Christy Clark and the Manning Centre for Building Conservatives

In March 2012, Christy Clark gave the opening remarks to the Ottawa Manning Centre Networking Conference, the yearly "conservative family reunion".

She was introduced by her then chief of staff, former senior Harper advisor, Enbridge lobbyist, and Alberta 'firewall manifesto' signatory Ken Boessenkool, who was her very first campaign manager back in 2010. 

"We have a duty to Canada" to easy the flow of products to Asia, she told her audience at the Manning Centre [a year ago]. "We support pipelines in British Columbia."

BC Conservative leader John Cummins was not invited.

Manning has in the past said he doesn’t support the political ambitions of Cummins, who was elected as a Reformer with Manning in the 1993 election, because vote-splitting on the centre-right always makes it easier for the NDP to assume power.

One-time Harper government cabinet minister, Jay Hill, also said Friday he’s backing Clark’s leadership. “I’ll do whatever I can to support her and support the B.C. Liberals."

Preston Manning, founder of the Reform Party and President of the Manning Centre, is also a senior fellow at the Koch-funded Fraser Institute.

Jay Hill was in charge of the Cons 200 page dirty tricks manual on how to disrupt and stonewall parliamentary committees back in 2007.

Also helping Christy's campaign was Chuck Strahl, former BC Reform and Con MP, now chair of the Manning Centre and chair of CSIS watchdog the Security Intelligence Review Committee since last June, at which time he had to give up working for Christy.

The only pollster to accurately predict Tuesday's election result was Christy's principal secretary and ADM in charge of "Intergovernmental Relations" till a year ago and now on contract to Christy, former Reform and Republican policy advisor Dimitri Pantazopoulos.

Premier’s Office targeted crucial election ridings for the B.C. Liberals — all on government time and your dime

"Premier Christy Clark’s former principal secretary, Dimitri Pantazopolous, and former deputy chief of staff Kim Haakstad were among those involved in a comprehensive strategy that used government staff and resources to try to win swing ridings for the BC Liberals ...  serious misconduct by government employees and misuse of government funds.   

“Dimitri was the driving force behind the swing teams, from its inception through to the operational phase."

Pantazoploulos also runs the Manning Centre Municipal Governance Project and is mentioned by Calgary developer Cal Wenzel in the now infamous cel vid about buying the campaigns of developer-friendly municipal candidates in order to defeat Calgary Mayor Nenshi.

On Ken Boessenkool's twitter account at Kool, Topp, & Guy Public Affairs - the political consultancy firm formed in February - Christy's former chief of staff Ken Boessenkool and Christy's election advisor Don Guy are busy congratulating Nick Kouvalis of Campaign Research on Christy Clark's federal ConservaLiberal campaign win.  
The third partner in the firm is BC NDP campaign director Brian Topp.

and a quick tweet from Rob Ford's chief of staff Mark Towhey:

You do remember Nick Kouvalis from Campaign Research,  don't you ? 

In addition to being Rob Ford's election architect, Kouvalis is a regular speaker at ... wait for it ... the Manning Centre yearly bunfest.

Fun fact :  Founding directors of the Manning Centre for Building Democracy :

• Nigel Wright, Harper's chief of staff, currently in the news for cutting Con senator Mike Duffy a $90,000 personal cheque to cover money the Duffster owed to the Senate for inappropriately claimed living expenses for the past four years while Duffy was being investigated for it,  and 
• Gwyn Morgan, Chairman of the Board of SNC Lavalin til May 2 this year, the company being investigated for fraud in four countries on three continents, was Steve's choice for heading up his brand new Accountability commission in 2006.

Manning Centre : "Congratulations to Christy Clark on a spectacular victory. The election of a non-socialist government in BC is in the best interests of BC and Canada."
.

The Preston Manning Centre for Building Buildings

Covert cell phone video catches a Calgary developer homebuilder referring to buying the campaigns of development-friendly local candidates. In his speech to 150 Calgary industry nobs in November, his remarks about Preston Manning, who also attended and spoke at the meeting, appear at the 1:54 mark: 

"... keeping in mind, in order to bring Preston on board, 11 of us put up 100 thousand - so $1.1-million. So it's not like we haven't put up our money you know, and we are also going to be there to put up it again and yet we're also supporting the candidates."

Hey, those Manning Centre free marketeer courses put on for those Calgary municipal councilors don't pay for themselves, you know. 

