Two Excellent Fact Chequing Questions

Some aren't as far along the road to perdition as others

Such as Susan Delacourt as shown here (MEIB).

In July, Dimitri Soudas, the PM's spokesman,was remarkably vague -- and not at all contrite -- when I talked to him for this story, which was written after constituents in Peter Van Loan's riding complained about the minister passing off government cheques as his own, or as Conservative party benevolence.

In fact, the federal Treasury Board investigated whether it was proper and in the face of that, all Soudas could tell me was that he was "proud" of the big cheque given to the good citizens of Innisfil.

Tonight, I heard Soudas telling CTV's Tom Clark that it was "NOT appropriate" for MPs to be slapping party logos and MPs' signatures on government cheques.

So, my questions are:

1. When did the PMO decide that Van Loan and others were off side with their carnival-sized cheques? They've known since at least July that this was going on.

2. And, since when did MPs start doing anything independently in this government? Did all these MPs and ministers just head to to the copy shop and get these cheques printed up themselves, by huge coincidence?

If Mr. Soudas would like to answer these questions, in light of his comments to the Star last July, we'll happily print them here.

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