NDP asks for probe of Chamas donation
Controversial financier gave $5,000 to Tory
The NDP has asked Elections Canada to investigate a donation made to the Conservative Party by a controversial Montreal-area financier, who appears to have fled the country while still facing charges related to a raid on his home as part of a marijuana-smuggling investigation.
Alexandre Boulerice, an MP for the Rosemont-petite Patrie riding, filed the request with the Commissioner of Canada Elections this week. And Mathieu Ravignat, an NDP MP for the Pontiac riding, raised the issue during question period in Ottawa on Friday. Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro replied by saying the Conservative Party “does not have access to information about any such donations (to local riding associations.)”
The donation involves $5,000 that Michael Chamas, a financier who once held political aspirations of his own, allegedly donated to Mustaque Sarker, a Conservative candidate in the Pontiac riding in 2008. In his letter to the commissioner, Boulerice raises several questions about the donation and whether it violated the Canada Elections Act.
Chamas is a self-described financier who was born in Lebanon and became a Canadian citizen in 1995. He splits much of his time between Zurich and Dubai. He made headlines in 2008 after a photo of him posing with then-foreign Affairs minister Maxime Bernier surfaced. It was a few months after Chamas’s house in Lorraine was raided, on March 26, 2008, in connection with an RCMP investigation dubbed Project Cancun into a marijuanatrafficking and smuggling ring. According to court records, the RCMP wanted to seize computers, financial records and documents because they suspected Chamas acted as a banker for some of the drug traffickers. They alleged he was involved in laundering drug money. The network smuggled hundreds of pounds of marijuana into the U.S. and 29 people in all were arrested. The leader, Daniel Dwaine Delisle, 47, of Kahnawake, was sentenced to a 44-month prison term in 2009.
Chamas was never charged with drug trafficking but investigators found a .38 calibre handgun and .40 calibre Glock handgun inside his house. Several charges involving the two handguns were filed at the St. Jerome courthouse following the raid. Chamas has denied any wrong- doing and initially put up a considerable challenge of the constitutionality of the search warrant used to raid his home.
His wife, a French citizen who was found to have been living in Canada illegally for years, was ordered out of Canada in 2008.
The raid occurred while Chamas was involved in a lengthy battle with Revenue Canada over a debt he owed for unpaid taxes from 2001 to 2005. On March 8, 2011, a Federal Court of Canada issued a decision declaring Chamas owed Revenue Canada more than $1.8 million and a legal lien was placed on his luxury home in Lorraine. He responded with a protest that included placing five Canadian flags upside down on his front lawn. Lorraine City Hall obtained an injunction to have the flags removed. Chamas’s legal problems continue to pile up in Canada. Court records indicate he stopped showing up for court dates at the St. Jerome courthouse – in the firearms case – some time after January 2011. Chamas, who is believed to be in Dubai, has been charged with having breached the conditions of his release by not informing the RCMP in advance when he intended to leave the country. He also has been charged with failing to follow a court order. He did not respond to an email requesting comment on the donation and the new charges he faces.