Friday, May 08, 2009

Ruby Dhalla - Victim of Political Drive-By Smear...

Can't wait to see the Conservative spin-doctor talking points on this one... PMO/Kenney's office better work hard to find any kind of real evidence to support their allegations...

This post from BCer in TO really opened my eyes. It seems that Ms. Dhalla is the victim of a whack of lies and a deliberate attempt to defame her. No wonder no Conservative MP dares utter these lies outside of Parliament. They simply needed an "anti-Liberal angle" to go with the release of a recent report on foreign care workers... Shame.

As the first Liberal bloggers stepping up to defend her right to due process, we would like to repeat BCer's post/link. This is REAL EVIDENCE contrary to simple accusatory remarks from the disgruntled former employees of Neil Dhalla (NOT Ruby Dhalla, by the way)...

I note that these allegations, which have been broadcast broadly in the media, have become more expansive, more egregious, and interestingly, more similar to each other with every passing day. Let me delineate the instances of what I've referred to.

The first example, ms. Gordo alleges, she was not paid for her work. Let me read you the receipt that she hand wrote and signed when she was paid. A full reconciliation is made, what she had been paid initially, the days that she worked by the day, the amounts that are owing, and what is owed to her now. She writes... "received from tavindewrchld, dhalla, not ruby dhalla, the amount of canadian $400 before 150 was paid. They don't owe me anything, signed by her. And now a year later all of a sudden the press is reporting she wasn't paid, and it's signed mag da len-len . This allegation is belied by her own document, her own signature.

Second point, ms. Gordo alleges she worked for three weeks and that ruby held her passport for two weeks. You look at the same reconciliation, it shows that she only worked for 11 days.

Thirdly. The allegations been made that ruby dhalla had regular contacts with mrs. Gordo. Well, I wish I could be this careful. She keeps her boarding passes from 14, 15, months ago, and if you look at them, she's in vancouver, she's in ottawa, she's -- there's only theoretical possibility from these boarding passes handed to her as she goes on to the airplane, not something prebooked, is that at most she could have been in the G.T.A. For three days in the whole time mrs. Gordo worked. And in those three days, her calendar indicates, as well as all of the objective evidence, the people that were there, that she attended a long series of community and constituency events and was virtually never at her mother's home.

Fourth, the allegations made that one or more of these nannies shoveled the snow at her mother's house. Well, i obtained this witness statement yesterday from a person who actually did, and he's been doing it for five years, and he says that for the past five years he's performed all work on the snow of that home. He automatically, whenever it snows, uses a shovel and snowblower. He does not wait to be called, and he has never at any time in those five years seen any indication that anyone else shoveled snow prior to his arrival. It's easy to make allegations. It's easy to repeat allegations, but, again, the allegations are absolute nonsense.

The next one, these nannies are claiming they cleaned the chiropractor clinic owned by ruby dhalla's brother dr. Neil dhalla. Well, again, witness statement signed by the contract cleaners. There were contract cleaners in place at all relevant times. They clean the clinic daily. That's their job. The relationship that existed at that time, it continues to this day, again, absolute nonsense.

The next allegation, mrs. Tongson stated that her client took her passport, but what did she say at the time? Again, dramatically different. I gave my passport to dr. Neil dhalla to apply for sponsorship with my wishes. Well, that's rather an interesting juxtaposition. Her old receipt says she gave it not to ruby, but to neil, and all of a sudden some 15 months later ruby was the one who was given it, ruby held on to it. It's simply false and belied again by her own receipt at the time. The same ms. Tongson impersonated ms. Dhalla to contact hrdc to ascertain the status of her application. Hrdc confirmed this to neil, which is how he learned of it. Ms. Tongson when confronted admitted to it and, not surprisingly, did not return to work again.

So, what are we left with? A list of fabrications, a deliberate attempt a year after the fact, to create a long list of false allegations to destroy my client ruby dhalla, and make no mistake, make no mistake, ruby dhalla has been the victim of this.

It's not pleasant to be cannibalized in the national, international media, literally on the hour, and not allowed by her lawyer to respond for the past few days, which is rather against her nature, as most of you know. Mostly broken by that experience. I don't know who's behind it ultimately, but the truth happily speaks for itself.

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VICTORY FUND

11 comments:

penlan said...

Get ready to see more like this. Harper & thugs are fighting for their political lives & will do ANYTHING to stay in power -
lie, fabricate, cheat, whatever it takes. Nasty, vile crap.

The Mound of Sound said...

