CPoC Spokesman Paid With Taxpayer Dollars

Whooee! Well friends an' foes, the Trawna Star is reportin' that CPoC mouthpiece Ryan Sparrow is featherin' his nest with taxpayer money. Turns out he's gettin' half of his income from the party and half from you an' me.

Front-and-centre Tory partly paid by taxpayers

Apr 23, 2008 04:30 AM

Richard Brennan
Ottawa Bureau

OTTAWA–The chief spokesperson for the Conservative Party of Canada in the Elections Canada controversy has half his salary paid by the taxpayer, the Toronto Star has learned.

While many know Ryan Sparrow as a highly partisan spokesperson, he acknowledged yesterday he splits his time between speaking on behalf of the party and working in government caucus research.

"I do work for caucus and I do work for (the) party and that's why I am paid by both," he said, adding that it would work out to "approximately" 50-50.

Asked what he specifically does for caucus, he refused to say. "We don't comment on staffing, I'm sorry."

Sparrow has been front and centre in defending the Conservative party regarding allegations by Elections Canada that it deliberately exceeded election spending limits during the 2006 campaign by more than $1 million.

Armed with a search warrant, the RCMP last week raided the party's national headquarters looking for documents related to the allegations.

The 26-year-old Sparrow also played a role in a botched scheme by the party to release the search warrant details to selective members of the media on Sunday. When other reporters got wind of the briefing, they showed up at the Ottawa hotel, sending party officials scrambling to escape the TV cameras and reporters' questions.

Speakin' of taxpayer dollars gettin' wasted, Finance Minister Flaherty broke the rules when he paid one of his buddyboys $122,000 to write a single speech that was delivered a single time. It's bad enough he broke the rules and is shameless about it. What's worse is that a finance minister would throw away $122K so frivolously.

JimBobby

UPDATE: It always does my heart good to see that the House of Comments is payin' attention to the Canajun Boogeysphere.