The Ontario Tories' leadership race continues to get more divisive.
The latest salvo is an anonymous attack on Frank Klees from quarters unknown, under the psuedonom "Tory Detective."
The allegation is a serious one: that Mr. Klees is on the board of a company fined $200,000 by the Ontario Energy Board for making false and misleading statements.
Mr. Klees was considered the best performer in the leadership debates, a wily blend of Brian Mulroney and Ernie Eves. He'd better keep it up. It will take every ounce of Irish Blarney and double-E slickness he can muster to explain away these claims.
The e-mail read as follows:
From: Tory Detective <torydetective@yahoo.ca>
To: torydetective@yahoo.ca <torydetective@yahoo.ca>
Sent: Sat May 30 22:24:05 2009
Subject: Frank Klees: Business Experience & Judgement? Uh oh....
Someone is walking the walk, but not talking the talk.
Frank Klees wants Ontario PC Party members to believe that he should be elected leader due to his "business experience". But it looks like Frank's business experience may not be quite the positive attribute he once thought it was. And judgement? Well...
Frankie sits on the Board for Universal Energy Group and is a member of the Audit Committee for the company. He even chairs the Compensation and Governance Committee.
As reported by the Toronto Star earlier this year, that same company - Universal Energy Group - was fined $200,000 by the Ontario Energy Board for making "false, misleading or deceptive statements to consumers."
A copy of the order (which isn't the first time) can be found here.
And another one in April (wasn't there a Leadership going on then?).
And the people are some angry. Victims of the "Universal Energy Scam" can be found talking about their experiences.
...
But Frank doesn't just sit on the Board. Universal Energy CEO Mark Silver, through his company, OPTUS Capital Corporation, made the single biggest donation to Frank's campaign: a whopping $34,000 - about 20% of his entire campaign.
Frank's campaign even reported the donation in the real-time donor disclosures to Elections Ontario.
Wow. Frank's "business experience" seems to entail managing an energy company ripping off old ladies door-to-door. Judgement, indeed.
Hope you find this enlightening.