Layton found in Suspected Bawdy House in 1996

[canuckhooker 19202]

I love how people are trying to deflect this by speculating on who leaked this information. The bigger issue is here we have another "squeeky clean" politician who is challenged by the truth.

 

At the time of this incident both Jack and his wife were city councilors in Toronto. They would have intimate knowledge of what is going on in their community. To believe for one second that this politician would walk into an establishment called The Velvet Touch Massage Parlour, and not know he was not in a legitimate RMT is not credible.

 

He was in an Asian R&T, and if he really didn't realize that, then he is too stupid to be our Prime Minister. Did he not know he was not being attended to by an RMT? Was the fact he couldn't bill the massage to his Insurance a big tip-off? Was the fact that he was naked, not a tip off that it might not be a different type of therapy?

 

And as for this being a political smear, nobody, including Layton himself is denying the authenticity of the police report. It isn't a smear if it is the truth.

 

The hypocrisy of this, is what upsets me. He got caught, so I would have more respect for him if he admitted what went on. But no, lets deflect it by looking for who leaked the information. Funny he had no qualms about using leaked official documents a few weeks ago, when the AG's report was leaked.

 

What bothers me more is that this appears to be an "Asian" R&T, and although many are legitimate, many of them are involved in human trafficking. That is an issue that all of us here should be concerned with.

 

As for this being a political smear, nobody, including Layton himself is denying the accuracy of the police report. It is not a smear if it is the truth.

[whiteman 14028]

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that if the strategy behind this "breaking news" was to derail the NDP's momentum, it's highly flawed. If this election has proven anything, it's that most voters are unconcerned with ethical issues this time around.

In general, Canadian voters don't get as freaked out about sex scandals as American voters do. Stephen Harper's Republican Party consultants have seriously miscalculated if they thought this would work up here like it does down in the Lower 49th. Plus, beyond that, Canadian voters are more savvy about obvious political smear campaigns. Maybe it's the advantage of having a shortened 1-month campaign cycle vs. the Americans who have a campaign lasting nearly two years -- every little issue is blown up to supersized proportions in America.

 

Anyways, getting back to the election itself. I'm hoping to see an NDP official opposition be a lot more active in opposition than the Ignatief-led Liberals were. For most of this time, it was hard to tell what the difference was between Iggy and Harpo.

[JethroBedrosian 104]

I love how people are trying to deflect this by speculating on who leaked this information. The bigger issue is here we have another "squeeky clean" politician who is challenged by the truth.

 

At the time of this incident both Jack and his wife were city councilors in Toronto. They would have intimate knowledge of what is going on in their community. To believe for one second that this politician would walk into an establishment called The Velvet Touch Massage Parlour, and not know he was not in a legitimate RMT is not credible.

 

He was in an Asian R&T, and if he really didn't realize that, then he is too stupid to be our Prime Minister. Did he not know he was not being attended to by an RMT? Was the fact he couldn't bill the massage to his Insurance a big tip-off? Was the fact that he was naked, not a tip off that it might not be a different type of therapy?

 

And as for this being a political smear, nobody, including Layton himself is denying the authenticity of the police report. It isn't a smear if it is the truth.

 

The hypocrisy of this, is what upsets me. He got caught, so I would have more respect for him if he admitted what went on. But no, lets deflect it by looking for who leaked the information. Funny he had no qualms about using leaked official documents a few weeks ago, when the AG's report was leaked.

 

What bothers me more is that this appears to be an "Asian" R&T, and although many are legitimate, many of them are involved in human trafficking. That is an issue that all of us here should be concerned with.

 

As for this being a political smear, nobody, including Layton himself is denying the accuracy of the police report. It is not a smear if it is the truth.

 

Thanks for writing that. Pretty much exactly what I was thinking. All the talk about who released the information, when and why is all besides the point. The point is that there are only two possibilities here. Either he knew it was a rub 'n tug and is lying about it, or he didn't know. If he didn't know, then he's clearly not very observant. Neither case makes him look very Prime Ministerial.

I'm just curious if anyone on the board visited that spot at around the same time, and can speak to what it looked like. I've read reports that there was a system of green lights and red lights, etc. If that is the case, I really fail to see how he could think it was a so-called "legit" massage operation.

