Vic Toews Divorce: Sarah Carson, Manitoba Tories Say, Also Accessed Divorce Papers

CP  |  By Posted: 05/08/2012 5:53 pm Updated: 05/09/2012 5:23 pm

Vic Toews Divorce

WINNIPEG - A second person with links to the Manitoba NDP accessed the court documents surrounding the divorce of federal Public Safety Minister Vic Toews.

Sarah Carson asked for and received the documents in April 2011 — right in the middle of the last federal election campaign, according to court records tabled in the Manitoba legislature Tuesday by Tory justice critic Kelvin Goertzen. Carson was an NDP intern for the 2010-11 fiscal year.

Goertzen suggested Tuesday there was an organized attempt by the provincial NDP to embarrass Toews.

"It remains that there were only two individuals who ever accessed this document, and they were both in your employ," Goertzen told Premier Greg Selinger in the chamber.

"I would ask you whether or not you're going to undertake an investigation to determine why it is these two individuals ... were accessing the divorce records of Mr. Toews."

The documents contain detailed allegations from Toews' former wife, and were leaked on the Internet in February by a Liberal Party staffer in Ottawa, Adam Carroll, who was later fired. Carroll had set up a Twitter account under the name Vikileaks and initially remained anonymous.

Toews later revealed that a Manitoba NDP policy analyst named Thomas Linner had gone to the Winnipeg courthouse that same month and had accessed his divorce documents. The New Democrats fired back, saying Linner only did so did so after Toews had accused the federal NDP of being connected to Vikileaks. They also pointed out the documents are open to the public.

Carson's access to the court records was much earlier than Linner's and long before the Vikileaks controversy.

Selinger said he had no knowledge of Carson's actions.

"(Goertzen) is trying to ask me whether people who have a job in the provincial government did something inappropriate," Selinger said in the chamber.

"There's an implication there that they did it as part of their job. I don't know that to be the case. I know in the one case — the Thomas Linner case — that he indicated that he did this on his own time and that it had nothing to do with his employment within the province."

Linner, who did not respond to an interview request late Tuesday, is believed to have accessed the court documents during a lunch hour in February. New Democrat member of Parliament Pat Martin later wrote on Twitter that federal NDP researchers wanted to know whether there was substance to the Vikileaks details.

Carson appears to have accessed the court documents shortly after her internship ended. Carson no longer works for the New Democrats and was not directed to access the documents by provincial staff, Nammi Poorooshasb, the government's director of cabinet communications said Tuesday. She may have been a volunteer for the federal New Democrats during the 2011 election, Poorooshasb added.

A message left with Carson through her website was not immediately returned.

While Carson and Linner were the only ones who formally filed for access to Toews' divorce papers at the Winnipeg courthouse, copies of the documents have surfaced elsewhere. Adam Carroll, the man behind the Vikileaks account, said the Liberal research office in Ottawa had a copy.

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WINNIPEG - A second person with links to the Manitoba NDP accessed the court documents surrounding the divorce of federal Public Safety Minister Vic Toews.Sarah Carson asked for and received the docum...
WINNIPEG - A second person with links to the Manitoba NDP accessed the court documents surrounding the divorce of federal Public Safety Minister Vic Toews.Sarah Carson asked for and received the docum...
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Francmon
Homo homini lupus
06:07 PM on 05/10/2012
What goes around comes around: Toews is one of many Harper apostles who preach that Canadians need to be coralled into higher moral beliefs. How many Cons, however, would be embarrassed if crunchy details of their not so moral life were made public ?
All we need is imagination: countless people (And Tories...) have skeletons in their closet and most of these skeletons are a matter of public record. We don't want politicians telling us how we should live, while their baby sitters cringe in hiding, fearing that the whole world may find out that they bowed to a dirty old hypocrite.
03:57 PM on 05/10/2012
I think Vick needs the wha wha wambulance this time!!
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08:03 AM on 05/10/2012
What a BABY!
This user has chosen to opt out of the Badges program
01:22 AM on 05/10/2012
"Goertzen suggested Tuesday there was an organized attempt by the provincial NDP to embarrass Toews."

Oh please. The only person who embarrassed Vic Toews was Vic Toews himself. Everyone else are just paying customers watching Vic's morality play unfold at the Conservative Theater of the Absurd.
SamEasy
You really don`t want to know.
03:49 AM on 05/10/2012
And don't forget Dick Toews, he played a significant role in all of this.
09:03 PM on 05/09/2012
So what if Grandpa Vic has a thing about young girls, it's a matter of PUBLIC RECORD.
I couldn't care less who takes a look at his divorce records but I would advise his new wife not to leave him alone with the babysitter.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Rayma Allaby
03:22 PM on 05/09/2012
hahaha...it is public information...so why are the cons trying to portray it as private.
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Liz Wilson 2
“a small group can change the world
01:53 PM on 05/09/2012
I am not suggesting that I support looking for dirt on the oppostion but when you consider that the conservative party has apparently been adding information about non-conservatives to their massive data base - either private information is private or not. It seems rather hypocritical to be concerned about public access to public documents while gathering private informaiton without permission of the individual.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
djelimon17
what's this thing for?
12:03 PM on 05/09/2012
Up next - member of the Green party looked up Toews in the white pages
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Spanky McFarlane
ILLEGITIMUS NON CARBORUNDUM.
11:29 AM on 05/09/2012
SO WHAT?
Hasn't there always people out there that are interested in the criminal mind & what makes it tick?
TheRenaissanceMan
A starry-eyed idealist with too much time
06:37 AM on 05/09/2012
:)
I'm glad Toews gets to taste his own medicine.
paintitblacker
shit happens life goes on
10:44 PM on 05/08/2012
what offends me the most is the fact that they write and pass bills into laws that they themselves feel that there for other people,and do not apply to them
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Another Pesky Canadian
Talk - action = 0
10:59 PM on 05/08/2012
And that's called "Harpocrisy".
paintitblacker
shit happens life goes on
10:39 PM on 05/08/2012
whats he so afraid of surely he's not the first or last person to get divorced, how old was that babysitter he fathered a child with , maby thats it .
Donna Meness
www.findmaisyandshannon.com
10:31 PM on 05/08/2012
Don't mess with the babysitter...you creepy old man..

Bill C-30 just bit you in the a##

PUBLIC INFO available to the world...
09:38 PM on 05/08/2012
Yeah ok then, cry me a river. Open access information means just that, and that's a far sight more legal then how the government can now spy on internet records thanks in part to the "honourable" mr. Toews.
Not fun having your person inforamtion poked around in eh, even the stuff that was public and open to the courts. How do you think millions of your fellow citizens feel now that you let the RCMP pick into our private records online?
09:25 PM on 05/08/2012
How ironic that a man who pushed Bill C-30 is now upset that someone associated with the dreaded NDP has accessed information about him. Poor Mr. Toews. I feel so badly for you.