I don't know, WG. The wording of that first receipt "they don't owe me anything" is more than curious. Why would anyone use that language on a receipt? Have you ever done that? I certainly haven't.

Dhalla has put forward a rebuttal, that's all. I wouldn't draw conclusions about the veracity of either side at this point.

The complainants deserve to be heard and put to the proof of their allegations. If they have conspired to smear Ms. Dhalla, any moderately skilled counsel could take their stories apart.

For reasons I can't understand, Ruby Dhalla is leading with her chin. At this early stage she has very little to gain from that risky posture.

WesternGrit said...

I'm not saying there was no dispute over wages. Likely there was a wage discussion - as a result of the employee impersonating Ms. Dhalla. Neil Dhalla probably had a dispute over what was to be paid for what work done. This also explains the housekeeper's claim of the bogus snow shoveling. They were trying to claim wages for work that wasn't done.

Not saying that Ruby's mother wasn't difficult to work for, or anything like that. Just saying that there is little evidence to prove Ms. Dhalla did anything, and plenty of (written and signed) evidence showing the maids/domestics lied. The lawyer wouldn't perjure himself by uttering something he knows is a lie...

Anonymous said...

The lawyer who spoke for Ms.Ruby has a lot to prove. My fear is that the 'hireds' will be terribly intimidated. And they will be by Ruby's hired gun. He already has me calling 'despicable' as a lwyer.

Northern PoV said...

I expect a well timed series of these scandals.
The Cons have cash (way more than they can spend legally as they have already demonstrated)
I am sure there is an army of researchers and private detectives picking through the private lives and past of their opponents (probably investigating their own folks too, never know when leverage will be needed).
Invent and embellish is their operandi.
And our silly "media" play along.

penlan said...

MoS wrote:

"The complainants deserve to be heard and put to the proof of their allegations. If they have conspired to smear Ms. Dhalla, any moderately skilled counsel could take their stories apart."

Absolutely right MoS. It will be very interesting to see how all of this unfolds.

Anonymous said...

The phrase "they don't owe me anything" may be because they don't know the normal Canadian phrase "paid in full". I don't find this odd.

Anonymous said...

Even if there is a politically motivated attack behind these allegations -- and it certainly seems plausible and even likely that there is -- some of the allegations could still be true. All this needs to be thoroughly investigated.

The media has been mostly one-sided and the Toronto Star has not been at all critical in their presentation and analysis. For so-called investigative reporting, the Toronto Star is extremely shallow with so many obvious questions not even mentioned.

foottothefire said...

How is it a domestic situation warrants a parliamentary review of personal conduct while no similar parliamentary review is held over a Minister of Immigration who oversteps his powers and issues orders to de-list an entire communities and their funding because one member of that community called him names? (...Well, one name, anyway...a "whore", actually.)
Are we to have yet another taxpayer funded Conservative propaganda show?

The Mound of Sound said...

I always enjoyed the challenge of these situations. If the nannies' stories are contrived there's no way they'll survive close scrutiny.

You ever so gently draw them in, getting them to commit to an increasingly detailed account. Then you stand the accounts, side by side, to reveal what's consistent, what's inconsistent and what is missing that ought to be there.

I defended a guy in a criminal case where the Crown called three witnesses, all of whom swore they had been present and saw the crime with their own eyes. After I mauled these witnesses for an entire afternoon, the judge acquitted my client and directed the Crown to institute perjury and obstruction charges against all three of his own witnesses. Chortle, chortle.

It should be a simple matter to test the veracity of these nannies and, if they're lying, they'll be under unbearable pressure to reveal who put them up to it.

Responding to this sort of thing has to be kept to the proper forum. The worst possible forum is the one Dhalla's using - the media. That merely gives the complainants a free opportunity to prepare themselves for the case she'll be making. The last thing she needs to be doing now is making their lives any easier.

The Mound of Sound said...

Anon 10:47, you have this completely reversed. Ms. Dhalla doesn't have to "prove" anything. The onus is squarely on her accusers and, in this instance, it borders on a joint and several burden of proof.

If they were the sort easily intimidated they would never have come forward in the first place.

Having had a fair bit of experience with nannies (believe me, if you're a lawyer you'll likely wind up doing a fair number of favours for them and their friends) I find it more than surprising that three of them would come forward in such a short interval with such remarkably similar complaints against a person they would have perceived as powerful and well connected.

The more I learn of this case the more convinced I become that the liar or liars in this matter will be exposed in short order.

I've known professional liars, definitely top tier, and they wouldn't be able to bluff their way through this mess.

Does anyone know what the immigration status of these three nannies is at the moment? What are their nationalities?