Here's a thread of true things that happened surrounding a luxury apartment which led to us being threatened with legal action today by a high ranking employee of a crown minister...
So anyways, back in October we were wandering through the inter webs looking for headshots of a few UCP heavy hitters when we came across this particular image with a luxurious amount of hair...
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Of course, we were super curious about where the source of this photo was, and it turns out it was a somewhat derelict LinkedIn page...
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But we were super curious about this company that Brian is listed as the CEO of, the City Centre Group, so we popped by their website...
(Screencap from today)
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It looks like it's a collection of businesses, a car wash, a detailing company and something called "Amazing stays"...
We couldn't help but look, cause who doesn't love an amazing stay somewhere?
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Turns out, "Amazing Stays" is a collection of vacation home rentals. And in all fairness, they do all look quite amazing!
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Now of course, we're political nerds over here, so we just had to take a look at "The Parliament Executive Penthouse", cause it is in #YEG and "just steps away from the legislature"...
Here's the description!
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Now of course, we had to know how much a night at Brian Jeans Executive penthouse costs...
Turns out it really depends on the season.
But in looking at what dates were and weren't available, we noticed some dates that were unavailable that seemed familiar...
Here's the full screen shot from that late October day...
You have to pick the dates to see the availability, so we just picked most of November for fun.
(The one tab is Twitter Analytics before anyone gets all excited...)
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But anyways, why do those dates seem familiar?
Oh right!
The first legislative session since the UCP leadership race was scheduled to run from Nov 29- Dec 22!
(They totes ended up cutting out a week early though)
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So Brian Jean's luxury condo was unavailable to rent starting the night before the legislative session and running all the way until the last scheduled day of the session.
What a wild coincidence!
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So then we were just curious if Brian had claimed his living allowance for the same period.
If you aren't familiar, MLA's get a certain amount of money every month to pay for accommodations. Some use it for hotel accommodations and some folks use it to pay for a mortgage on a… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Turns out, yup. He sure did.
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Now here's where things take a bit of a twist...
Cause so far, we know that Brian owns a luxury penthouse, a sky palace if you will...
And according to the booking website that is linked off of their corporate website, it was booked for the entirety of the last legislative… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Well, a couple of days ago we heard from a high level staffer in Minister Jeans office...
He advised us that while Brian has claimed his living allowance, it's for a separate much smaller unit.
In the same building.
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He also advised us that neither he, nor Brian, nor anyone involved with the company had any idea why the condo was showing as booked for the entire session.
It's all just a super wild coincidence.
These things happen.
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We were also told that to explicitly state that no taxpayer money has gone to pay for the penthouse.
Which fits because it appears from Brians public disclosure there isn't any mortgage on it.
Might be a loan tho?
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Oh yeah, and there definitely was a clear threat of a lawsuit if we didn't say all of that.
So to sum it all up...
Brian Jean is the CEO of a company that owns a luxury penthouse steps away from the legislature. That condo was booked for an entire legislative session.
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Brian's senior staffer wants it made very clear that Brian did not use that suite during the legislative session, he utilized the small one bedroom condo that is the one that the living allowance is paying for.
But to be clear, the senior staffer wants us to make it very clear that Brian did not use the penthouse when it was booked for the legislative session, no taxpayer money supports it.
Or else something something defamation suit.
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We did ask why the suite was booked as unavailable to rent for that legislative session and were clearly told our screencap could just be a fake and that the whole situation an absolute mystery, just a wild coincidence.
Ok, remember when Smith's office claimed to the globe & mail that her Skybox Sojourn to Vancouver was on personal time and all people paid their own way?
We've already demonstrated that was a lie, but it turns out it was a bigger lie!
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#abpoli #ableg #cdnpoli
As we've already demonstrated, the statement about the staff paying their own way was a lie.
The statement was issued on May 13.
The request to have Becca Polak and Marshall SMith pay didn't come until May 15.
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In fact, in our recent FOIP, it's clear that the official planning for this trip went all the way back to May 3, and it's also clear that government resources were used to plan and execute the trip.
Let’s start this absolute train wreck of a thread by saying that a government should be responsible about who it chooses to elevate to justify their policies.
Public scrutiny is an inevitable effect from public exposure.
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#abpoli #ableg #cdnpoli
It is exploitive to put forward individuals and use their stories of trauma and abuse as shields when advancing polices that will cause trauma and are, by many interpretations abusive.
This didn’t have to happen this way.
But Danielle Smith has set her stage.
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The first speaker in Smiths presser today was Kellie-Lynn Pirie.
Her story is absolutely tragic.
But she should have never been on that stage, and it was irresponsible for Smith to put her there.
Danielle Smith has brought Jennifer “poop cookies” Johnson into the UCP caucus.
But that’s not the only thing that Smith has validated.
It’s also apparently conspiracy theories about cat litter, abortion & the belief there should be NO sex Ed in schools.
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The entire audio was recently made available to us.
We have not edited it in any way from what was sent to us.
It may also be worth highlighting that former TBA organizer Zane Novak can be heard speaking throughout the entire 1:11:06 file.
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In other segments of the audio, Johnson advocates for increased home school funding and claims that well in advance of the election she had a long standing relationship with Smith and prior to the scandal was tasked by Smith to look at education funding.
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We continue to unpack Smith's Skybox Scandal, and it keeps getting worse!
Back in July, the Globe & Mail referenced a statement from Smith's office saying the trip was personal, on personal time & everyone paid their own way...
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#abpoli #cdnpoli
We filed a FOIP wanting to confirm that.
Especially given that accepting the tickets for Smith's staffers Rebecca Polak and Marshall Smith seemed to be a clear violation of ethics rules.
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And boy did we get a response!
Not only were the rooms for Becca and Marshall booked by the government, they were initially paid for by the government using taxpayer dollars!