A clarification on the last post.

Oops. It seems I inadvertantly mis-represented Kevin Bourassa. My apologies. It turns out the article I was quoting was older than initially thought. Here's a helpful clarification from Mike.

1. The Ottawa Citizen is VERY Conservative paper (and yes, I meant that big 'C').

2. This story appeared on the front page of the Sunday paper over 3 weeks ago. So it's not a case of Kevin Bourassa being a 'sore winner'. These statements were made at least 3 weeks to a month before the vote, probably longer.

3. What you have is the ONLY attribution to Mr. Bourassa in the whole story. No context is given. it doesn't say WHEN he made these comments, it doesn't say WHERE he made them, it doesn't say to WHOM the comments were made. For all we know, he made these comments 3 years ago in a fit of frustration after a court hearing. I was not able to find this story in any other news source (on the internet or broadcast) at the time

4. This claim is in the first two paragraphs of the story. The entire rest of the story, speading to A2 and covering a quartre page on the front and a fifth of a page on A2, talks about how this was a legally impossibility (at least in the way Bourassa was implying), unless the churches knowingly violated the rules of charitable status (which apply to ALL charities, not just churches) of Revenue Canada. They could do this by promoting or politically backing a particular candidate of party.

So I'm not sure why you have only noticed this now, but I'm kind of suspicious. A little Bit Left had a post today about some churches in London Ontario threatening to side with particular candiates (namely Pat O'Brien) and spread the word in church sermons - in direct violation of Revenue Canada rules for Charitable status. This is starting to sound like a self-fufilling prophesy.

I'll keep my eye on this weekends Citizen (I live in Ottawa and I'm a subscriber) to see if it comes up again. I understand why you would be upset by this, but I think you should be a little skeptical. this sounds like a fear...

Thanks for the correction.