believed to be blogging. Simpson told the officer that he wasn’t a blogger.

The calling of police on citizens suspected of being associated with the Downtown Eastside Enquirer blog is part of a campaign of harassment by the Vancouver City government to apparently deter blogging. In Jan. 2007, a Carnegie staff person led Simpson to the office of Carnegie Head of Security where he was told that he was banned from the Carnegie Learning Center (on the third floor of Carnegie Community Center) for daring to blog on the Downtown Eastside Enquirer. Simpson wasn’t even a blogger.

In June 2007, Simpson was elected to the Carnegie Board of Directors by low income Downtown Eastside residents upset that he had been banned from the Carnegie Learning Center. Two weeks later, a City government manager, Ethel Whitty, personally delivered Simpson a letter on City of Vancouver government stationery signed by a top City manager, Jacquie Forbes-Roberts, informing him that he was now banned from the entire Carnegie Community Center. The reason given in the letter for the banning was that Simpson operates a website that “features links” to the Downtown Eastside Enquirer blog. Simpson asked Whitty if he could enter the Carnegie building to attend Board meetings and she said no. He also asked Whitty to identify anything on the blog that was inaccurate. She offered nothing.

At one point City managers and supervisors at the City-run Carnegie Community Center were accused of launching a witch hunt for bloggers. A long term volunteer at Carnegie said that four government managers and/or supervisors separately interrogated him about whether a female friend of his was blogging. Two teachers also teamed up and interrogated him. And he was not the only person encouraged to turn in suspected bloggers. It was after those interrogations in Jan. 2007 that Bill Simpson ended up banned.

For the entire year of 2007, criticisms of the Vancouver City government for their persecution of bloggers were kept alive on the internet. Only in the last couple of weeks has Vancouver’s mainstream media, the Vancouver Sun and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Radio, picked up the story.

Nobody in Vancouver has yet been jailed for blogging. But the Vancouver government is moving dangerously close to Saudi intimidation tactics to deter criticism of government by bloggers.