Time to stop the Charlottetown back-scratching
Time to stop the Charlottetown back-scratching
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Well, Myrtle Jenkins-Smith probably didn’t convince many of her corporate purity after a CBC Radio interview in which she weakly tried to explain away potential conflict of interest in her new role as CEO of Tourism Charlottetown.
Jenkins-Smith has a varied business portfolio. She owns a conference and event management company. It is best known for losing a tonne of taxpayers’ money on the failed Alanis Morissette concert. She and her business partner Mark Carr-Rollit are folding that company to become salaried employees of Tourism Charlottetown.
She co-owns two businesses with Stephen Dunne. His primary business is operation of a consulting firm with very close ties to the Ghiz administration.
One Dunne/Jenkins-Smith enterprise is a federally registered numbered company. The other, Make-a-Reservation Inc, is a start-up software company providing e-commerce solutions. It does not have a listed phone number. It received four units under the controversial immigrant investor program, which translates into a $200,000 direct investment.
When pushed during her CBC interview, Jenkins-Smith said she will not sell her interest in Make-A-Reservation, contending there is no real or perceived conflict.
That is a very debatable contention considering it is a company supposedly offering solutions primarily to the tourism/hospitality industry.
Myrtle Jenkins-Smith is also in business with noted Charlottetown businessman and Liberal supporter Kevin Murphy. It is this connection that raised many eyebrows. Kevin Murphy is a board member of Tourism Charlottetown. The two actually own the building that Charlottetown Tourism rents office space from. It is a classic conflict of interest, yet you never heard Jenkins-Smith admit that in her interview. It was left to Murphy to say that she would be selling her half of the business.
He didn’t say how the Tourism Charlottetown board should now deal with the fact that it is still renting office space from a board member. Doesn’t that smack of a conflict too?
There in lies the problem with Charlottetown. It is the ultimate back-scratching society. Doesn’t matter how much money is wasted or lost on failed projects.
Friends help friends.
Business connections intertwine.
No one is ever held accountable.
All of which would be fine if no taxpayers’ money is involved. But there is. Lots. In the case of Tourism Charlottetown hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Jenkins-Smith says she was not paid to shut her company down. We don’t know if she will be paid a commission to bring former clients into the Tourism Charlottetown fold.
Makes you wonder if a business is not worth selling, what makes Tourism Charlottetown believe the principals are the right people to lead the beleaguered organization into the future.
What is clearly needed is a new governance model. Tourism in Charlottetown, and by extension tourism in all of PEI, is on a steady downward trend because too often pet projects are put ahead of what’s in the best interest of the industry as a whole. Tourism Charlottetown needs to be redefined with clear lines established to eliminate old school back-scratching.
Taxpayers can no longer afford to subsidize the failed nepotism model of the past.
Paul MacNeill is Publisher of Island Press Limited. His commentaries and news stories have won regional, national and international awards. He is a keen observer of the political scene and is a regular contributor to CBC Radio.
Follow Paul on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/paulmacneill
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This is just Disgusting.
This women who has been a tit sucker of the Liberal Party for years. She is called a Businesswoman. She is nota businesswomen she is nothing but a Government flunky who has been sucking the publie purse tit for years and now she is getting caught.
Myrtle, Kevin Murphy, Stephen Dunne, & Doug Newson are a nice little group of people who the RCMP and Revenue Canada should be takinga close look at.
Kevin Muprhy who owns a compnay with Myrtle and Stephen Dunne is also the man who decides if she gets the job with Tourism Charlottetown.
All she has been doing is running events like the Alanis Flop that cost taxpayers over $600,000. Not hard to run an event for less than 2000 people when you are given $600,000 to do it.
Than there is the over $200,000 in PNP money she received for her Confenece Events Business that her and Stpehen Dunne and Kevin Muprhy all own. Now she says she will shut it down. What about the $200,000 in PNP Money? Where is it? What happened to this money?
There needs to be a full public inquiry into the activities of Myrtle and Kevin Muprhy before any taxpayer paid for job is given to Myrtle.
I would also say that at that point we would likely see the RCMP take an interest as wellas Revenue Canada. It would be interestuing to see what Revenue Canada has to say about a buisness than done NO business but received $200,000 in PNP money as to what this money gets used for and how much taxes are due!!
You know, the fact of the matter is that the PEI government has back-scrathed itself to the extent of ruining most profitable industries on PEI. And it is not just the current administration that is corrupt. It has come to the point where the "government of the day" is just a "mafia like" administration that chooses to ignore the "realm of reality" and fill as many party-supporters pockets as possible. It is now to the point on PEI where you actually need to be associated with this "government mafia of the day" in order to operate a successful business. Anyone that thinks this is not true needs to do some research because any current profitable business on PEI has at one time had government help in some way. It is sad but true that fishing, farming & tourism on PEI have become government operated/controled and do not have a "hope in hell" of ever creating an honest entrepreneur within any of these industries again. So for now I guess that we will have to live with the fact that the "best scratched back" will be the most successful on PEI.
I AM DISGUSTED-SICK, RCMP and CSIS, Our Courts do nothing. Enough to make you want to puke the Canadian/provincial legal-justice system is so corrupt.
AND WHERE ARE OUR RCMP and CSIS? OUR COUNTRY IS AT WAR AND WE STILL HAVE THESE WORMS OPERATING AS THEY'VE BEEN DOING SINCE 1984-THE DAY MULRONEY WAS ELECTED. BUSINESS PARTNERS - CRIME PARTNERS IT'S ALL THE SAME ARRANGEMENT, THE SAME THING.
Interesting that reference to comparison to Mafia.
The Ad Scam gang that Ghiz'x came from-Chretien, AD SCAM gang- The New York Times and Globe and Mail reported one Gagliano was identified as being recognized as a "made member" of the Bonnano Family, one of New York's 5 top Crime Families also operating out of Canada.
Seems that The Ghiz family connection To The Mob's Family, simply Uses Islanders Public Monies to continue to bankroll The Family's "investments."
AND WHERE ARE OUR RCMP and CSIS? OUR COUNTRY IS AT WAR AND WE STILL HAVE THESE WORMS OPERATING AS THEY'VE BEEN DOING SINCE 1984-THE DAY MULRONEY WAS ELECTED. BUSINESS PARTNERS - CRIME PARTNERS IT'S ALL THE SAME ARRANGEMENT, THE SAME THING.
Nepotism, patronage... does it have anything to do with the abysmal performance for tourism promotion of PEI? Maybe all of these tourism players are so busy making money for themselves, opening up companies to hide money, helping friends shelter money, giving contracts to friends, helping friends set up shell bsuinesses, etc. that they are too busy to do their jobs while most tourism operators (other than the folks mentioned) are having a legitamately difficult time because of the province's inability to attract tourists.
Proving instantaneously that journalists can make damn fine bloggers
http://www.njnnetwork.com/njn/?p=27772
I'd put my name but I cannot see where.
Stephen Pate