NDP: Clement Used G8 Fund to Win Re-Election

Clement's meeting with municipal leaders to discuss G8 projects in the middle of the 2008 campaign has the NDP fuming.

The NDP is now claiming that Conservative cabinet minister Tony Clement used the promise of millions in funding for the G8 summit to convince the mayors and leaders in his riding to support him in his 2008 re-election bid. Clement, a “parachute” candidate for the Tories in Parry Sound-Muskoka, won by just 28 votes in 2006, but in 2008, he won by 11,000 votes. During the 2008 campaign, Clement apparently met with municipal leaders to discuss the upcoming summit and to prioritize projects that would need federal funding. A few days later, a number of the people at that meeting appeared in videos on Clement's website, telling voters to cast their ballots for the then industry minister.

The Tories say that meeting was scheduled months before they knew there was even going to be an election, that no funding decisions were made, and that Clement, who was also the minister for northern Ontario's economic development, had to be there due to the demands of his portfolio. Now, the Tories are usually pretty great at spinning some revisionist history, but without a full accounting of what was said at the meeting we'll probably never know if Clement was leaning on the riding's mayors for support. It's also becoming tougher and tougher to give Clement or his staffers the benefit of the doubt over anything G8-related, so this will be the last time we do.

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