Widowgate – NB Liberals Paid Former Premier’s Wife to Campaign

Big election news today that the New Brunswick Liberal Party paid the wife of former Premier Louis J. Robichaud $3,000 to campaign for Shawn Graham’s Liberals in the 2006 provincial election.

While it’s not surprising that you would need to be paid to be seen with Shawn Graham and his party, the real issue here is that the payment was not reported:

Robichaud said in an interview with CBC News that she “was paid a small amount” for campaigning in the 2006 election campaign, which saw Graham’s Liberals unseat then-premier Bernard Lord’s Tories in a tight election.

“They said you deserve it, you worked for the party, you deserve it, so I said that’s very nice, you know,” she said.

Robichaud said the fee was for campaign appearances with Graham, phone calls she made to party supporters and going door to door with candidates in the Moncton area.

“I think everybody is paid when they do some campaigning for the party,” she said.

Liberal election spending reports filed with Elections New Brunswick from 2006 show only three people were paid salaries, wages or benefits for a total of $4,500.

It’s very important that all election costs are recorded because there are quite strict rules around how much can be spent – and when!

This bombshell comes just one day before the writ is dropped to start the official 2010 provincial election campaign!

To add to the allegations, just this afternoon Jacques Poitras reported:

Volpe released what he says are handwritten receipts showing Libs paid Mme Robichaud $20,000 cash. She told me $3,000 cheque.

Expect to see this front and center for the rest of the week – especially because this isn’t the first time Robichaud has been in the news recently!  Just last week, the issue of MLA pensions was front and centre, and she was in the middle – collecting a monthly pension of $2,000 authorized by the Liberal Government even though she wasn’t eligible at the time.

Note: I can’t take credit for the term Widowgate, I first saw @the_problematic using the hashtag on Twitter!