[Guest W***ledi*Time]

No charges were ever laid against the suspected bawdy house, which continued to operate for three years following the raid. No charges were ever laid against Jack Layton. Now it has been announced that there will be no charges laid against the source of the leak.

 

Laura Payton reports for CBC News, 5 May 2011:

 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/05/05/pol-layton-opp.html

 

The Ontario Provincial Police aren't laying charges in a leak about the 1996 visit to a massage parlour that found NDP Leader Jack Layton inside.

 

The police force was investigating the information leak about the 1996 incident at the request of the Toronto Police Service, whose officers raided a suspected bawdy house posing as a massage parlour in 1996.

 

One of the officers found Layton inside. Layton said he wasn't aware it was a bawdy house and never went back. He was never arrested or charged.

 

Serving officers are sworn not to leak information to the public. But a retired officer involved in the visit let a reporter see his notebooks from the investigation in the final days of the election campaign that saw the NDP more than double its seats in the House of Commons and become the Official Opposition.

 

CBC News has learned a private investigator was scouring police and court records the week before the election, looking for information on Layton.

"The investigation has concluded and criminal charges will not be laid," said a statement released by the provincial police.

 

"The investigation resulted in the returning of a number of police notebooks to the Toronto Police Service that were in the possession of a former member."

 

Toronto police spokesman Mark Pugash told CBC News that the force is doing an internal review on procedures related to retired officers keeping their police memo books, which are police property.

 

The notebooks contain officers' notes, suspicions and evidence that, at the time recorded, have not been tested in court.

 

"We're going to see if any changes [in policy] need to be made," Pugash said.

 

Pugash told CBC News that

a retired officer is beyond the reach of the Ontario Police Services Act, which governs discipline issues. The Toronto police will take no further action, now that the OPP have ruled out any criminal breach of trust.

 

A provincial police spokesman confirmed to CBC News that it was a former Toronto police officer who gave an interview to a reporter about the raid.

 

"But the investigation also determined there weren't grounds to lay criminal charges," said spokesman Dave Ross ...

[whiteman 14028]

No charges were ever laid against the suspected bawdy house, which continued to operate for three years following the raid. No charges were ever laid against Jack Layton. Now it has been announced that there will be no charges laid against the source of the leak.

Isn't that fabulous, no charges were laid about anything on anyone at anytime, but why does everybody feel so guilty? :confused0024:

[Guest W***ledi*Time]

Isn't that fabulous, no charges were laid about anything on anyone at anytime, but why does everybody feel so guilty? :confused0024:

 

ha ha ... I'm just repeating the reported facts. We're all free to make our own deductions based on a balance-of-the-evidence.

 

Assuming that the Velvet Touch was in fact a bawdy house (an allegation which was never proven, however likely we may feel it is to be true), some of the previous comments on this thread seem to imply that Layton is either an idiot for not knowing, or an unscrupulous liar for denying it.

 

But really - let's imagine ourselves in Layton's shoes. I think it would be fair to say that a significant portion of the folks on this board have themselves violated various prostitution-related provisions of the criminal code, particularly bawdy-house clauses (incall). Surely all of us are not under any sort of moral obligation to run out and voluntarily confess our misdeeds, in detail, to Law Enforcement. By doing so, we would thereby freely hand evidence to the police that would incriminate both ourselves and the providers we are clients of. I'd say my own moral obligations are contrariwise - I consider myself morally obligated not to hang my providers out to dry (unless there are serious, extenuating circumstances in which the provider's safety and wellbeing is compromised by her situation).

 

I'd personally have a vastly lower opinion of Layton had he, for example, instead stepped forward and (literally) incriminated his masseuse by volunteering evidence - evidence that may have been sufficient for charges to actually be laid against her and the business that he, Layton, had chosen to be a client of.

 

To my way of thinking, the substantive story here is indeed the political smear-attempt.

[Phaedrus 209521]

To my way of thinking, the substantive story here is indeed the political smear-attempt.

 

Apparently, that's all fine, too. :icon_neutral:

 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/05/05/pol-layton-opp.html