Anthony Housefather's History of Dirty Campaign Tricks.

News item:

Quebec Liberal volunteer caught disposing of 

Conservative campaign literature

"A volunteer helping out with the re-election campaign of Quebec Liberal Anthony Housefather was caught disposing of Conservative literature out on the campaign trail.
The incident was witnessed by a Conservative volunteer who happened to be canvassing the same apartment building in Côte Saint-Luc, Que., on Sept. 25. 
Documents shared with CBC News show that the witness claims Housefather was campaigning with several volunteers at the time of the incident.

The Liberals deny the MP himself did anything wrong. Housefather was photographed in the building with his campaign team at the time. A spokesperson for Housefather confirmed a volunteer has been spoken to about this issue.  "Mr. Housefather had no involvement in this incident," spokesperson Daniel Gans wrote in an email, adding the candidate has "addressed the matter directly with the volunteer involved in the incident."  "Moving forward, and in order to prevent this kind of behaviour, Mr. Housefather will be taking steps to ensure all individuals participating in his campaign understand that this behaviour is not acceptable in any way."CBC

Something about the above article piqued my memory.
I checked my email archive for a correspondence I had received from a contact, a person whom I have great respect for and someone who has been a valuable and credible source in the past.
Back in February of this year, he wrote to me about Anthony Housefather and how the Mount-Royal Liberal member of Parliament was caught red-handed destroying campaign posters of the opposing NO camp, way back in 1992 during the referendum on the Charlottetown Accord.

Now I never wrote about it because it was a long time ago when Housefather was a college student and youthful indiscretions can be pardoned. But if the behaviour is repeated, especially when one has become an elected Member of the Canadian Parliament official it begs the questions as to whether the behaviour represents a disturbing pattern.

Here is the story as I've been told;

"Did you know that, in a strange but very possible way, the only reason Anthony Housefather is an MP today is because of the kindness of one {redacted} (yes, THAT {redacted}; we used to be best friends)? Let me explain.{redacted} and I worked on the "No" side in the 1992 Charlottetown Referendum campaign. We were putting up posters around NDG/Cote St. Luc for several hours and an MUCTC bus driver came along in his bus, saw us, and informed us that he saw a young male taking down our posters. He said that if we liked, he would act as a witness to identify the young man if we wanted to press charges. Well, you guessed it: that young man -- whom we then searched out and came upon -- was none other than one Anthony Housefather, then attending undergraduate McGill. We not only confronted him but saw him engaged in the dastardly deed as well. I then discussed with {redacted} whether he wanted to press charges (I, like the bus driver, was willing to) and he declined. I daresay that if {redacted} wanted to proceed with the charges, it is very possible that (1) Housefather would have been convicted; and (2) because of the conviction, he wouldn't have been accepted into McGill Law School; and (3) he never would have become mayor or MP. So in a very weird way, Housefather may have {redacted} to thank for his political career."

I contacted the other party mentioned in the post, who grew tremendously uncomfortable with my questions about the incident.
Clearly a Trudeau supporter, he refused to confirm the story, but interestingly when I told him that I would not run the story if he denied it happened, he refused to say that the story was untrue. Perhaps his loyalty wouldn't allow him to confirm the story but his honesty did not allow him to deny it.
He hemmed and hawed and tried to change the subject but when the question was put to him point blank, he just refused to say yes or no.
I have the Facebook Messenger exchange to prove it.

I wrote Anthony Housefather via his Parliamentary email for comment but he refused to answer at all.
Now a few more details have come to my attention.
The incident happened in Cote-Saint-Luc in the afternoon near Cavendish and Cote Saint Luc Road and other than the bus driver and the two campaign workers involved there is another witness.

And so Housefather's pious affirmation that he hadn't anything to do with his volunteer's dirty trick sounds a bit suspect, considering Housefather was guilty of the exact same offence way back when.
Perhaps its time for a healthy dose of the truth.

Since Housefather has chosen to ignore this lowly blogster, perhaps a higher profile reporter could put the question to him.
After all, constituents have a right to know who their MP is exactly.