They are run by Manning Centre Municipal Governance Project manager Dimitri Pantazopoulos, a former Republican pollster and Harper policy advisor, who was also Christy Clark's Trade and Intergovernmental Relations ADM and former principal secretary, now listed at his Manning Centre bio as one of her key advisors.  A "Dimitri" is mentioned by Cal Wenzel in the video above, asking Wenzel if anyone can beat Mayor Nenshi.

Even before seeing the vid, Mr Pantazopoulos had talking points circulated advising that Preston would be unable to respond to media questions because he was out of the country, however : 

"Incoming Manning Centre chair Chuck Strahl is prepared to respond to media as needed in Preston’s absence."

Chuck Strahl? Former BC ReformaCon MP Chuck Strahl is chair of the Manning Centre and chair of CSIS watchdog the Security Intelligence Review Committee since last June, and, along with Stockwell Day, helping Christy Clark with her BC election campaign ?

Another developer CEO at the conference said that it's : 

“up to Preston” if he needs more money beyond the $1.1 million. 

“He really appreciated getting funding. It helped to finish off the offices and other things, their training facilities.”

Ah yes, the brand new Manning Centre offices in Calgary ... home of the Manning Centre For Building Democracy Buildings. 

You know, you're really better off reading the locals on this one :
Alberta Diary and Daveberta
h/t Holly Stick
.
Update : Calgary Mayor Nenshi tonight : 

" This has to do with the Manning Centre and I don't want to get into an enormous amount of detail on this but this is a challenge. I think the Canada Revenue needs to take a look at this.  

We've had the Manning Centre say over the last couple of days that the donors did not intend to enrich themselves, that they were giving the money generally to the work of the Manning Centre, but we have the donor himself saying on tape that he gave the money to bring Preston Manning onboard and to hire an employee for his campaign. In law, if the donation benefits the donor, it's not a donation. And a tax-exempt organization may not be a tax-exempt organization if it's working to the benefit of its donors. Now we understand that Preston Manning was in the room, another employee of the Manning Centre was in the room, so they cannot now claim they didn't realize that that was the donor's intent."

.

Tracking the BC ConservaLiberals

Dave and RossK are tracking the incestuous links between the federal Cons and the BC provincial Libs.

Dave traces the Vancouver web development company Backbone Technology setting up websites for the federal Cons in 2004, the Olympics, the BC Libs and the BC government, and scoring a secret bid on the BC HST info site. Handy, that.
RossK is looking at the possibility the BC Libs are a mere subsidiary of the FedCons and asks "Who was the first FedCon operative hired by Christy Clark?", noting a DComm left Steve to reappear in Christy's government 3 months later in July 2011.


So who was the first BC FedConLib? Here's one from April 2011.
Dimitri Pantazopoulos became Christie Clark's principal secretary on April 4, 2011, in charge of "Long-term policy and priorities and Intergovernmental Relations" after doing polling and voter tracking for her BC Liberal leadership race.
A former Reform Party policy advisor, he was introduced to Clark four months earlier by another Reform Party policy advisor and Harper strategist Ken Boessenkool, who quit as Clark's campaign manager after Steve asked senior members from the national Con campaign team to "refrain from taking formal positions in the B.C. leadership race".
Boessenkool, a former Enbridge lobbyist, eventually joined Clark's team as her chief of staff last month.

 Clark explains :

"The role of the principal secretary is a policy adviser, helping us navigate some of the policy waters that sometimes can get difficult -thinking about the long-term vision for government, helping set some of that agenda," she said.

Prior to becoming Clark's principal secretary, Pantazopoulos was founder and president of Praxicus Public Strategies for 11 years, where he led public opinion research as Steve's official "Pollster of Record", and more recently polled for TO Mayor Rob Ford. And previous to that :

Mr. Pantazopoulos served as a Washington, (D.C.) Partner with Market Strategies, Inc., an influential Republican public opinion research and consulting firm based in Livonia, Michigan. 

Surprising how often, no matter where you start with these guys, it leads back to Republican flacksters.


Christy Clark's latest Harper acquisition is recent PMO press secretary Sara MacIntyre, who introduced Steve's inimitable media-repression tactics to BC this month with her appointment as Clark's media handler less than one month after leaving Steve's employ.

“She's taken the Harper media plan and brought it to B.C.” said CTV's Robert Fife.

Go, Reform.
.