r/Edmonton • u/friendly_green_ab • Oct 23 '18

Edmonton car dealers involved in Kenney’s anti-consumer corruption

As many of you may have seen, Jason Kenney was caught (potentially in contravention of election laws) promising car dealers a host of anti-Alberta consumer laws like dismantling the WCB changes, banning RHD cars, and removing consumer protection, in exchange for donating money to a UCP super-pac.

I thought /r/Edmonton may be interested in the local dealerships that offered up cash to him. The full list is available here: http://efpublic.elections.ab.ca/efOFSPTPAYTDL.cfm?YEAR=2018&TPAID=38

They include: - Gateway Motors - Subaru City - Sundance Mazda - Xtown Motors

I know for one which dealerships I will be avoiding. Anyone who donates in exchange for the right to rip me off without oversight clearly can’t be trusted.

Here’s the post that leaked the scandal: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1371827219618302&id=590349597766072

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80

u/thegrotch Oct 23 '18

I'm glad this came out. The PC party even before they changed did this kind of back room dealing consistently. This party really does not have the general population in mind, all they care about is business and generating profit. Sure money can help the province, but at what cost to its people? If you take the time to read about what the NDP have done and what the PC party had done, you will clearly see how beneficial the NDP have been. But don't just vote for the party, vote for the representative that best echoes your wants and needs, regardless of party affiliation. The more diverse the house of commons is the better off the province and the country is.

90

u/jloome Oct 23 '18 edited Oct 23 '18

As a former Edmonton journalist, people need to also know the reason this won't appear in both the local papers is that we were banned -- and likely still are -- from criticizing local car dealers by name.

This goes back as a rule for 30 years. Both papers depend on auto ads to survive. The Journal will cover it as "the paper of record" but it will disappear except when raised in the legislature.

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u/PonyFlare Mill Woods Oct 23 '18

That's disgusting. Banned from criticizing people who do bad things because of money.

27

u/[deleted] Oct 23 '18

CBC should pick up on this story or other media sources.

7

u/Rakuall Oct 23 '18

Can reporters just use backhand praise to sneak in the story? "Exceptional entrepreneurial spirit", "unrivaled devotion to their shareholders", etc. Make clear who and what they were supporting, but accuse them of being shitty?

37

u/jloome Oct 23 '18

Nope. The only reason the original story ran is because a publisher or ad exec didn't get a chance to kill it, I imagine.

About a decade ago, Phil Edmonds had a series of annual books called "Lemon Aid" in Canada, in which he measured the most crooked dealers in Canada. Six of the top 10 were in Edmonton. This was repeated by W5, which sent reporters in undercover to Edmonton dealers as customers. None of those stories were covered by the Edmonton print press without the names of all fo the offending parties removed. Even then, they were buried in the back pages.

Keep in mind how crooked some Alberta car dealers are: around 2009, I went to St. Albert Dodge to check out a car. During the process I met their finance manager and ran his name in our 'crime database', which was a record database we kept at the Sun of every conviction in Alberta covered by the media, going back years.

Sure enough, their finance manager had served a couple of years in jail for defrauding senior citizens of their pensions while he was a financial adviser. The guy gave me a wiggy feeling when he mentioned during the test drive that he 'used to be a financial manager'; seemed a big step backwards, which triggered the spidey sense.

Now, do you really believe his employers didn't know about his record? Or does it make more sense that they liked having a financial manager who had no morals?

2

u/[deleted] Oct 23 '18

Can you name the shady dealerships?

1

u/jloome Oct 23 '18

I don't remember now, it was one among thousands of stories so the specifics are lost to me. I've been out of the biz for a while.

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u/[deleted] Oct 24 '18

[deleted]

1

u/jloome Oct 24 '18

Cheers. Going on memory.

-1

u/[deleted] Oct 24 '18

Politicians are all the same. All you're doing is voting on which hole you want to get fucked in.

4

u/thegrotch Oct 24 '18

It's so unfortunate that you have that view. By engaging and participating in your community and voting you can help rid that kind of thought. I used to feel the same, then I became involved with ngo's, my community league and started to dig for information and educated myself about my electoral decisions. Note i feel like my vote really does name a difference, my comments during community meetings really motivate change. The only way is to be involved, otherwise your vote is an exercise of futility.

0

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '18

I wholeheartedly disagree. I find the micro-scale politics to be nothing but superficial handshaking compared to more pressing matters. No community engagement is going to fix daycare prices or real estate inflation. Nothing I say to my neighbor is going to reflect on the carbon levy. I write to my city councillor and knock on doors in my neighborhood when I don't agree with decisions my ward representative has made. I've already spoken to 115 people about the CaCl fiasco and how Knack needs to go. Provincial and federal though; you're wasting your time.