Leo Housakos, then a Conservative fundraiser, waits to testify before the Commons government operations committee on February 28, 2008. REUTERSHousakas To Get The Boot? -- Bourque
Just when the Tories thought a majority was a done-deal, the storm clouds are gathering. Bourque has learned that embattled Conservative Senator Leo Housakos, linked to key players in the dramatically escalating Quebec construction scandal, imbedded in the Senate until the year 2043 no less, and persona non grata at the post-Mario Dumont ADQ, may be turfed from the Conservative caucus because of lingering ethics issues that have elicited a barrage of questions in the House of Commons to the extent that the Quebec politico himself has called in the Senate ethics officer to probe potential derring-do and unknown nefarious deeds. Senior Tory sources who've read the tea leaves and who spoke to Bourque on condition of anonymity assert "the situation is untenable". Such is the breach of trust within the highest echelons of Team Harper, otherwise preoccupied with ravishing glances at their current poll numbers. Said one keener who's shared a pizza with the PM while marveling at Don Cherry's resplendent blazer during a hockey broadcast, "Housakos is expendable as a Tory. He's kicking up a lot of dust in Quebec, the absolute last place we need to have a dust storm." It remains unclear how, or if, Housakos will be dealt with by the PM's political handlers, his buddy Soudas runs interference and may have to be deleted too, but it is understood that the threat Housakos made to his detractor last week won him no favours. The PM is said to remain unimpressed by his contingent of Quebec politicians. As one top-shelf Tory put it, "Pierre, we are so high in the polls these days, the only place we can go is down. And the only way we can go down is if we screw up. That's why Housakos needs to be nipped in the bud." Meanwhile, Paul Desmarais' newspaper La Presse is now reporting that Housakos crony Giulio Maturi is suddenly out as senior Harper organizer in the Montreal area and is "no longer employed by the Conservative Party", according to a spokesperson for Public Works Minister Christian Paradis, Harper's Quebec lieutenant. Developing.
My Comment: Kudos to Bourque for putting all the strings together. This has the possibility of severely damaging the Conservatives in Quebec for the next two election cycles. Quebecers are sick and tired of corruption in the political system, and any whiff of it in any party will hurt it in the next election.
I am not surprised that Harper and his team are getting rid of these men .... this fits into the mood in the Prime Minister's office that their Quebec contingent does not serve the Conservative Party's goals very well. This growing scandal will give the Conservative Party the opportunity to clean out house .... expect more people being replaced in the next few weeks.
